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There is no clear-cut answer to the question about how much CPU is needed for gaming. It depends on the individual game and desired detail levels. Different games, and even levels of detail in a game, will stress difference components of the system, so it’s important to have a balanced system if you hope to enjoy a wide range of games. Buying too much GPU is a waste of money if the CPU is holding back your performance. Likewise, not enough GPU will limit the resolution, detail levels and eye candy you can enjoy.
We clearly see from Crysis, Call of Duty 4, and Oblivion, that single-core CPUs now struggle in games and will at least limit the detail levels you can play at. Enemy AI and impressive physics effects are often too much for a single-core CPU to handle on top of its other tasks. In some very CPU-demanding titles, you may not even be able to tweak acceptable performance with a single-core processor. Also keep in mind that the minimum FPS on a single-core CPU will often drop much lower, making for choppy game play. Socket 754 and 939 owners on single cores should see all this as a sign that their system has limited life for future games.
A dual-core CPU is pretty much the standard recommended CPU for current games. In the newest games we tested, we see that our X2 4200+ dual core is easily able to outperform a higher-clocked single-core chip. With higher average and more consistent minimum frame rates, they will provide the much better gaming experience. Socket AM2 owners wanting to play games should be on a dual-core CPU for sure.
What about clock speeds? Are they important? Well, we can easily see our X2 5600+ consistently pulling away from the other two CPUs with both the 8800 GS and the HD 4850. As long as we are not GPU-limited, CPU clock speeds were making a marked difference. The lower-clocked X2 4200+ even struggled in our testing, and was at times barely able to maintain a 30 FPS average even at low resolutions. If you are buying a mid- or high-end GPU and do not want your CPU to limit your playable settings in the latest games like Crysis or Call of Duty 4, or even Oblivion, Socket AM2 owners will need to run an Athlon 64 X2 at high clock speeds. A clock speed of 2.4 GHz and below isn’t always going to cut it and sometimes you’ll find the higher the clocks, the better off you are. Socket 939 owners should see this as a good reason not to buy an overpriced low-clocked dual-core for their machine.
Anyone seeking very high-end GPUs or multi-GPU solutions could also step up to an Intel Core 2 Duo or Quad with decent clock speeds, either out of the box or user overclocked. But that doesn’t mean you should blow all your money on a QX6850 or even E8600. They are excellent processors, but a gamer definitely should not skimp on the graphics card, as given enough CPU power, it will be the biggest limiting factor for the resolution, detail levels and amount of eye candy like FSAA/AF that remain playable.
If you are stuck on an Athlon 64 single-core CPU with no upgrade options and no budget for a new system, all hope is not lost. There are some newer games and also plenty of great titles in the bargain bin that run well on single-core CPUs. Spending up to $100 or so on a nice bargain card like the 8800 GS, 9600 GSO, HD 3850, HD 4670, 9600 GT, HD 3870, 8800 GT, or 9800 GT will allow you to max out many of these older or single-threaded games if your current GPU is too weak. In newer titles, the detail levels will need to be reduced to relieve the demand on the CPU, so some of your potential performance of a new GPU is being thrown away. To compensate, the added power of a better video card can allow for high resolutions and FSAA/AF levels making for a better gaming experience.
Athlon XP and sub-3.0 GHz Pentium 4 owners are going to be in worse shape than Athlon 64 owners and are even going to find themselves below minimum spec for some games. Just keep in mind that even the best single-core CPUs are below recommended specs for many if not most of the latest games, and will limit the playability of these titles. Adding even the beefiest new PCI Express gaming card will not mean you can play these games with all details turned up and checked. This trend will only continue to get worse, so if it hasn’t already happened, be prepared to find out that a system upgrade will be required for an upcoming game that’s high on your wish list.
