Does CPU you choose still matter in today gaming?

The CPU still has to do a bit of work, and the lower the clock speed the less work any individual core will do. Keep in mind that the GPU's primary function is graphics. Without a CPU that is capable of keeping up with the rest of the workload, the GPU falls flat on it's face.

Now for those interested, here is an article from Tom's Hardware showing the best CPU for the money for gaming.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-cpu-review-overclock,3106.html
 
I did a little test at different CPU speeds showing FPS and GPU usage, used the default graphic settings you get with a fresh PLR file plus HDR @1920x1080 because I didn't want to overload the GPU. Just wish I had something faster (both CPU and GPU) to see how far this would go.

Untitled-1_zps7b18bff7.png
 
Conclusion is buy the fastest Sandy or Ivy you can afford and overclock the crap out of it.....................

The diff. between my 2500K at stock and 5GHz was HuGE
 
From Tom's...


You can use this hierarchy to compare the pricing between two processors, to see which one is a better deal, and also to determine if an upgrade is worthwhile. I don’t recommend upgrading your CPU unless the potential replacement is at least three tiers higher. Otherwise, the upgrade is somewhat parallel and you may not notice a worthwhile difference in game performance.

Gaming CPU Hierarchy Chart
IntelAMD
Core i7-2600, -2600K, -2700K, -3770, -3770K, -3820, -3930K, -3960X, -3970X
Core i7-965, -975 Extreme, -980X Extreme, -990X Extreme
Core i5-3570K, -3570, -3550, -3470, -3450P, -3450, -3350P, -3330, 2550K, -2500K, -2500, -2450P, -2400, -2380P, -2320, -2310, -2300
Core i7-980, -970, -960
Core i7-870, -875K
Core i3-3225, -3240, -3220,-2100, -2105, -2120, -2125, -2130		FX-8350
Core i7-860, -920, -930, -940, -950
Core i5-3220T, -750, -760, -2405S, -2400S
Core 2 Extreme QX9775, QX9770, QX9650
Core 2 Quad Q9650		FX-8320, 6300, 4300, 4170
Phenom II X6 1100T BE, 1090T BE
Phenom II X4 Black Edition 980, 975
Core 2 Extreme QX6850, QX6800
Core 2 Quad Q9550, Q9450, Q9400
Core i5-650, -655K, -660, -661, -670, -680
Core i3-2100T, -2120T		FX-8150, -6200
Phenom II X6 1075T
Phenom II X4 Black Edition 970, 965, 955
Core 2 Extreme QX6700
Core 2 Quad Q6700, Q9300, Q8400, Q6600, Q8300
Core 2 Duo E8600, E8500, E8400, E7600
Core i3 -530, -540, -550
Pentium G2120, G870, G860, G850, G840, G645, G640, G630		FX-8120, -6100, -4100
Phenom II X6 1055T, 1045T
Phenom II X4 945, 940, 920, 910, 910e, 810
Phenom II X3 Black Edition 720, 740
A8-3850, -3870K
A6-3650, -3670K
Athlon II X4 651K, 645, 641, 640, 635, 630
Athlon II X3 460, 455, 450, 445, 440, 435
Core 2 Extreme X6800
Core 2 Quad Q8200
Core 2 Duo E8300, E8200, E8190, E7500, E7400, E6850, E6750
Pentium G620
Celeron G555, G550, G540, G530		Phenom II X4 905e, 805
Phenom II X3 710, 705e
Phenom II X2 565 BE, 560 BE, 555 BE, 550 BE, 545
Phenom X4 9950
Athlon II X4 620, 631
Athlon II X3 425
Core 2 Duo E7200, E6550, E7300, E6540, E6700
Pentium Dual-Core E5700, E5800, E6300, E6500, E6600, E6700
Pentium G9650		Phenom X4 9850, 9750, 9650, 9600
Phenom X3 8850, 8750
Athlon II X2 265, 260, 255
Athlon 64 X2 6400+
Core 2 Duo E4700, E4600, E6600, E4500, E6420
Pentium Dual-Core E5400, E5300, E5200, G620T		Phenom X4 9500, 9550, 9450e, 9350e
Phenom X3 8650, 8600, 8550, 8450e, 8450, 8400, 8250e
A4-3400
Athlon II X2 240, 245, 250
Athlon X2 7850, 7750
Athlon 64 X2 6000+, 5600+
Core 2 Duo E4400, E4300, E6400, E6320
Celeron E3300		Phenom X4 9150e, 9100e
Athlon X2 7550, 7450, 5050e, 4850e/b
Athlon 64 X2 5400+, 5200+, 5000+, 4800+
Core 2 Duo E5500, E6300
Pentium Dual-Core E2220, E2200, E2210
Celeron E3200		Athlon X2 6550, 6500, 4450e/b,
Athlon X2 4600+, 4400+, 4200+, BE-2400
Pentium Dual-Core E2180
Celeron E1600, G440		Athlon 64 X2 4000+, 3800+
Athlon X2 4050e, BE-2300
Pentium Dual-Core E2160, E2140
Celeron E1500, E1400, E1200
They have charts for GPU's as well.
 
