What's the best kind of gaming processor?

[Dick Kickem]

So I've had my computer for a while, and I enjoy it very much, except that it can't run certain games. I know it's not my graphics card, and I know it's not that my computer is slow (it's pretty fast.) I have an AMD FX(tm)-6100 Six-Core Processor 3.30 GHz
I know that it's six core and all, but I've heard that a four core is best for games. If it is, which four core processor would you recommend at a decent price that I can find somewhere like Best Buy or Frys? Thanks!

[Wayne Balou]

...

[Dick Kickem]

Publicado originalmente por BDK:

That processor is fine and dandy. How about posting your graphics card?

AMD Radeon HD 7450. According to all of the games I play I can run them in the highest graphics so.

[King Of Essex]

An I5 is fine for gaming. There is no need for an I7 if all you're doing is gaming. The I7 comes with hyperthreading and more L3 cache two things that most games really don't make use off. So you would be paying for extra stuff that games makes use of. I would go with an I5 2500k especially if you plan on overclocking. The new Ivy Bridges only gives a 10-15% performance increase with better graphics. The better graphics aren't going to matter because you're using a dedicated video card. Ivy Bridges also runs hotter than the older Sandy Bridges especially when overclocked. IMO it's not worth it.


If you're wondering why, there are a number of trends at work. Firstly, AMD's position is pretty precarious. but AMD is truly teetering on the edge of oblivion. Then there's the market's obsession with all things ultra-mobile and the technological trend towards greater feature integration that entails.

Very likely, it won't be long before you can't buy a drop-in CPU. They'll come soldered onto motherboards. So while we've a few complaints about the current state of play in CPUs, there's a chance we'll soon be looking back on this as a golden age in terms of choice and flexibility. So get out there and revel in it, we say.

To really push your modern midrange/high-end graphics cards you need to up the resolution and, sadly, the 30-inch panels of the last five years - with their 2,560 x 1,600 resolutions - are still at the top of the tech tree, knocking around the £1,000 mark. There are 27-inch screens with the 16:9 res of 2,560 x 1,440, and these are probably your best bet for high-res gaming on a relatively sensible budget.

The next step up is to strap a bunch of screens together in some sort of widescreen surround setup. We're talking about resolutions of around 5,880 x 1,080 when you're linking up three 1080p screens in landscape mode with bezel correction. And with those extra pixels filling up your eyes you may actually need a second GPU just to cope with it all.

I can go on but my fingers are hurting my keyboard keys

[Dick Kickem]

Publicado originalmente por BDK:

Publicado originalmente por {RMS}Risrert:

AMD Radeon HD 7450. According to all of the games I play I can run them in the highest graphics so.

Well your cpu is fine, your graphics card is on the weak side of things for sure, but I don't understand why you wanna downgrade to a quad core when your rig is fast and playing your games just fine?

I was thinking that was it because I had heard quad core is better for gaming (now I know it's not) since I can't run games like GTA IV, SR3, and Infestation: Survivor Stories without serious lag. So it's my graphics card then, becuase when I put the games into the auto graphics setting, it said they could run at the highest.

[Dick Kickem]

Publicado originalmente por BDK:

For that processor (and those games) I wouldn't go lower than a Radeon 7850 to be completely honest. It'll be a gigantic upgrade compared to the 7450, you can bet on it. Just make sure your power supply isn't crap and can actually handle powering such a graphics card.

Btw here's a chart where you can see it's score relevant to other cards
http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu.php?gpu=Radeon+HD+7450

Thanks a lot man :D