What's more important for games CPU or GPU?

Question

Is it better to spend more money on a good CPU or should i get a cheaper CPU and get a better video card. I want this computer mostly for playing games. i have a $1000 budget.

Answer 1

get the best in both. if you are on a budget, i say go the better CPU, and get a good video card later. go to Wal-Mart for the video card. last week, they had an ATI graphics card with 256 MB for only $98. not a bad price at all.

Answer 2

It would be better to get a computer beacause the video you try to get may not work for certain pc's. If you get a new computer, it will most likely have a card that will play most to all games. Now, you said you had a 1000 budget? Thats excelent! you can get a new laptop and it'll play games too beacuse most lew laptops can play games just as good as a pc. $500-800 should be the price for a new Pc or notebook.

Answer 3

You can get a solid CPU that exceeds the minimum specs for most games at a very reasonable price. For solid game play get a minimum of a GIG of RAM and the best video card you can afford in your 1000 budget. One item that shouldn't be ignored is your power supply, if your power supply is weak your graphics card will draw too many watts and problems will occur.

Building a system for me the order of importance is

Motherboard
Case/Power Supply
Vid card
Ram
CPU
HD
OS

Answer 4

Get a cheap 2.4GHz+ processor from AMD or Intel, if Intel get one with HT. RAM is very important too, speed and capacity, hence all information gets sent through your RAM before your processor. Also a high FSB is needed else it will just bottleneck too. Then it comes to your GPU/video card, get a nvidia 7 series. I recommend the 7900gt from xfx factory oc'd.. 24 pixel pipe lines FTW!

First guy doesn't know what he is talking about, because if the CPU is too slow to process all the information sent to it from memory from the GPU, then it will completely slow down any performance being pumped out from the vid card

Answer 5

Deffinately GPU. That is unless your CPU completely can't keep up with it. Your computer will only be as powerful as its weekest link.

A subpar CPU with the top of the line GPU will outdo a subpar GPU with a top of the line CPU any day of the week. That doesn't mean you want to run a pentium 2 with an geforce 8800. Balance it out as well as you can in your budget.

Answer 6

Yes.. both. You can spend up to $1200 for a dual video card setup but your money would be better spent like so:

$275 video card
$100 decent motherboard - Biostar, ASUS, Abit, MSI, Gigabyte, DFI
$275 2G of name brand memory - Corsair, Mushkin, OCZ
$350 decent speed CPU
$100 HD
$100 Case & power supply
$100 Windows XP
$100 CD/DVD drive & miscellaneous
-------
$1400 total

Oops. It seems you can't build a good system for less than $1400.

Answer 7

There should be an equal balance. For a CPU, I'd recommend Intel's Core 2 Duo, because it is kicking AMD's *** right now. For a GPU, nVidia's GeForce 7950 or ATI's Radeon x1--- series. You can probably get CPU and graphics card for under 500 USD.

Answer 8

nicely what's significant in a stable GPU is the memory Clock , Shader Clock , engine clock , pixel fee , Pixel shader v 3.0 or larger and vertex shader 2.0 or extra constructive . in case you do no longer waht to spend lots funds , you shud choose for the nvidia 9800 GT 512 MB . dont choose for a million gb because it supplies precisely comparable overall performance as a 512 mb .

Answer 9

Get a Desktop That has P4 or PD at lest 3.0Ghz 1 GB ram. Get it from Dell its Cheap. $599
Then get an Nvidia GeForce 7800. Thats around $299.

Thats about $1,000 with a very fast CPU and a very Nice graphic Card.