Everything we said in our previous article called
Contemporary CPUs and New Games: No Way to Delusions! was absolutely right. It is true:
you don’t need a high-end processor for real gaming with realistic settings and high image quality. The gaming performance will still be limited by the graphics card. The recommended system requirements mentioned by all the game developers are absolutely correct. Do not be surprised that the game developers mention Pentium 4 3GHz+ and Athlon 64 2GHz+ processors as the minimum suitable CPUs for comfortable gameplay, even though today we can get 3.8GHz Intel CPUs and 2.8GHz AMD CPUs easily.
It is true that faster CPUs than those mentioned in the minimum system requirements do not really stimulate and significant fps rate increase. So, the slower processors models from the Pentium 4 and Athlon 64 processor families can cope easily with the latest generation 3D shooters. So, if you already have one of those CPUs in your home system, then you shouldn’t worry about upgrading them for your gaming needs.
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So, the best gaming system configuration from the price-to-performance point of view should definitely include a powerful graphics card, which will determine not only the image quality, but the gaming comfort in general.
As for the CPU, you shouldn’t spend tons of money for a high-end model. You will be able to get almost the same performance from a CPU like Athlon 64 3200+ or Pentium 4 650.