Lastly, before buying any hardware for a game your system is struggling in, keep an eye on the game’s recommended system specs, and if a dual-core CPU is recommended, it’s likely multi-threaded and chances are good that single-core CPUs will limit the playable detail levels, regardless of the graphics card paired with it. A new graphics card may still be what is required to gain an acceptable balance of performance and detail levels in the game, but following the advice this article offers can help avoid the disappointment of spending big bucks on too good of a gaming card only to find out your processor is preventing it from offering the performance you expected.
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FIRST POST!!! Nice Article though. I knew my brother would soon be doomed with his P4 2.8c
"AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200 + dual-core, which has a 2.2 GHz Manchester architecture with 512 MB L2 cache per core."
oau! that's a lot of cache
I haven't read the actual article yet, but I bet the simple answer is no!
I've got a backup gaming rig at home that barely cuts it. An x2 1.9ghz (oc'ed to 2.4) with an 8800gtx and 3gb memory. That rig struggles at 1280x1024 in some situations, and it can only be attributed to the cpu really.
2.8GHz Opteron 185 (up from 2.6GHz) with 2x1MB L2 cache is the ultimate s939 CPU....blows these weak benchmarks away.
Who would have thought DDR would have such durability? There's something to be said for CAS2!
Surprisingly, you can actually do fairly well. Of course, it depends on the app...
But your opteron cpu still limits the modern graphics cards.
Two years back I bought my 8800gtx, and realized it wouldn't come to its full potential in my opteron 170 (@ 2.7). A friend with another gtx paired with an e6400 chip (@ 3ghz) scored a full 30% higher in 3dmark than I, and it showed in games. Even in wow where you'd expect a casio calculator would deliver enough graphics power.
In short - ye ddr still work if you've got enthusiast parts, but that can't negate the effect a faster cpu would give. At least at decent resolutions (22" wide)
This is a great article! It will give me something to show when i'm talking to people about a new system or just a GPU/PSU upgrade. Great job by Henningsen.
I'm still using a P4 3.0 @ 3.4 with 1 GB DDR 400 and an nVidia 6800GT...
I'm building a new computer next week.
I can echo the findings in Crysis. It didn't matter what settings I ran with a 3700 Sandy and an X1950 pro, the framerate was almost the same (albeit low 20s because the card is slower). Added an E6600 to the mix and my framerate tripled at lower settings.
It would have been interesting to see how a 3000+ Clawhammer (C0 stepping) would do in Crysis. Single-channel memory, poor overclocking capabilities... FAIL!
2.8GHz Opteron 185 (up from 2.6GHz) with 2x1MB L2 cache is the ultimate s939 CPU....blows these weak benchmarks away.Who would have thought DDR would have such durability? There's something to be said for CAS2!
Thia ia true about the DDR. I recall an article on toms right after the release of the AM2 socket which tested identical dual core processors against their 939 counterparts; the tests showed little to no performance gains.
Great article, their has been some discussion about this in the forums as well.
I currently own a 939 4200+ x2 that's paired with a 7800GT; and this article shows what I thought to be accurate about the AMD64 chips. Their not as fast as some of the C2D's but they still kick ass.
Good job pointing out the single core factor in newer games too. As soon as the crysis demo was released I upgraded my San Diego core to a dual core and noticed the difference in crysis immediately.
This article gives me further confidence in my decision to hold on upgrading my system. I want to hold out for Windows7 D3D11 and more money to build an ape sh** machine
Nice article!!
