Can Legacy Dual-Core CPUs Drive Modern Graphics Cards? 159
MojoKid writes "A few weeks back, we discussed whether a new GPU like the GeForce GTX 660 could breathe new life into an older quad-core gaming system built in mid 2008. The answer concluded was definitely yes — but many readers asked to reconsider the question, this time using a lower-end dual-core Core 2 Duo. The Core 2 Duo CPU chip used was a first-generation C2D part based on Intel's 65nm Conroe core. It's clocked at 3GHz with 4MB of L2 cache and has a 1333MHz FSB. The CPU was paired with 3GB of DDR2-1066 memory. The long and short of it is, you can upgrade the graphics card on a six year-old dual core machine and expect to see a noticeable improvement in game performance — significant gains in fact, up to 50 percent or more."
Re:Yes of course (Score:5, Insightful)
It doesn't work like this though. Even if you take the 50% performance increase on face value (not taking into account higher AA/ASF/Shaders) that would mean a game running at 15fps would increase to 23fps. Not exactly much of an increase. Even if you were getting 30fps on the GTX 260, that's an increase of 15fps (which is what the tests essentially saw), hardly worth $300.
Meanwhile, if you spent the money on CPU/MBD/RAM & a mid range graphics card (say a GTX 480 at around $150), you'd see actual performance increases of around 3.5x that of sticking a GTX 660 on a crap motherboard with a crap processor.
Sure, if you had every intention of upgrading the rest of the components, the graphics card is going to be the easiest to swap out, but you're still going to need to upgrade the CPU/MBD/RAM.
The article hides the fact that the increase of a GTX 260 vs GTX 660 card in a modern system would be a ~400% increase in performance. Not sure what they're trying to prove, but to me it proves they know nothing about hardware, gaming or value for money.