If I was buying a pre-made (highly theoretical), the two things I'd be most interested in are the PSU and the future expandability of the system.
Expandability means that even if I have a basic computer with onboard video, I've got a PCI-E X16 slot waiting for a proper graphics card in the future when I decide to start gaming, and my power supply has a PCI-E 6/8 pin plug to power it with. Maybe an extra SATA slot or two, should I decide to add more storage. Maybe the case even has clearance for a 10"+ graphics card, although that would be unlikely, I suppose.
The PSU is probably the most-cheaped out component of most store-bought PC's, because they can advertise 1000W and they know the system is never going to draw anywhere close to that level of power. A proper PSU will not only do what it's supposed to do, it'll offer a little extra insurance against dirty power, and often stay quieter under load.
For the indy PC-builder, one selling point worth mentioning is that big names often come with extra baggage. Things like Dell's proprietary power-pin layout that don't/didn't let you use normal ATX power supplies, or driver restrictions, or all the useless software they include because they're getting a cut from the developer (i.e. Alienware's "No Bloatware" promotion, not sure if they still do it). Those can turn into selling points if the customer is semi-computer literate.
Offering to set up striping or mirroring can be a selling point, but a raid-capable southbridge usually adds a few bucks to the cost of the motherboard, so that can go either way. And the performance improvement from striping isn't nearly as good as the numbers say it should be, while mirroring doesn't necessarily protect against a SB failure.
A Modest Proposal for MMORPGs: That the means of progression would not be mutually exclusive from the means of enjoyment.
A good GFX card is most important for a gaming computer followed by processor and memories.
This is not directed towards you, but more towards the statement in general. You see similar comments alot in these types of threads. It's false information. The most important thing for a gaming machine is BALANCE. If you cannot afford the CPU to go with the video card then don't buy the video card. You'll fool yourself into expecting more from your machine than what it is capable of delivering. A gaming machine is only as good as its worst part.
I imagine the person who makes this statement is also the person who buys two of the most powerful video cards on the market and a cheap PSU to power them.
A good GFX card is most important for a gaming computer followed by processor and memories.
This is not directed towards you, but more towards the statement in general. You see similar comments alot in these types of threads. It's false information. The most important thing for a gaming machine is BALANCE. If you cannot afford the CPU to go with the video card then don't buy the video card. You'll fool yourself into expecting more from your machine than what it is capable of delivering. A gaming machine is only as good as its worst part.
I imagine the person who makes this statement is also the person who buys two of the most powerful video cards on the market and a cheap PSU to power them.
Exactly how powerful a CPU are you suggesting is needed here?
Sure, I wouldn't try running 5870s on a single-core Celeron, but honestly, games bottleneck on GPU much more easily than on CPUs. In fact, I can think of few games that would significantly benefit from anything much more powerful than a 45nm C2D. Anyone spending nearly as much on a CPU as their GPU setup is simply robbing themselves of gaming performance.
Take the Athlon II series compared to the Core I5s, so example.
Compared to the $200 I5, the sub $100 Athlon II X4 620, as shown here, achieves literally the exact same level of performance in Crysis at high resolutions, and even moderate resolutions. Even at a low resolution like 1280x1024, where CPU bottlenecking comes into play (a resolution no gamer will ever actually be using these days), the difference was a few frame per second. In Brothers in Arms, Hell's Highway, the Athlon II X4 is just a few frames per second shy of the Core I5 that costs double the amount at high resolution, and by the time you step up to the barely-more-expensive Phenom II X3 720 (OEM versions are $100 on Newegg, so retail's what, $115 maybe?), the gap again completely closes.
That test was with an overclocked GTX280, a fairly power card, even by today's standards. The $100 saved getting the Athlon II X4 620 would buy a lot more in graphics performance than dumping into that more expensive CPU. It's also important to keep in mind that BIA:HH is a DX9 title, and DX9 has more CPU overhead for rendering than DX10 does.
The difference between something like a $200 I5 or Phenom II X4 (which I consider reasonable gaming CPUs at this point), and the Core I7, even the $900+ I7 975, is even smaller. In fact, I would go as far as to say that it's nonexistent. Examine the review page here, the small section titled "GPU-bound gaming". Again, using Crysis, it's shown that once you really start stressing the GPUs, the CPU makes no difference at all. Their gaming tests a little ways down, here, illustrate the point even futher, as only Farcry 2 shows any difference, whatsoever, and that difference actually has nothing to do with performance past the $200 mark, rather Farcry 2 just hates AMD CPUs for some odd reason (only title I know of that does that). The difference, even in FC2, between the I5-750, and the I7-975, is still non-existent.