wow just getting to 3dmark 06 scores and i can see my rig is set pretty well it beats all of tehse with a over all of 9936 and a cpu score of 4982 my cpu is not even much stronger than tehse oferrings amd 64 x2 5000+ black edition oc'ed to a moddest 2.9 ghz (i know many folks running on liquid cooling that are getting this chip up to 3.8 ghz)
i scared to mess with voltages though and my comp for some reason is a little unstable once i get to 3 ghz , i know pusshing mine furhter would require some voltage bumping but again just to scared to try it as i heard it can really damage a proc at times. but any way next year i will likely upgrade teh cpu to a quad core (some balck editon one) after i do a quick bios falsh on my MB , then i'l add another gig of ram , as well as a new vid card ... next year though , for this year my system is pretty well set with it's curent proc , 2 gigs ddr 2 800 ram adn gf 9600 gt
P.S. not sure how it would score in 3d mark 05 as i never had 05 to test it with but given the diference bewtween 05 adn 06 with this article , i'd say my comp would porbably trounce these in 05 as well
"Test Drive Unlimited has very few graphics settings making it hard to get enjoyable performance on a minimum spec system. Options are limited to low/medium/high and a checkbox for HDR lighting. We ran the highest settings, including HDR."
you forgot the antialaising option gah LOL there is aa in TDU
Good article, enjoyed it very much considering i run a AMD Athlon 3500+ venice core and have a XFX 9800GTX. Runs great, but big battles are very choppy and any high demanding game like COD4 and CRYSIS i have to suffer by not being able to max out settings. I almost blamed the GPU but i knew sooner then later i had to upgrade to a newer system then just opting in a newer GPU. I had a 6600GT which did great for the time being but it showed its age this past year. Great article!
I figured my 3600+ brisbane was realy holding me back, even when
OC'd. when I got my 4850. looks like, for the most part it isn't because I like lots of eye candy.
I still plan on upgrading soon
good article , i finaly finished reading it thoroughly , suffice to say with my current ssytem i don't ahve to worry much for teh moment , and i will upgrade my parts next year when thing start to be come more worrisome , again my current specs are
athlon 64 x2 5000+ BE (OC'ed to 2.9 ghz)
2 gigs ddr 2 pc 6400 (800) ram
gf 9600 GT
win xp home
by next year my specs will be
phenom (at elast a 9950 Black edition , not sure what ill overclock it to)
3 gigs ddr 2 pc 800 ram
and graphic card doest exsist yet , as i'm skipping the gf200/ati4800 series cards but it is a gaurantee my price range will be inside of 200-300
im not real worried definitely not going to be repalcing this ssytem for a good bit though.
get 4 gigs memory instead of 3. If you're lucky the quadchannel memory will make its way into a future amd cpu and 3gb is pointles with hte current pricing on ddr2 anyway. Get 2x2gb and upgrade with 2x2gb more if you want. 2009 you may want to go get a 64bit windows 7 to match your hardware anyway
thanks for the great article. this sure saves me a lot of money. i have AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ with HD4850. I can get to play Racedriver:GRID in Ultra setting. Reading your articles makes me think to upgrade it to 6000+.
I'm impressed to see that the single core athlon didn't completely crash and burn anywhere. Just for kicks it would have been funny to see it try to drive a 4870X2. I can definitely tell it weighs down my 6400+X2 even at 3.45GHz. Entertainment value aside, this is one of the more objectively conducted articles I've seen here recently, and I actually like seeing some of these oddball scenarios getting played out. I can second the finding that an Athlon X2 at 2.4GHz as a ballpark minimum for driving an 8800/9800 or 4800 series card. Fortunately most X2s can overclock to around 3+GHz...other hardware allowing.
Interesting article. I find it amazing that its almost 2009 and i can still play the likes of stalker clear sky fairly well on my 939 asus a8n-sli motherboard that was released early 2005 with an aging 4200+ x2.
I've always avoided upgrades just for the sake of so called "future proofing" and so have been trying to get the most out of my 4200+ X2 which i've overclocked from 2.2 to 2.8ghz (rock solid stable).
Currently getting Getting 10500 in 3dmark06 and can handle most games to date at 1280 x 1024 bar crysis / warhead. I have 2 8800gt's in SLI so no GPU limitation there (i know its overkill but got them to use with my next rig).
However, got my copy of farcry 2 today which i expect to be the nail in the coffin for my 939. With the likes of deadspace and fallout 3 still to play im looking at an e8400 to give my 8800gt's something to chew on.