games - cpu or gpu?

Which modern games (or game types, rts etc) are CPU bound rather than GPU bound, in that there performance is more dependant on the CPU then GPU to play well

I really hope that this post wasnt stupid and I didnt just misunderstand something.

If this is a stupid post just move or delete it

 

ALL games are GPU bound unless you own 8800m GTX (single or SLI configurations). Once your GPU is powerful enough to run virtually every recently released game on high settings then the bottleneck shifts to the CPU.

 

In which case I did misunderstand, thank you

 

CPU bound for me: flight sim x, bf2142 at low resolution

 

Bottleneck is always there.
the Secret is to figure out why YOU need computer.

 

Virtually all modern games with 3D Graphics will bottleneck at the GPU before the processor. This doesn't mean you should totally skimp on the processor though, as it is extremely important for EVERYTHING else besides gaming.

 

so it is worth getting the t9300 over the t8300?

 

I'm going to say that either the t8300 or t9300 will be more than enough. If you need the extra 100 bucks or so you get from going for the t8300, then keep it. You'll get a small performance improvement with the t9300, though in cases where large CPU cache is beneficial, you'll see better performance.

In other words, the clockspeed increase of the t9300 vs the t8300 will give you 4% better performance. The extra 3 mb of cache in the t9300 will give you roughly the same amount of extra performance on average, 4%.

So total, you will get just about 8% added performance, it is your choice whether to spend the extra cash or not. That 8% really doesn't show up so much in games, it'll only end up being 2 or 3 frames in your total FPS. But who knows, maybe you have hours of video to transcode, and 8% is roughly 1 saved hour if you are doing a 12 hour transcode.

 

No, I am pure games and writing, at most picture editing. No high-end video work.

 

Well, when games are played at higher resolutions you are more likely to be GPU bound, when you are playing at lower resolutions, you are more likely to be CPU bound. But we are talking pretty low resolutions here like 800x600 or even 640x480.

 

Ah, thanks

 

no, 100 percent not worth it. If you need more power than T8300 generates , you should get a desktop or one of these new montevina Pernys, I 'd say the T8300 is quite powerful.

 

for Raw file manipulation , you need a fast CPU but almost all current T7xxx,T8xxx and T9xxx are fast enough even for that kind of use. I may try a T5750 laptop and see how fast it can get if a shop let me bench mark it there.

so I think you dont need a super fast CPU.

however, always remember you may some day (might be very soon) need a super fast CPU not for gaming but for something else, so it is wise to spend a bit more for a bit faster cpu than you think you need .......but my point is the T9300 is not much faster than the T8300 although it is much more expensive than the T8300.

if I were now buying it , I'd get a T8100 laptop.

 

In that case, a 2.0 Ghz CPU is more than enough, regardless of the series(7,8,9).

 

yea get something at least 2.4 and get then save for a really good gcp and you are in the clear and will own any game

 

A better CPU will help you with things like having turns run faster in games like Civilization. Will it up your FPS? Probably not. Will it reduce time taken for major number crunching? Yes. The other thing to concider is if you like to turn physics up in games. If you do, a better CPU will be good for you.

 

I'm of the thinking that with a T7xxx and above you're not going to go far wrong (for the moment at least).

 

Yeah, when you are talking 5%-15% differences in clock speed, you aren't going to get much perf boost out of that. Depending on app, upped cache will help, but with current gen procs, though not all apps will benefit, the biggest boost will come from more cores. Of course, that only applies to multitasking and apps with good multithreading.

 

The biggest benefit should be more cores, but in reality after you hit 2 cores, it is all about clockspeed unless you are transcoding with a program that supports 2+ cores. Very very few games support more than 2 cores, just about as many common apps support more than 2 cores.

 

RTS games like SC

 

So a montiva vs. penryn with the clock speeds of [email protected] GHZ, how much better will the Montiva be? Another question, if I have a 8800M GTX how good of a processor do I need too have it as close to the GPU so it doesn't bottle neck?

 

That's kind of like asking, "how big a cup should I buy so that when I fill it with water and drink the whole thing, I won't be thirsty or overhydrated." If you run a marathon, you will need a bigger cup than if you sat in front of the TV all day. No matter how well you pair your GPU and CPU, sometimes one will bottleneck, sometimes the other. Something like Crysis will bottleneck on the GPU, while large scale strategy games like SupCom will bottleneck on the CPU.

 

that depends MissingSix. most the time the 8800m GTX would bottleneck first, but FSX is an exception.

 

Oh ok I didn't realize it worked like that I guess my question wasn't as simple as I thought. I'll just make sure to have plenty 'water' for either occasion.

 

Well I have 3 choices: T7100, T8300 (+ £93 from T7100) and the T9300 (+ £153 from T1700)

At the moment the T7100 is just way to weak to justify so it is left to the last two and I cant afford both, so might I just get the top one? or is the gain over T8300 so small that it isnt worth bothering with?

Thanks

 

The FSX seems to benefit a lot from the pciexpress, it was the only game that pciexpress2.0 made a big difference. About the video transcoding it benefits little(a celeron dual core with 512k and a core 2 duo with 4mb will do at same speed if they have the same clock and bus) of bigger caches, but a lot from # of cores and clock speed.