Powerful CPU + Good GPU vs Powerful GPU + Good CPU PC

[Fleetboy2024]

yes I know, balance is still the best..

but what if you only have this two choices

in terms of gaming

would you go with a weaker CPU stronger GPU, or strong CPU weak GPU?

I was told, its better to have a stronger CPU so that you GPU will be utilized more.....

instead of having a weak CPU, that means your GPU will have to wait for the CPU to process every time, which affects its performance by a lot

please correct me

 

[Fleetboy2024]

let me rephrase the question

I just want to know one thing, does the GPU utilized more (or works harder) if the CPU is weaker or if its stronger?

 

[Fleetboy2024]

nevermind

got the answer from google, thanks anyway

 

[Colif]

its really hard to find a balance. There will always be a bottleneck of some kind in the PC, remove one and something else is slow,

I generally think its better to have a good CPU over a GPU, mainly as you can normally upgrade the GPU later on far easier than you can swap CPU in most cases.

 

[Fleetboy2024]

its really hard to find a balance. There will always be a bottleneck of some kind in the PC, remove one and something else is slow,

I generally think its better to have a good CPU over a GPU, mainly as you can normally upgrade the GPU later on far easier than you can swap CPU in most cases.

thank you

 

[BeardyHat]

In one of my PCs I have an i7-7700 paired to a 6650XT. So a 2017 CPU paired to a 2022 GPU.

It's not amazing, but it works and runs most modern games at 60fps 1080p medium/high.

But I was and am just using what I have.

 

[Zloth]

Different games have a different balance. First person shooters don't need a lot of CPU power; it's mostly the GPU doing the work. However, X4: Foundations and real time strategy games that feature hundreds of units all trying to think for themselves will flip that balance on its head.

And, just to make things more fun, CPU power isn't easy to measure, either. Some games only have one or two threads doing the heavy lifting - in which case having half a dozen cores in the CPU doesn't help at all. Other games are better at spreading the load around.

 

[JCgames]

Just buy budget on both a 14600 cpu paired with a 5060 is going to run anything you throw at it for the next 6+ Years. While it might not be max graphics with ray tracing at 4k, you also doing it for under 1k a high end comp is going to cost you 3-4 grand. Sure it might look a shade nicer but is it 3k dollars nicer?

You could buy 40 games at launch for the money youd save.

Also, like the other guy said, what you are playing matters a bit, but not that much really. In 4 years you could upgrade your cpu and scavenge that card and play that system for another 4-5 years with a 500 dollar upgrade, that would be better than a top end cpu today.

Comp parts dont age well, but when done right even a budget system can last 5-6 years no problem. My current one isa 5 year old cpu and going on 9 year old gpu and im not going to upgrade for another generation, aka end of next year and it still plays current games at 1080p

Remember games are designed to run well on 5 year old systems. Most games even by the time they are released because they take so long to make often run better on older hardware as the new stuff has bugs to iron out and are optimized for that hardware, verse new stuff that the devs never even tested on as it didnt exist.

Not really an answer to your question, but more reality of tech that might help you decide what things are really worth.

All that said, a current game im playing i over clocked my cpu by 20% which is a pretty big OC, it didnt gain a single fps. So that game the gpu is way more imprtant that the cpu. Another game i play barely touches the gpu, but that oc really helps. So it becomes a big old, it depends what your playing, what resolution you want to play at and how much tiny graphic tweeks are worth to you.

 

[Charagma]

You can "out" adjust a bottleneck CPU with GPU settings. Pretty much just increase the GPU settings to work harder for the CPU to be able to "keep up" with the GPU. Having a constant FPS vs, a jumped FPS helps a lot already

I do not know if it is possible the other way round.

 

[JCgames]

You can "out" adjust a bottleneck CPU with GPU settings. Pretty much just increase the GPU settings to work harder for the CPU to be able to "keep up" with the GPU. Having a constant FPS vs, a jumped FPS helps a lot already

I do not know if it is possible the other way round.

The thing is, even in a single generation the cpu's wildly vary. The difference between a 14100 and 14600 and 14900 is massive.

But lets say you take a 5080 and pair it with each one, you are not going to get anywhere as large of a fps change with the large the difference in ghz..

Another important thing, is a comp with some bottlenecks can actually be better than one without one. A bottleneck is technically about efficiency not over all performance though it can effect overall performance.

A few years back you saw a lot more benchmarks with different cpu/gpu combos, but the days they are harder to find. Perhaps because there are so many cards. More often they just take the gpu and compare them all with the same cpu.

Still, the main thing you want to think about, does the combo you have work well for what you want to play. Thats all that really matters verse some virtual bottle neck that may or may not exist. Even if it does, the perfect pairing isnt going to really net ypu anything other than to say everything is working efficiently, which in the end doesnt mean much. Out side a wildly mismatched case, like running a brand new 5080 on a 15 year old comp you know?

