- May 25, 2016
- 8,065
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- 42,715
I'm relatively new to contributing to this resource.
During this time I've seen both OPs and contributors affected by either "CPU bottlenecks" or "PSU tiers list" FUD.
I call them FUD since I've seen "you must throw away your PSU and invest at least 100$ in one from tier one PSUs or our world will be consumed by black hole created by your old PSU" comments quite a lot. Sometimes, it was so ridiculous that eventually I was banned for being impolite.
So I decided to write a few simple points and let the community to debate and find the truth.
"PSU tier list"
Maintained here and is generally right about positioning PSUs relative to each other in terms of quality. Though it fails in terms of the use for those PSUs. As well in ranking them.
The PSU tier list, lost it's credibility for me when I saw "we lowered the CX600 to tier 4 since we have seen many problems posted here".
Many is not a number. Quality measured in % of failed within some period. Not some absolute numbers. So "many" of tier 3 and 4 units are completely fine to use. I would not suggest some of them as a new buy, but they are not need to be immediately to be replaced. One of the witch hunting contributors was convincing an innocent OP that he must throw away his CX600 and buy expensive PSU when the question was about upgrade of the video card. That OP had a system in mind that would never reach 300w and will run below 250w 99.9% of the time. In such conditions, even cheap capacitors will last much longer than OP's computer. And that particular model even have some safety/protection circuits.
So every case should be analyzed without blind following some non-scientific list.
"Bottlenecks everywhere"
What I see a lot is contributors misleading by saying "this CPU will bottleneck that GPU, don't buy it - get the new 600$ platform before buying 200$ GPU"
Let's clarify something. CPU is not bottlenecking GPU or vice versa. Any component may be the bottleneck of the system in a specific application performance. So the right questions that should be asked are:
"what will be the upgrade path that mostly improves OP's experience within the budget"
"will this system be balanced"
or in worst case "can my CPU run <that title> game ?"
And here is a simple test that tells the truth. Even if the GPU is not utilized for 100% today, as long as it provides a decent visual improvement and FPS - It's fine to use it. The CPU or RAM may be upgraded later. Even switching to a higher resolution monitor will dramatically increase GPU utilization. Not to mention that it's title dependent.
A simple but accurate enough test to determine upgrade path, would be:
Launch your favorite game, lower the game resolution (1080p to 720p) while leaving other settings as is:
If the FPS dramatically improves -> GPU upgrade is worth the money.
If the FPS remains on the same level -> time for CPU upgrade.
Please share what you think about this
During this time I've seen both OPs and contributors affected by either "CPU bottlenecks" or "PSU tiers list" FUD.
I call them FUD since I've seen "you must throw away your PSU and invest at least 100$ in one from tier one PSUs or our world will be consumed by black hole created by your old PSU" comments quite a lot. Sometimes, it was so ridiculous that eventually I was banned for being impolite.
So I decided to write a few simple points and let the community to debate and find the truth.
"PSU tier list"
Maintained here and is generally right about positioning PSUs relative to each other in terms of quality. Though it fails in terms of the use for those PSUs. As well in ranking them.
The PSU tier list, lost it's credibility for me when I saw "we lowered the CX600 to tier 4 since we have seen many problems posted here".
Many is not a number. Quality measured in % of failed within some period. Not some absolute numbers. So "many" of tier 3 and 4 units are completely fine to use. I would not suggest some of them as a new buy, but they are not need to be immediately to be replaced. One of the witch hunting contributors was convincing an innocent OP that he must throw away his CX600 and buy expensive PSU when the question was about upgrade of the video card. That OP had a system in mind that would never reach 300w and will run below 250w 99.9% of the time. In such conditions, even cheap capacitors will last much longer than OP's computer. And that particular model even have some safety/protection circuits.
So every case should be analyzed without blind following some non-scientific list.
"Bottlenecks everywhere"
What I see a lot is contributors misleading by saying "this CPU will bottleneck that GPU, don't buy it - get the new 600$ platform before buying 200$ GPU"
Let's clarify something. CPU is not bottlenecking GPU or vice versa. Any component may be the bottleneck of the system in a specific application performance. So the right questions that should be asked are:
"what will be the upgrade path that mostly improves OP's experience within the budget"
"will this system be balanced"
or in worst case "can my CPU run <that title> game ?"
And here is a simple test that tells the truth. Even if the GPU is not utilized for 100% today, as long as it provides a decent visual improvement and FPS - It's fine to use it. The CPU or RAM may be upgraded later. Even switching to a higher resolution monitor will dramatically increase GPU utilization. Not to mention that it's title dependent.
A simple but accurate enough test to determine upgrade path, would be:
Launch your favorite game, lower the game resolution (1080p to 720p) while leaving other settings as is:
If the FPS dramatically improves -> GPU upgrade is worth the money.
If the FPS remains on the same level -> time for CPU upgrade.
Please share what you think about this
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