Please help! CPU Vs. GPU for gaming pc's.

[orbarya]

Hi everyone,

I trying to build a gaming computer, and one of the more important games for me right now is Oblivion.

The problem is with the cpu and gpu. I'm not sure wether I should buy the 8800 GTX with the 6400 core 2 duo, or the 8800 GTS with 6600 core 2 duo.

I cant have them both and the question is will the 6400 hold back the 8800 GTX, considering i play oblivion at 1280 x 1024, or will it perform like in the benchmark here in TH at 38 FPS in the outdoors?

If i buy the GTS with the 6600, the cpu probably won't hold back the gpu but the benchmark of the GTS is only 28 FPS, which is a little low i think...

Thanks alot!

 

[Real999]

lol, I play oblivion on medium details with a 7600gt OC and 3000+ venice on 1280*1024 without any gliches, so ur setup will do just fine (maybe even a small overkill, however for oblivion nothing is enough...)

 

[Mr_Bluntman]

Get the 8800 GTS and the E6600. More balanced. Using a GTX on anything less than a Kentsfield is a waste.

 

[weskurtz81]

Kentsfield shows no increase in performance in gaming. Games are barely becoming optimised for dual core's.... much less quads. I would still go with the GTS though. The CPU would be enough for the GTX if you go that route.

wes

 

[nvalhalla]

I would go the other way around. You can jump the 6400 to 6600 (minus the L2, I know) for free. Nothing will open the closed "Stream Processors" on that GTS (unless someone has made a discovery I haven't heard about.) Either way doesn't really matter, you could really go 6400 and GTS at that resolution and be fine.

 

[Jizumonkey]

I have an E6600 and am a little annoyed that I paid the extra for it (over say a 6400) since the overclock on both is around the same unless you go silly and try to hit 4GHz... But like most, I just want enough to make me feel like i'm getting something for nothing

So...I'd go with the E6400, overclock it to 3GHz (or nearest FBS multiple to) and enjoy the extra gaming power of the GTX. You wont notice the difference you spent on the CPU but there's every chance you will on the GPU.

Add to that your title suggests gaming as the most important aspect it's a no brainer.

 

[Xazax310]

I currently have an E6400 and 8800GTS and am VERY happy it with this is a combo thats not expenise and superfast i love playing HF 2 now because i get all the goodies such as HDR with 16xQ AA, o did i mention supersampling too? and the lowest it drops is 55FPS.

 

[cronjob]

It seems that a lot of us are having this conflict at the moment. I've been building my own machines since I was about twelve years old (so for about sixteen years). I'm not a hardware guy by trade, however; I'm a software engineer. Since I don't ride the constant hardware wave, I have to start from scratch before every new build to research what the latest and greatest are.

Until a couple years ago, this was no big deal. You find the fastest CPU you can buy right before the price-break. You buy it. Then you do the same with everything else. Or, like me, you splurge on the $600 top of the line video card.

But now, everything is different. AMD and Intel each have a dozen of their own lines with little variances in each. You don't intuitively know if one thing is faster than another, without loads of research on sites like this where you can read the experiences and look at the benchmarks of people who have been able to put them to the test. Then you get to choose from a dozen times of boards and a dozen types of RAM for each board.

But if nothing else, you knew that you could drop $1500 to $2500 on a new machine every twelve months and have the hottest, sweetest, top of the line machine that would perform double or triple your last machine the year prior.

But now, look at this. My AMD64 x2 3800+ from a year and a half ago benchmarks only about 20% below the performance of the latest expensive $400+ AMD or Intel chip. And even then, it probably isn't enough to push the rest of your rig to its limits (especially the 8800 GTX at the moment).

I see a lot of people around here telling us that they're upgrading from something like a 3800+ to a new 5200 or something. Why? That's such a minor improvement for so much money. I can't imagine building a new machine to replace an old one for less than double the performance. And most certainly not for 20% increase in performance!

I've spent the last ten days debating a new machine against my better judgment. You see, I'm used to playing all of my games with the highest settings at the highest resolution (2560x1600 on my 30" ACD with a 7800 GTX). But now that I started playing the MMORPG "Vanguard", I'm finding that I can't even get a consistent 25fps at 1200x800 on the same machine I play in highest-everything at 2560x1600 in Battlefield 2!

So I'm fighting my impulsive urge to drop $600 on the new 8800 GTX. But it seems that to get the most performance out of it, I'm going to be looking at going with the new Intel E6600 (or somewhere around there). Or perhaps one of the AMD FX chips. And there you get to buy a whole new motherboard and RAM.

I guess the "doubling every 18 months" thing is no longer true.