To conclude, I'd say there are worthwhile, if small differences between the absolute chepeast CPUs (the sub $100 guys), and mroe expensive models, but really, there's nothing out there that's going to saturate a CPU past about the $200 mark in terms of gaming, even with a powerful GPU setup. CPUs are just so ridiculously powerful, and demand for GPU power has outgrown demand for CPU power so much, that even at the level of something like a 5870 (or a pair of them?), dealing with rendering overhead for the CPU with a high-end GPU, there's just no difference, whatsoever. In fact, almost every benchmark I read uses a significantly faster CPU than mine (I use a Phenom II x4 965, they use Core I7s), and shows no difference between my dual 5770s, and what they acheive with the same cards (or a 5870, which is equivalent), on the rare occasion I've had reason to run their tests and compare (as I recently did with the AvP DX11 benchmark, with my system keeping up frame-for-frame with theirs).
A good GFX card is most important for a gaming computer followed by processor and memories.
This is not directed towards you, but more towards the statement in general. You see similar comments alot in these types of threads. It's false information. The most important thing for a gaming machine is BALANCE. If you cannot afford the CPU to go with the video card then don't buy the video card. You'll fool yourself into expecting more from your machine than what it is capable of delivering. A gaming machine is only as good as its worst part.
I imagine the person who makes this statement is also the person who buys two of the most powerful video cards on the market and a cheap PSU to power them.
Exactly how powerful a CPU are you suggesting is needed here?
Sure, I wouldn't try running 5870s on a single-core Celeron, but honestly, games bottleneck on GPU much more easily than on CPUs. In fact, I can think of few games that would significantly benefit from anything much more powerful than a 45nm C2D. Anyone spending nearly as much on a CPU as their GPU setup is simply robbing themselves of gaming performance.
Take the Athlon II series compared to the Core I5s, so example.
Compared to the $200 I5, the sub $100 Athlon II X4 620, as shown here, achieves literally the exact same level of performance in Crysis at high resolutions, and even moderate resolutions. Even at a low resolution like 1280x1024, where CPU bottlenecking comes into play (a resolution no gamer will ever actually be using these days), the difference was a few frame per second. In Brothers in Arms, Hell's Highway, the Athlon II X4 is just a few frames per second shy of the Core I5 that costs double the amount at high resolution, and by the time you step up to the barely-more-expensive Phenom II X3 720 (OEM versions are $100 on Newegg, so retail's what, $115 maybe?), the gap again completely closes.
That test was with an overclocked GTX280, a fairly power card, even by today's standards. The $100 saved getting the Athlon II X4 620 would buy a lot more in graphics performance than dumping into that more expensive CPU. It's also important to keep in mind that BIA:HH is a DX9 title, and DX9 has more CPU overhead for rendering than DX10 does.
The difference between something like a $200 I5 or Phenom II X4 (which I consider reasonable gaming CPUs at this point), and the Core I7, even the $900+ I7 975, is even smaller. In fact, I would go as far as to say that it's nonexistent. Examine the review page here, the small section titled "GPU-bound gaming". Again, using Crysis, it's shown that once you really start stressing the GPUs, the CPU makes no difference at all. Their gaming tests a little ways down, here, illustrate the point even futher, as only Farcry 2 shows any difference, whatsoever, and that difference actually has nothing to do with performance past the $200 mark, rather Farcry 2 just hates AMD CPUs for some odd reason (only title I know of that does that). The difference, even in FC2, between the I5-750, and the I7-975, is still non-existent.
To conclude, I'd say there are worthwhile, if small differences between the absolute chepeast CPUs (the sub $100 guys), and mroe expensive models, but really, there's nothing out there that's going to saturate a CPU past about the $200 mark in terms of gaming, even with a powerful GPU setup. CPUs are just so ridiculously powerful, and demand for GPU power has outgrown demand for CPU power so much, that even at the level of something like a 5870 (or a pair of them?), dealing with rendering overhead for the CPU with a high-end GPU, there's just no difference, whatsoever. In fact, almost every benchmark I read uses a significantly faster CPU than mine (I use a Phenom II x4 965, they use Core I7s), and shows no difference between my dual 5770s, and what they acheive with the same cards (or a 5870, which is equivalent), on the rare occasion I've had reason to run their tests and compare (as I recently did with the AvP DX11 benchmark, with my system keeping up frame-for-frame with theirs).
You aren't really wrong, but I've had some experiences that tell me this isn't always true.
For example, I recently went from an Opteron 175 with an 8800gt to an I7 920 with an 8800gt and the performance is uncomparable. The Opteron would have been in line with the nvidia 7 series, so it was only one generation behind the 8800gt. But how far behind the i7 is the 8800gt? Two or three generations I believe? I have no problem running any of my games on max settings with a little bit of AA.
