Interesting article. GPU also has become increasingly as powerful as CPU. http://techreport.com/review/23246/inside-the-second-gaming-performance-with-today-cpus
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
Thanks GJ. I particularly found that Tom's hierarchy chart (whether CPU or GPU) is very useful. http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-cpu-review-overclock,3106-5.html Now I know what to buy for my next PC upgrade. rule of thumb: always buy 3 level higher than your current CPU/GPU.
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.
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. [TABLE="class: editorTblTableleft editorTblSize100 editorTblStyleStyle2"][TR="class: tblEven"][TH="bgcolor: #373737, colspan: 2, align: center"]Gaming CPU Hierarchy Chart[/TH][/TR][TR="class: tblRow"][TH="bgcolor: #373737, align: center"]Intel[/TH][TH="bgcolor: #373737, align: center"]AMD[/TH][/TR][TR="class: tblEven"][TD="bgcolor: #EFEFEF"]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[/TD][TD="bgcolor: #EFEFEF"] [/TD][/TR][TR="class: tblRow"][TD]Core i7-980, -970, -960 Core i7-870, -875K Core i3-3225, -3240, -3220,-2100, -2105, -2120, -2125, -2130[/TD][TD]FX-8350[/TD][/TR][TR="class: tblEven"][TD="bgcolor: #EFEFEF"]Core i7-860, -920, -930, -940, -950 Core i5-3220T, -750, -760, -2405S, -2400S Core 2 Extreme QX9775, QX9770, QX9650 Core 2 Quad Q9650[/TD][TD="bgcolor: #EFEFEF"]FX-8320, 6300, 4300, 4170 Phenom II X6 1100T BE, 1090T BE Phenom II X4 Black Edition 980, 975[/TD][/TR][TR="class: tblRow"][TD]Core 2 Extreme QX6850, QX6800 Core 2 Quad Q9550, Q9450, Q9400 Core i5-650, -655K, -660, -661, -670, -680 Core i3-2100T, -2120T[/TD][TD]FX-8150, -6200 Phenom II X6 1075T Phenom II X4 Black Edition 970, 965, 955[/TD][/TR][TR="class: tblEven"][TD="bgcolor: #EFEFEF"]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[/TD][TD="bgcolor: #EFEFEF"]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[/TD][/TR][TR="class: tblRow"][TD]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[/TD][TD]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[/TD][/TR][TR="class: tblEven"][TD="bgcolor: #EFEFEF"]Core 2 Duo E7200, E6550, E7300, E6540, E6700 Pentium Dual-Core E5700, E5800, E6300, E6500, E6600, E6700 Pentium G9650[/TD][TD="bgcolor: #EFEFEF"]Phenom X4 9850, 9750, 9650, 9600 Phenom X3 8850, 8750 Athlon II X2 265, 260, 255 Athlon 64 X2 6400+[/TD][/TR][TR="class: tblRow"][TD]Core 2 Duo E4700, E4600, E6600, E4500, E6420 Pentium Dual-Core E5400, E5300, E5200, G620T[/TD][TD]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+[/TD][/TR][TR="class: tblEven"][TD="bgcolor: #EFEFEF"]Core 2 Duo E4400, E4300, E6400, E6320 Celeron E3300[/TD][TD="bgcolor: #EFEFEF"]Phenom X4 9150e, 9100e Athlon X2 7550, 7450, 5050e, 4850e/b Athlon 64 X2 5400+, 5200+, 5000+, 4800+[/TD][/TR][TR="class: tblRow"][TD]Core 2 Duo E5500, E6300 Pentium Dual-Core E2220, E2200, E2210 Celeron E3200[/TD][TD]Athlon X2 6550, 6500, 4450e/b, Athlon X2 4600+, 4400+, 4200+, BE-2400[/TD][/TR][TR="class: tblEven"][TD="bgcolor: #EFEFEF"]Pentium Dual-Core E2180 Celeron E1600, G440[/TD][TD="bgcolor: #EFEFEF"]Athlon 64 X2 4000+, 3800+ Athlon X2 4050e, BE-2300[/TD][/TR][TR="class: tblRow"][TD]Pentium Dual-Core E2160, E2140 Celeron E1500, E1400, E1200[/TD][/TR][/TABLE] They have charts for GPU's as well.
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
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.
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
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.