DurgeDriven said:
Conclusion is buy the fastest Sandy or Ivy you can afford and overclock the crap out of it.....................

The diff. between my 2500K at stock and 5GHz was HuGE
Click to expand...

I would hope it would be DD seeing as the stock 2500K is 3.3Ghz, you are adding almost 2Ghz to the clock so effectively almost doubling the clock speed of each core.
 
Running an i7 2600 @ 5ghz ( water cooled ) it stays cool & stable

A decent mobo , ths chip , decent cooling & don't think you'll need to upgrade for quite a while
 
Gearjammer said:
I would hope it would be DD seeing as the stock 2500K is 3.3Ghz, you are adding almost 2Ghz to the clock so effectively almost doubling the clock speed of each core.
Click to expand...

5GHz did heavy benching for stability, heat tests, etc.

I run Sims @4.5Ghz that is 22% over Turbo.
 
rf2 on a 6970 only uses 17% cpu most of the time with my 3570k at 4.4ghz. Totally gpu limited :)
 
Low CPU/GPU usage is irrelevant to me at least.

When I run rFactor2 online room I am almost always doing a heap of other stuff in background.


The "more" cycles ie: faster the core is most everything responds and does its job faster.

AIN'T ROCKET SCIENCE. :)

So why waste 5GHz if you can use it ? ;)
 
well that was just running laps alone. in online with a lot of players, cpu becomes ever more important. that's true of every game really. counter strike kills cpu's once you get to 40 man servers, for example.
 
Duvel said:
well that was just running laps alone. in online with a lot of players, cpu becomes ever more important. that's true of every game really. counter strike kills cpu's once you get to 40 man servers, for example.
Click to expand...

I host a RF2 room okay

In background I can run another sim like GTR with 100 cars to test a new track.
Do encoding and burning
Photofiltre tiny prog for edit/ posting screenshots.
Music in winamp
TV series in little VLC while music and encoding.

Then
fraps
afterburner and OSD
joy 2 key
task manager
Tune up utilities
Chrome multi tabs with miminal browsing
Windows explorer few instances

All that and more at one time, serious. :)

If I task back to rF2 ( it does ctd sometimes but that is only this build )
I can still do a PB / race no problem
 
Last edited:
DurgeDriven said:
I host a RF2 room okay

In background I can run another sim like GTR with 100 cars to test a new track.
Do encoding and burning
Photofiltre tiny prog for edit/ posting screenshots.
Music in winamp
TV series in little VLC while music and encoding.

Then
fraps
afterburner and OSD
joy 2 key
task manager
Tune up utilities
Chrome multi tabs with miminal browsing
Windows explorer few instances

All that and more at one time, serious. :)

If I task back to rF2 ( it does ctd sometimes but that is only this build )
I can still do a PB / race no problem
Click to expand...

Jesus!
That's a lot of work.
Processors have come a long way.
Remember a few years back, when if you were burning a cd you didn't dear do anything else for fear of having it fail?
Kudos for the competition.
It spawned great CPU in a very short time.
 
Yeah 2500K handles anything I have ever thrown at it.

You can run all the bells and whistles on your OS, fill the screen with icons, 100 start menu folders, task-bar full and a dozen or more start-up programs. lopl

Still I always have and will run my OS stripped to the bone with a clock and 2 start up items for company. p

I detest messy and bloated OS , registry, folders, desktop ....... no matter how fast the tower is.
 
Yup! But don't forget about SSD for OS and all the important apps! Since I moved to SSD a few months ago, I can really take all the benefits a modern CPU can give. With typical HDD (even those doing sequential read ~140MB/s) working with many tabs in web browser can tan a while.
With SSD, applications just "show up" instead of loading... the best test, is to save a Firefox session with a 8-10 windows, each with 20-30 tabs.
With SSD, it takes just a 2-3 sec. to open it back. With typical HDD... you can go with your dog for a short walk, before the application fully opens up ;)

But as to the main question - yes, CPU does matter, as long as GPU is not a huge bottleneck. Also remember, that CPU has to prepare the whole 3D scene to be rendered by GPU, so a fast GPU needs fast CPU.
 
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