Nvidia claims GPU matters more than a CPU

[rickzor]

http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=6156&Itemid=1

I must fully agree with nvidia on this one!

 

[LukeBird]

I wonder why they would say that.....
No component is ever going to be more important than another, it's a balance between all of them.
my old Skt754 3700+ would utterly destroy the performance of my GTX's, likewise before I bought my first GTX my 6000+ was doing nothing when running with my 6800GS.
In gaming a GPU is certainly important, but you need a decent CPU paired with it, otherwise you're just creating a big bottleneck!

 

[JonnyRock]

This topic should be polled , and i agree fully.


Right now current games need more GPU power than CPU power.

 

[jay2tall]

I agree to a point. You can't have a bottom of the barrel CPU and highend GPU without having some performance issues. You have to have at least a decent CPU to open up the full potential of a good graphics card. But by no means do you need a quad core CPU to game on the high end. I have an older e6400 Core2 (OCed of course) and it still screams along with the new 8800GTS. I don't think a quad would give me as much of a gain.

 

[MadHacker]

but it is only an issue for gamers.
non gamers is isn't true.
I think Nvidia statment is way to general.

 

[hairycat101]

No component is ever going to be more important than another, it's a balance between all of them.

Not to be rude, but that is really a dumb statement. Not every comment has truth in it. Some statements are just false, dumb and uninformed... Like most of mine. You must be the product of public education. This I'm ok you're ok we all have differences... Celebrate diversity. Its garbage. Some lines of thought are superior to others. Its ok.

 

[Annisman]

Does anyone know if MTW2 is CPU bound or GPU ? Just wondering out of curiosity, I mean, my system chugs along when I have 10K + units on the field, also my CPU usage is only at about 60-70 %. Since we are on the topic....

 

[jay2tall]

I have a feeling nvidia's statement was targeted toward gamers specifically. Who is going to get a highend GPU that really just wants to crunch numbers or encode video? I agree every situation is difference and you have to be smart with your component selection.

 

[spaztic7]

Meh? I agree that you want to have a balance. I also think you need to offload the CPU as much as possible.

I do not think a low end processor will be faster or better than an high end processor. When was the last time you saw a Athlon 3200+ beat out a Q9650?

 

[jay2tall]

I think their argument is you will see better gaming performance from a video card upgrade than going to a highend CPU.

 

[cjp3]

From the link of the OP:

[...] Nvidia pushes the message that if you have a low-end CPU and a high-end graphics card you will play better than with high-end quad-core CPU and cheap graphics.

That's a perfectly fine statement, even in its rather general perspective. "Cheap graphics" means "onboard" or "average laptop" graphics to me, maybe even with no dedicated video RAM. Even the fastest CPU cannot achieve good framerates in the target market of nVidia (> 1280x1024, full screen, high poly, high shader usage), with such cheap graphic hardware, if it has to do most things (even RAM transfers) itself.

On the other hand, a slow(ish) CPU can still get quite good frame rates if the polygon count is not too high, and if thus most of actual processing is happening on a fast, modern GPU.

These days, game companies invest a huge amount of effort in graphics (which means lots of polygons, shaders etc.). The other parts of a game, where a CPU may be heavily used (AI etc.) do seem to be unproportionally lower developed. So, of course, hardware support for the fastest growing part of games means more than CPU.

Plus, some things (AA, interpolation, resolution) do not affect the CPU at all (the CPU doesn't care a bit if the resolution is 800x600 or 1920x1600, or at least so it doesn't matter much).

There simply are not many options in the average game where you can tune for a slow/fast CPU, but any game is stuffed to the brim with options to adjust for a weak/strong GPU.

Nvidia is publicly claiming that the GPU is better and smarter than the dull CPU. CPUs are boring and

Duh. Target age of this statement? Maybe 13-16 years?

Nvidia claims GPU matters more than a CPU

This title is of course grossly misleading, no meaning whatsoever can be interpreted into it.

 

[rickzor]

I think their argument is you will see better gaming performance from a video card upgrade than going to a highend CPU.

By far!

 

[spaztic7]

I think their argument is you will see better gaming performance from a video card upgrade than going to a highend CPU.

Good point. I agree to that!

 

[runswindows95]

Of course a GPU would make a system fun. Then again, only gamers will spend money on a nice GPU.

 

[jay2tall]

I also upgrade my Video cards WAY more than my CPU to keep up with current games. I think my CPU had about another year left to it, but my graphics cards tent to need replace more frequently. I mean I don't NEED to upgrade, but if I want to stay on my game.. get it game.. I need to at least be in the moderately higher end.

