Does the CPU actually have a drastic influence on the Frames in Games?

I was wondering if you had a better cpu in your rig if it really improved your computers performance. Would it be a huge improvement or just minor...For example I upgraded 512 in my old computer to 1 gig and Farcry didn't lag anymore. But when I changed the cpu other than the load times I didn't see much of an improvment...in doom 3 there was some.
I just upgraded from a Athlon 3800+ (2.4 OC) to a Athlon 5000+ (3.2 OC) will it make a huge difference?

Thank You

first person shooters as such tend to show little benefit from a faster cpu (unless your cpu was 5 or more years old, then it was probably worth upgrading your whole system even, for game performance purposes)

rts games however, and games like microsoft flight simulator, tend to be strongly cpu bound, due to all the individual AIs and different things occurring simultaneously... and sometimes just due to the games engine itself and how it was designed. UT2004 (if i remember correctly) was a strongly cpu bound fps game, but most other fps games arent.

but, the kinds of games you mentioned will show little benefit from a faster cpu alone as far as framerates go, and you would get more benefit going from single to dual core, than you would getting a faster dual core over a slower dual core.

quad core for gaming is going to be the same situation again, once a lot of games start taking advantage of it... and getting a slower quad core would then make more sense, than a faster dual core.

as far as level loading, definetly. the cpu performance and memory amounts tend to play a very large role in how fast a level will load. if you only have 256MB of pc3200 system ram for instance, its going to take a whole lot longer to load a game like crysis, than if you had 2GB+ of pc1600 ram (that is if it was even possible to play on only 256mb).

Its hard to understand how the CPU helps the GPU in games where thing are multithreaded, its not a % boost to FPS or anything but in games that can use multiple cores it can proccess things faster, soon CPU's may do physics which will definatly help.

thats fine i just want to know that I have a decent computer lol I love the 5000 though its an awesome overclocker!!!

I had a Athlon 3800+ X2 ...(yes it was Overclocked but even when I down clocked it was still restarting)
Now I have a Athlon 5000+ X2 Black Edition, I have it overclocked at 3.2 and its stable I ran everything...3D mark CPU stress test...The pie calculation program. Prima95...It never restarted once!
Also the old CPU use to restart my computer when ever I did the Vista Rating and Video Encoding...Now it doesn't anymore

I did have a period where the System ran slow because of the Overclock but Now it Runs AMAZING