Processor vs graphic card

[Yukihira]

Does processor performance really matter in gaming?

If so, how?

[Syntaxvgm]

I made a great demo of this years ago 

 

[hconverse02]

Depends on the game, depends on the processor core count and clock speeds.  It depends. You can't ask a vague question and expect a simple answer.

[tikker]

In general you would want a balanced system. The graphics card's duty is, as its name implies, to render game visuals and deliver them to your screen. Game logic however and other things are handled by the CPU. So the better performance the CPU has, the more easily it can handle the game logic.

Having an extremely powerful CPU with a weak GPU will usually just limit the graphical fidelity of the game. Pairing an extremely weak CPU with a powerful GPU can leave the CPU not being able to keep up with the GPU. The graphics card is ready to draw the frames, but the CPU is still calculating what should be drawn where in the first place (e.g. positions of objects, a crosshair etc.).

Of course there is the case where some games require little CPU power, but a lot of GPU power and vice versa, and whether or not a game can utilize multiple CPU cores. So this is also heavily game dependent.

[MellowCream]

to a certain extent, yes it does, eventually you hit a point of diminishing returns, and dumping $1000 into a cpu for gaming is dumb.

 

your best fps per dollar is with something like a  Ryzen 5, or i5.

 

[Mira Yurizaki]

4 hours ago, Yukihira said:

Does processor performance really matter in gaming?

If so, how?

It does to a certain extent. The CPU has a lot of things to do, like handling inputs, calculating physics (unless that's offloaded to the GPU), calculating AI, processing audio (how much depends on what the sound chip is capable of as well), among other things. The thing is, all of these tasks must be done before sending the GPU something to do as the graphics is supposed to be a visual representation of the game state at that moment. So if the processor cannot complete all of this within say 1/30 of a second, then it can't send jobs to the GPU faster than that and so the performance is going to be at best, 30FPS.

 

Now determining the line where it can process the game stuff fast enough is up in the air. It depends on the game, the software supporting it, and the other hardware.

[andrewmp6]

Like said it comes down to which games you want to play if they use more cpu or more gpu.It can even come down to amd vs intel and nvidia vs amd gpus.Some games like one more over the other.Give up a list of games you want to play or own and we can help you better answer your question.