GTS 250

[Nameite]

Medium settings is scraping through for a lot of gamers. I guess it depends what your standards are. Some are happy as long as they can play the game, others want minimum High throughout, others won't do anything less than Ultra @ 2560.

Yes, as long as its smooth for me, eye candy or not...I'm short sighted with heavy astigmatism...looks all the same to me

 

[shovenose]

If you play at 1080p you can whip up a system with a cheapo cpu and a decent gpu. Below that cpu power still plays bit of a role. That's how resolution can make a difference

 

[cerebus]

If you play at 1080p you can whip up a system with a cheapo cpu and a decent gpu. Below that cpu power still plays bit of a role. That's how resolution can make a difference

That's such an absurdly mistaken statement I don't even know where to begin...

 

[shovenose]

That's such an absurdly mistaken statement I don't even know where to begin...

lets begin at your so wrong or you wasted your money somewhere on a way to a E-PEEN rig.
You want proof?
http://www.guru3d.com/article/crysis-2-dx11-vga-and-cpu-performance-benchmarks/
http://www.guru3d.com/article/crysis-2-dx11-vga-and-cpu-performance-benchmarks/6

And I quote

Now 1920x1200 is the most preferred monitor resolution (next to to 1920x1080). Here's where the CPU starts to matter less and less, and where the GPU gets increasingly more important. The irony is always the same, bang for buck wise a cheapo CPU will get you the better deal. Hence for hefty gaming the graphics card is way more important then the processor.

Anything else you like to bs about?

 

[Nameite]

No, there are many games now that is CPU intensive though...

Just need to define cheapo cpu....cheapo as in an i5 sandbridge when compared to the i7 sandy bridge

Or cheapo like a Pentium D 925

Anyone here using a pentium D with SLI'ed GTX580

 

[shovenose]

No, there are many games now that is CPU intensive though...

Just need to define cheapo cpu....cheapo as in an i5 sandbridge when compared to the i7 sandy bridge

Or cheapo like a Pentium D 925

Anyone here using a pentium D with SLI'ed GTX580

Pentuim D? Can you still buy them new?
Cheapo =Amd X4 955
Intel I3 2100

You mean there is some bad ports thats cpu intensive.
Name them.
Then we can name the gpu intensive games and compare
Games are coming out in Dx 11 now. Which means extremely gpu intensive like BF3

A game optimize to use 4 cores doesnt mean its cpu intensive all it means its better optimized

The Phenom II X4 results were quite different to those recorded when testing with the Core i7 processors, though this was not necessarily a bad thing. When operating at lower clock speeds, the Phenom II X4 did not fair all that well, as we saw a sharp decline in performance. However when clocked at 3.0GHz and beyond, the Phenom II X4 really picked up the pace, and in many cases was able to outclass the Core i7.

In games such as Wolfenstein, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X, BattleForge and Far Cry 2 the Phenom II X4 processors were actually faster when clocked up near 4GHz! This is quite amazing as out of the 9 games tested, the Phenom II X4 series was faster than the Core i7’s in 5 of them. Although the margins were very limited, the Phenom II X4 was found to be faster, and had it just managed to match the Core i7 series with the Radeon HD 5970, we would have been impressed.

While the Phenom II X4 matched the Core i7 in Crysis Warhead, the only games where it failed was Company of Heroes Opposing Fronts, Left 4 Dead 2 and Batman Arkham Asylum. The Phenom II X4 was noticeably slower in these games, making the Core i7 the better choice here. Still, for the most part we found the Phenom II X4 to be every bit as good as the Core i7 processors when gaming with the new Radeon HD 5970.

http://www.legionhardware.com/articles_pages/cpu_scaling_with_the_radeon_hd_5970,24.html

Full article here
http://www.legionhardware.com/articles_pages/cpu_scaling_with_the_radeon_hd_5970,1.html

If you're rocking a 17" or 19" monitor and playing at 1680x1050, we're pleased to report that any of these cards (even the aged Radeon HD 4870) can yield playable frame rates at Ultra quality settings. Whether or not your processor and memory can keep up is another matter entirely.

Thats below 1080p

The bottleneck up top dissolves as a higher resolution setting puts more pressure on our graphics cards. Everything down to the Radeon HD 6850 is plenty fast.

Thats on 1080p
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/world-of-warcraft-cataclysm-directx-11-performance,2793-3.html

 

[cerebus]

I've read the same benchmarks... But the point is that your framerates will only go up as you go lower in resolution, it's just that only the very lowest resolutions make the CPU component apparent.

So someone who wants to game at 1280 is obviously going to want to save money wherever possible, like having an old dual core pentium CPU and a 9800gt or such, and at that level CPU speed is going to be more apparent. But the same CPU/GPU combo will be totally unplayable at a higher resolution.

What you seem to be implying is that (random example) for a 2600k/580 combo only the 580 will matter at 1920, but the 2600k will show its speed at 1280.... but at the same speed framerates will be double from 1920, so it doesn't actually matter.

As for me and e-peen, I'm rocking an x4 940 thankyou

 

[SaiyanZ]

If you play at 1080p you can whip up a system with a cheapo cpu and a decent gpu. Below that cpu power still plays bit of a role. That's how resolution can make a difference

lol?

A higher resolution will always use more cpu power.
If you have a ****ty cpu it will bottleneck you at low resolutions and even more high resolutions. At high resolutions you won't notice the cpu bottleneck much if you also have a gpu bottleneck. The cpu bottleneck is still there though, just hidden.

 

[Nameite]

Pentuim D? Can you still buy them new?

Ummm yes, depends where you buy from, those crappy cpus didnt exactly sell like hotcakes,

If you really want to argue, check out this review of the new sandy bridge-e
You will notice for some games...the high end CPUs will have the same frame rate....and some will have lower frame rate.

And now that is because...there are still many games that are CPU-intensive....and would most probably be a bottkeneck at 1080p when compared to a high end CPU....