Just a note: I read that Intel is doing away with their "Extreme" line of processors with the e8xxx series. Wonder why? There is no need for them. You don't see Nvidia giving up on the GTX line do ya?

 

[homerdog]

As a general rule that I'm making up right now, if you spend half as much on your CPU as you do on your GPU (and your GPU was at least $150) you will have a good gaming machine as long as you're cool with a slight OC.

 

[homerdog]

Just a note: I read that Intel is doing away with their "Extreme" line of processors with the e8xxx series. Wonder why? There is no need for them. You don't see Nvidia giving up on the GTX line do ya?

They aren't doing away with EE processors; they're just all going to be quads from now on.

 

[San Pedro]

Yeah, one of my roommates has an 8800GT paired with a Pentium4 570 and he can play Gears of War and Quake Wars at 1680x1050 with settings maxed and 2xAA no problem. I imagine most other games would be similar.

 

[babybudha]

Like saying:

- A car engine is more important then the transmission. Sure, but by themselves you have a very large paper weight!

 

[capnbfg]

Not to be rude, but that is really a dumb statement. Not every comment has truth in it. Some statements are just false, dumb and uninformed... Like most of mine. You must be the product of public education. This I'm ok you're ok we all have differences... Celebrate diversity. Its garbage. Some lines of thought are superior to others. Its ok.

Actually, LukeBird is 100% correct and you are the one making dumb statements. Just like anything else that has ever been designed, there are tradeoffs at play here. There absolutely is a balancing act between GPU and CPU, especially with more CPU tasks like physics and smarter AI being added into games. Then there is also the fact that the top-end video cards really need a good CPU to keep them fed. Case in point: my dad's Q6600 and 7950GT run Crysis way better than my 5200+ and HD3870. In fact, when I upgraded from a 1900XT to a 3870 there was almost no performance boost in Crysis. There is no question that for Crysis I would benefit more from a CPU upgrade than a GPU upgrade.

RE: nvidia's statement
Of course they are going to say that, they want to sell more cards. They also want to sell more chipsets so that they can sell double the cards to people who have money to spare. This is marketing at work, and they will say anything that sells more product. In reality there is no blanket statement to be made here about which component is more important. It is ALWAYS a balance and you have to look at the detailed requirements of each application. Yes games are often GPU limited, but that is not always the case.

 

[snarfies1]

In other news, Intel says CPU matters more than GPU. Also, Antec says your power supply matters more than the CPU and GPU.

 

[KyleSTL]

In other news, Intel says CPU matters more than GPU. Also, Antec says your power supply matters more than the CPU and GPU.

And Scythe and Thermalright jointly say lowering your CPU and GPU temperatures can have huge gains in FPS.

 

[hairycat101]

Actually, LukeBird is 100% correct and you are the one making dumb statements. Just like anything else that has ever been designed, there are tradeoffs at play here. There absolutely is a balancing act between GPU and CPU, especially with more CPU tasks like physics and smarter AI being added into games. Then there is also the fact that the top-end video cards really need a good CPU to keep them fed. Case in point: my dad's Q6600 and 7950GT run Crysis way better than my 5200+ and HD3870. In fact, when I upgraded from a 1900XT to a 3870 there was almost no performance boost in Crysis. There is no question that for Crysis I would benefit more from a CPU upgrade than a GPU upgrade.

RE: nvidia's statement
Of course they are going to say that, they want to sell more cards. They also want to sell more chipsets so that they can sell double the cards to people who have money to spare. This is marketing at work, and they will say anything that sells more product. In reality there is no blanket statement to be made here about which component is more important. It is ALWAYS a balance and you have to look at the detailed requirements of each application. Yes games are often GPU limited, but that is not always the case.

Did you read my post? I didn’t comment on the technology or even enter into the technical question of importance. I said that not every comment has importance. My observation was a cultural one. My point was that we too often feel that everyone’s opinion should be weighted equally.

 

[spaztic7]

So, if we are going to upgrade a part, NVIDIA says upgrading the video card will give you more performance. That is true. You can get a lot of performance by doing that. There also comes a time when upgrading you video card will do no good because you CPU is a bottleneck.

You know what gives you the best performance increase? You have to change out your cd/dvd ROM drive. Man that will give you INSANE performance increase......

 

[xx12amanxx]

There are three thing's that come to mind when i am thinking of how a new game will run on my rig. First is my GPU powerful enough to handle the graphic's? Second can my processor feed what my GPU and game needs to run smooth? And third do i have enough RAM at a good speed to load the LOD and high textures?

I see it as this...

1-GPU
2-CPU
3-RAM