In other words a bottleneck isnt really something you need to worry about and often maximizing things is talked about in the single digit % are not noticeble out side of monitoring software.

 

[Charagma]

The thing is, even in a single generation the cpu's wildly vary. The difference between a 14100 and 14600 and 14900 is massive.

But lets say you take a 5080 and pair it with each one, you are not going to get anywhere as large of a fps change with the large the difference in ghz..

Another important thing, is a comp with some bottlenecks can actually be better than one without one. A bottleneck is technically about efficiency not over all performance though it can effect overall performance.

A few years back you saw a lot more benchmarks with different cpu/gpu combos, but the days they are harder to find. Perhaps because there are so many cards. More often they just take the gpu and compare them all with the same cpu.

Still, the main thing you want to think about, does the combo you have work well for what you want to play. Thats all that really matters verse some virtual bottle neck that may or may not exist. Even if it does, the perfect pairing isnt going to really net ypu anything other than to say everything is working efficiently, which in the end doesnt mean much. Out side a wildly mismatched case, like running a brand new 5080 on a 15 year old comp you know?

In other words a bottleneck isnt really something you need to worry about and often maximizing things is talked about in the single digit % are not noticeble out side of monitoring software.

LMAO this is an English thread please respond appropriately..........aka I have no idea what you just said and would not even try to get into detail on that.

The CPU bottle necking is something I see fairly often. Because CPU's are so expensive here by us (Around ZAR15000), it is cheaper to just keep upgrading your GPU (around R8000) if you have the money (Also an expensive round but cheaper than CPU upgrading).

The data from the CPU to the GPU is now too slow for the GPU so you start getting stutters and lags simply because your GPU is waiting for your CPU to catch up or send the new data. When you change your settings on the GPU higher, you pretty much slow down your GPU by making it work harder giving your CPU time to get the data to the GPU in time. Sound counter intuitive but it works. You might not get a max FPS of 130FPS now, but you will get a constant say 50FPS with excellent graphic settings. Constant is better than having stutters and lags.

The rest of the things, I am sorry I have no idea about it. Just figured I would mention how we resolve CPU bottlenecks over here.

 

[Zed Clampet]

yes I know, balance is still the best..

but what if you only have this two choices

in terms of gaming

would you go with a weaker CPU stronger GPU, or strong CPU weak GPU?

I was told, its better to have a stronger CPU so that you GPU will be utilized more.....

instead of having a weak CPU, that means your GPU will have to wait for the CPU to process every time, which affects its performance by a lot

please correct me

No, no, no. @Colif is wrong. First of all, what we need to know is what model is the CPU? Actually we need to know all the relevant models, but there are plenty of older CPUs that are still fine for gaming, and the reality is that just about any recent CPU will be plenty

On the other hand, if your GPU is a 2060 or worse, then no matter what CPU you have, you will be unable to play many games.

The GPU should almost always take priority over the CPU when it comes to gaming. The CPU may bottleneck your GPU, but the GPU can basically just shut you down entirely.

But there really isn't a way to answer your question because we need to know what the possible models are.

And @Colif I'm ashamed of you You are effective immediately out of the Gods of PC Gaming Club.

 

[Zed Clampet]

This thread is officially going to give me nightmares tonight.

 

[Colif]

words
words
words

I use your words (lol) in reply

Op has been asking about the newest parts recently so I assumed he was asking about new parts, not ancient parts.

 

[Zed Clampet]

I use your words (lol) in reply

Op has been asking about the newest parts recently so I assumed he was asking about new parts, not ancient parts.

Even if he's asking about brand new parts, CPU is the wrong answer. Actually, I should say it's especially wrong if he's talking about new parts.

I don't know what he's doing. He was very vague, and that's my main problem with this. There is no rule of thumb that you can apply when you don't know what components he's talking about. And if there WERE a rule of thumb regarding gaming, it would be to go with a new GPU since that's the one games use the most. He says this:

in terms of gaming

would you go with a weaker CPU stronger GPU, or strong CPU weak GPU?

I was told, its better to have a stronger CPU so that you GPU will be utilized more.....

The idea that you want a CPU because that allows the GPU to be utilized more is only true if you were CPU bottlenecked. If you weren't, then getting a new CPU won't help you in games at all unless, possibly, you do what the Esports kiddos do and turn all the graphic options to "Terrible". But we have no idea where his bottleneck is because no one asked him.

Even if you are talking brand new equipment. An AMD 9800x3d won't help your 5060 beat a 5070ti so long as the 5070ti isn't paired with absolute garbage. It won't even help a 5070 beat a 5070ti except for in Cities Skylines 2.