Graphics card and CPU pairing

[stringcheesy]

Is video card dependent on CPU?

I am currently using an Intel E8400 Wolfdale and am wondering if the upgrade to an Nvidea GTX 480 is going to be a significant upgrade, and noticeable difference from my 8800 GT?

 

[gmcizzle]

Depends on the application. Your E8400 is a dual core, so it depends how much of a bottleneck it will be. A GTX 480 will be a significant jump in performance from a 8800 GT though, slight bottleneck or not.

 

[hapkido]

It's not dependent, specifically, but it does play into overall game performance. That's a dual core cpu, so you will be missing some performance in games that take advantage of four cores. I would still expect a gtx480 to be a significant upgrade over a 8800gt, but I would definitely look at upgrading to a quad core cpu to really take advantage of that gtx480.

 

[mactronix]

Depends really as said its dependant on what the games/applications want/need as far as cores and Mhz are concerned.
This series is a good read on the subject. There are 4 articles links to the others are on the first page of this link
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/balanced-gaming-pc-overclock,review-31966.html

Mactronix

 

[stringcheesy]

Thank you all so much for your answers! These are exactly the answers I was looking for!!!

Thanks again,

String

 

[sceen311]

I'd go with the 480, then when ya got the money again just upgrade cpu next.