Whats more important no a days?

[Qeldroma]

GPU or CPU?

For example. Should I get a Pentium D805 water cooled and Oced to 4.0Ghz with a 7950GX2?

Or Should I get a Core 2 Duo E6300 and a 7600GT?


Simple question. 🙂 Thanks for the help.

 

[mkaibear]

it depends what you're doing with it.

 

[cafuddled]

Games will normally always run much faster with a GPU upgrade than it will with a CPU upgrade. But there is a point when a CPU upgrade will do more good than a GFX card would… But that at about the stage of 800MHz CPU with a X1950…

 

[SciFiMan]

He's right. Always buy the fastest CPU you can afford, as it will remain static for the life of the system most likely. And these days, buy a dual core, either AMD or Intel (Intel leads right now) because that's the trend. Then it depends on what you want to do with the system. You can hang in the mid-range price/performance for GPU's, and upgrade as needed once or maybe twice. Or buy a badass GPU first and maybe only upgrade once if at all for the life cycle of that PC. Depending on your computing needs of course.

 

[Qeldroma]

Ok ill give a little more background here. Im suppossed to get roughly $800 for xmas. I want to either upgrade my computer or build a whole new one. All I do is game, no multitasking, so I dont think I need a dual core unless it helps with gaming. %99 gaming Rig.

My specs now. Athlon XP1800+ 1.4Ghz, oced to 1.5Ghz.

768MB Pc 2700 Ram.

80 GB Ide Hard Drive.

Cd rom Burner.

Ati Radeon 9600 SE 128MB.

Allied 450Watt Psu.

Thermaltake Case that is falling apart, but could still be used.


So therefore I think building a whole new computer is best, But.......
I would like to get a new DX10 card as soon as it comes out. Because this is the only upgrade Im going to do for another at least year. So I want to get a system that will run everything now and at least a year into the future. For example I would like to run Crysis at at least decent graphics and 1024X768. I would also like to run NFS Most Wanted and Half Life 2 at Full Graphics highest resolution possible.

So for my money the best deal I have found so far is this.

Thermaltake watercooler. $60

Thermaltake GPU Cooler. $70

Pentium D805 $90

Asus Nforce 4 Sli Mobo $88 <---I just realized this may not be an asus.

Nvidia 7600GT $150

Dual Western Digital 3.0gbs 80 GB Hard drives $80

580Watt Modular Psu, Dual 12v rails $100

Thermal Take Case $80

Various Round Cables $10

OCZ Gold 1GB Ram $130

DVD Burner $30

Total Roughly $800. I lost my page on newegg.com so Im not 100% on the brands.


So what do you guys think? Would this run crysis at all in DX9 mode? I know it wont do DX10. Now what Im hoping is come x-mas time when the DX10 cards come out, CPU's and everything will drop in price so I can afford an 8800GT. :twisted:


So one last question, can I scrap the PSU, Hard Drives, Burner, Round Cables, case and GPU Water cooler and put that towards a better Video card? Will my allied 450 run a high end video card? Because I can like with the hard drive I have now and case. I guess.

 

[quantumsheep]

GPU or CPU?

For example. Should I get a Pentium D805 water cooled and Oced to 4.0Ghz with a 7950GX2?

Or Should I get a Core 2 Duo E6300 and a 7600GT?


Simple question. 🙂 Thanks for the help.

Thats a silly question cos a D805 with decent water cooling will cost around the same as an E6300. Notice the word DECENT. Cheap water cooling systems aren't worth the effort.

 

[Spiv]

Definitely get a Core 2 Duo. By Christmas, the Core 2 Quads will be out and the prices for the C2D will be lower. If you want the system to last a while, get 2GB of RAM. I still can't get over how fast everything is with 2GB.

Do you need a new harddrive? 80GB is fine for me, and I think unless you're doing lots of video stuff it's hard to fill 80GB. Your 450W power supply will be more than enough for a non-SLI/Crossfire system.

To your original question, CPU or GPU? Get a Core 2 Duo and 2GB of RAM and spend the rest on the video card. I am very satisfied with my x1900GT card ($200). Plays Half-life 2 everything maxed out, 1280x1024 silkly smooth. Oblivion has everything maxed at 1024x768 and runs adequately unless there are lots of people on the screen. By adequately I mean smooth inside dungeons and probably 15-25fps outside. But for that game you don't need smoothness like you do in a FPS.

Of course, if you like speed more than image quality, you can always turn down the graphics options. With the exception of Crysis, I don't think we'll see any games that truly take advantage of DX10 until at least 2008. We're just now seeing games that use all of the DX9 features.

 

[quantumsheep]

Of course, if you like speed more than image quality, you can always turn down the graphics options. With the exception of Crysis, I don't think we'll see any games that truly take advantage of DX10 until at least 2008. We're just now seeing games that use all of the DX9 features.

All the Crysis gameplay clips we have seen were running in DX9, and those graphics were phenomenal (forgive my spelling). The videos with DX10 didnt look too much different, just a few smoke effects etc. DX9 has barely even been fully exploited, in my opinion.

 

[1thewizard]

get the Core 2 DUO E6300 its fast when over clocked and only costs 180$ then get the X850 XT * some places under $130)

 

[SciPunk]

Get rid of all the exstra cooling. You only really need if if you plan to OC...

But isn't that the whole idea here? The origianl post says he wants to OC the D805 to 4GHz. As in this setup.

What's confusing me is that the OP is pairing up the OC'ed D805 w/ a 7950GX2, but later on we see that we're really talking about a 7600GT.

So if any money is to be saved on the older CPU, where is it going?

 

[akahuddy]

Keep your current PSU. Don't buy a SLI/Crossfire Mobo. Do buy a C2D. You can overclock it decently without all of the massive amounts of cooling that you're spending money on. You'll save money by buying just one 160GB HD instead of two 80GB drives.

I would keep an eye out on Ebay for good DX9 GPU's. Lot's of high end cards are being unloaded right now from folks who had to have 8800's.