gaming performance with fast processer and not so hot graphics card

hey...i was wondering how much the processer speed and ram affects how well a game plays...

for example what type of games would run with a

Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T7300 (2.0GHz/800Mhz FSB/4MB cache)

2GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 at 667MHz

160GB SATA Hard Drive (5400RPM)

Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100

and also does the size of the hard drive also affect the gaming performance??

 

Well HD speed only changes the load times for a certain application. and as for everything else I think you're bottlenecked at the X3100. everything else looks good. but if you do not game then the x3100 will serve to your needs

 

not so well. The x1300 is a very weak card, and it'd be prudent to upgrade to a dedicated one

 

HD size won't do much for performance. The x3100 was meant to take a load off the cpu and act more as a dedicated card rather than integrated. It's better than previous ones, but when you are gaming it's almost all on the gpu. YOu already have 2Gb, I don't really know how much more ram can do because 2Gb is pretty good at the moment.

 

You cpu is not really important in how fast/well a game runs its almost totally the video cards job, the cpu just has to keep up and be able to load things from the gpu.

So having the fastest cpu in the world with a bad video card wont be any better than having the same video card with an averge cpu (give or take maybe 1 or 2fps)

Some exceptions to the rule are very heavy cpu dependant games like flight simulator x, or supreme commander. However a good gpu is still needed.

The hdd is also not really imporant in most games, it needs to load the files up for the stage/area but once they are loaded its the rams job and again the gpu to run the game. a slow hdd just means slow loading, not a slower game.

the exception to this rule would be games that "stream load" like oblivion and I belive stalker does it too, where it loads the next area in the background before you enter a new zone to give the effect that there is no loading or change of area at all. A fast hdd can make this seamless. A slow one may actually make the game pause while it loads. Lack of ram can cause the same thing.

 

As said above, the hdd only affects loading times.

The CPU and GPU can both become bottlenecks. They're not really interchangable (a fast GPU won't compensate for a crappy CPU, and vice versa), so whichever one lags behind, sets the pace for the game. However, as a general rule of thumb, most games rely more on a fast GPU than a fast CPU. Unless you have a high-end GPU, the choice of CPU won't matter, since the GPU will still be the bottleneck.

 

With the speed of most processors right now, CPU being the bottleneck can easily be written off the list. Any Core 2 Duo is good for gaming. Try looking for something with at least a Geforce Go 7600, Geforce 8600M GS/GT or ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 or X1700. An Intel X3100 just won't do.