If I hadn't lost part of my PC budget then I would have aimed for one of the cheaper cards in the Nvidia 200 series. My ego tells me I still need a new GPU, but I have a hard time justifying to the wife $250-$350 for a few points of AA.
Honestly, I did jump the gun a bit on this topic, and treated it more like a "Go all out on a GPU and skimp on the rest" type thing. I just had an arguement with someone at work that was saying this so I was still heated up.
You aren't really wrong, but I've had some experiences that tell me this isn't always true.
For example, I recently went from an Opteron 175 with an 8800gt to an I7 920 with an 8800gt and the performance is uncomparable. The Opteron would have been in line with the nvidia 7 series, so it was only one generation behind the 8800gt. But how far behind the i7 is the 8800gt? Two or three generations I believe? I have no problem running any of my games on max settings with a little bit of AA.
If I hadn't lost part of my PC budget then I would have aimed for one of the cheaper cards in the Nvidia 200 series. My ego tells me I still need a new GPU, but I have a hard time justifying to the wife $250-$350 for a few points of AA.
Honestly, I did jump the gun a bit on this topic, and treated it more like a "Go all out on a GPU and skimp on the rest" type thing. I just had an arguement with someone at work that was saying this so I was still heated up.
There is definitely something to what you're saying. CPU's are important in gaming, even in DX10 where the rendering overhead is really reduced vs DX9 (and it really is; I did a number of tests myself showing notable differences on an Athlon 64 single core and a G80 8800GTS 320mb).
Part of it is the fact that a few games really just love CPU power. World in Conflict gets easily CPU bound if you're not at least running something like a good Phenom II or an I5. Supreme Commander, while older, gets even more ridiculous sometimes. Every game does show some difference though. Athlon II X2 reviews, for instance, show that those chips just don't cut it for serious gaming.
I guess you might say that all I'm saying is that CPUs are important (I agree with you there, don't completely ignore it), but I think that it's fair to say that CPUs hit the point of diminishing returns much faster than GPUs. Even sometimes like a 5970 isn't going to cause a system bottleneck a CPU most of the time, as long as it's reasonable. Like I said, I think for purely gaming machines, I5s and Phenom II X4s (in the $200 range) are about what people should be shooting for at the moment. If you're running a an older Core 2 though, I really think that's still enough as well, as long as it's one of the 45nm chips. I think something like an E6600/Q6600 is probably a little weak these days, but an E8400 is still a fine CPU.
Comments
If I was buying a pre-made (highly theoretical), the two things I'd be most interested in are the PSU and the future expandability of the system.
Expandability means that even if I have a basic computer with onboard video, I've got a PCI-E X16 slot waiting for a proper graphics card in the future when I decide to start gaming, and my power supply has a PCI-E 6/8 pin plug to power it with. Maybe an extra SATA slot or two, should I decide to add more storage. Maybe the case even has clearance for a 10"+ graphics card, although that would be unlikely, I suppose.
The PSU is probably the most-cheaped out component of most store-bought PC's, because they can advertise 1000W and they know the system is never going to draw anywhere close to that level of power. A proper PSU will not only do what it's supposed to do, it'll offer a little extra insurance against dirty power, and often stay quieter under load.
For the indy PC-builder, one selling point worth mentioning is that big names often come with extra baggage. Things like Dell's proprietary power-pin layout that don't/didn't let you use normal ATX power supplies, or driver restrictions, or all the useless software they include because they're getting a cut from the developer (i.e. Alienware's "No Bloatware" promotion, not sure if they still do it). Those can turn into selling points if the customer is semi-computer literate.
Offering to set up striping or mirroring can be a selling point, but a raid-capable southbridge usually adds a few bucks to the cost of the motherboard, so that can go either way. And the performance improvement from striping isn't nearly as good as the numbers say it should be, while mirroring doesn't necessarily protect against a SB failure.
A Modest Proposal for MMORPGs:
That the means of progression would not be mutually exclusive from the means of enjoyment.
This is not directed towards you, but more towards the statement in general. You see similar comments alot in these types of threads. It's false information. The most important thing for a gaming machine is BALANCE. If you cannot afford the CPU to go with the video card then don't buy the video card. You'll fool yourself into expecting more from your machine than what it is capable of delivering. A gaming machine is only as good as its worst part.
I imagine the person who makes this statement is also the person who buys two of the most powerful video cards on the market and a cheap PSU to power them.
Exactly how powerful a CPU are you suggesting is needed here?
Sure, I wouldn't try running 5870s on a single-core Celeron, but honestly, games bottleneck on GPU much more easily than on CPUs. In fact, I can think of few games that would significantly benefit from anything much more powerful than a 45nm C2D. Anyone spending nearly as much on a CPU as their GPU setup is simply robbing themselves of gaming performance.
Take the Athlon II series compared to the Core I5s, so example.
Compared to the $200 I5, the sub $100 Athlon II X4 620, as shown here, achieves literally the exact same level of performance in Crysis at high resolutions, and even moderate resolutions. Even at a low resolution like 1280x1024, where CPU bottlenecking comes into play (a resolution no gamer will ever actually be using these days), the difference was a few frame per second. In Brothers in Arms, Hell's Highway, the Athlon II X4 is just a few frames per second shy of the Core I5 that costs double the amount at high resolution, and by the time you step up to the barely-more-expensive Phenom II X3 720 (OEM versions are $100 on Newegg, so retail's what, $115 maybe?), the gap again completely closes.
That test was with an overclocked GTX280, a fairly power card, even by today's standards. The $100 saved getting the Athlon II X4 620 would buy a lot more in graphics performance than dumping into that more expensive CPU. It's also important to keep in mind that BIA:HH is a DX9 title, and DX9 has more CPU overhead for rendering than DX10 does.
The difference between something like a $200 I5 or Phenom II X4 (which I consider reasonable gaming CPUs at this point), and the Core I7, even the $900+ I7 975, is even smaller. In fact, I would go as far as to say that it's nonexistent. Examine the review page here, the small section titled "GPU-bound gaming". Again, using Crysis, it's shown that once you really start stressing the GPUs, the CPU makes no difference at all. Their gaming tests a little ways down, here, illustrate the point even futher, as only Farcry 2 shows any difference, whatsoever, and that difference actually has nothing to do with performance past the $200 mark, rather Farcry 2 just hates AMD CPUs for some odd reason (only title I know of that does that). The difference, even in FC2, between the I5-750, and the I7-975, is still non-existent.
To conclude, I'd say there are worthwhile, if small differences between the absolute chepeast CPUs (the sub $100 guys), and mroe expensive models, but really, there's nothing out there that's going to saturate a CPU past about the $200 mark in terms of gaming, even with a powerful GPU setup. CPUs are just so ridiculously powerful, and demand for GPU power has outgrown demand for CPU power so much, that even at the level of something like a 5870 (or a pair of them?), dealing with rendering overhead for the CPU with a high-end GPU, there's just no difference, whatsoever. In fact, almost every benchmark I read uses a significantly faster CPU than mine (I use a Phenom II x4 965, they use Core I7s), and shows no difference between my dual 5770s, and what they acheive with the same cards (or a 5870, which is equivalent), on the rare occasion I've had reason to run their tests and compare (as I recently did with the AvP DX11 benchmark, with my system keeping up frame-for-frame with theirs).
You aren't really wrong, but I've had some experiences that tell me this isn't always true.
For example, I recently went from an Opteron 175 with an 8800gt to an I7 920 with an 8800gt and the performance is uncomparable. The Opteron would have been in line with the nvidia 7 series, so it was only one generation behind the 8800gt. But how far behind the i7 is the 8800gt? Two or three generations I believe? I have no problem running any of my games on max settings with a little bit of AA.
If I hadn't lost part of my PC budget then I would have aimed for one of the cheaper cards in the Nvidia 200 series. My ego tells me I still need a new GPU, but I have a hard time justifying to the wife $250-$350 for a few points of AA.
Honestly, I did jump the gun a bit on this topic, and treated it more like a "Go all out on a GPU and skimp on the rest" type thing. I just had an arguement with someone at work that was saying this so I was still heated up.
There is definitely something to what you're saying. CPU's are important in gaming, even in DX10 where the rendering overhead is really reduced vs DX9 (and it really is; I did a number of tests myself showing notable differences on an Athlon 64 single core and a G80 8800GTS 320mb).
Part of it is the fact that a few games really just love CPU power. World in Conflict gets easily CPU bound if you're not at least running something like a good Phenom II or an I5. Supreme Commander, while older, gets even more ridiculous sometimes. Every game does show some difference though. Athlon II X2 reviews, for instance, show that those chips just don't cut it for serious gaming.
I guess you might say that all I'm saying is that CPUs are important (I agree with you there, don't completely ignore it), but I think that it's fair to say that CPUs hit the point of diminishing returns much faster than GPUs. Even sometimes like a 5970 isn't going to cause a system bottleneck a CPU most of the time, as long as it's reasonable. Like I said, I think for purely gaming machines, I5s and Phenom II X4s (in the $200 range) are about what people should be shooting for at the moment. If you're running a an older Core 2 though, I really think that's still enough as well, as long as it's one of the 45nm chips. I think something like an E6600/Q6600 is probably a little weak these days, but an E8400 is still a fine CPU.