Solved What role does my CPU play in gaming?

RBunning

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Hello-

I have a question regarding PC gaming, since I realy dont know as much as I would like to. :)
My question is what role does my CPU play in gaming? Is it a big thing? I always thought that having a strong, powerful graphics card was more important that a powerful CPU. Is there a particular thing that the CPU does in PC gaming that makes having a strong one essential?
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Gateway SX (SX2110G-UW23
    CPU
    AMD E1 1500
    Memory
    6Gb
    Graphics Card(s)
    Galaxy NVIDA GEForce GT620
    Hard Drives
    500 GB
    Browser
    Google Chrome
    Antivirus
    AVG free
Your CPU is vitally important and is the landstick by which you would get power out of any graphics card. A strong CPU will get the most out of the graphics card whereas a weak one won't be able to process the images fast enough to make however powerful a card you have worth its cost. CPU>Graphics Card in gaming. The graphics card is still important but a weaker processor will cripple the overall capacity of your graphics card, however flashy.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 10 64-bit/ Windows 8.1 64-bit
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Desktop: Allison Designs by Austin Computers / Laptop: Toshiba Satellite L50-A006
    CPU
    Intel Core i5- 4590/ Intel Core i5 processor 4200U
    Motherboard
    Gigabyte H97M-D3H/ ?
    Memory
    16 GB Kingston at 1600 Mhz/ 4GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    Gigabyte Geforce GTX 760 OC Windforce (2 GB/256-bit)/ nVIDIA GeForce GT 740M 2GB
    Sound Card
    Onboard Audio'
    Monitor(s) Displays
    AOC 2216Vw 22"/ 15.6" Widescreen HD LED Backlit Display
    Screen Resolution
    1680*1050 / 1366*768
    Hard Drives
    2 TB Western Digital Black Caviar Drive (7200 RPM)/ 750GB (5400rpm) with Toshiba HDD Accelerator
    PSU
    Coolermaster 750W VS Series 80+ Gold Power Supply (Desktop Only)
    Case
    Corsair Carbide SPEC-02 Mid Tower Gaming Case (Desktop Only)
    Cooling
    Two Case 120 mm fans and GPU, CPU, PSU cooled by own fans respectively. (Desktop Only)
    Keyboard
    Microsoft Wired Keyboard Desktop 600 (Desktop Only)
    Mouse
    Microsoft Wired Mouse 600/ Toshiba Touchpad and Logitech Mouse
    Browser
    Internet Explorer and Google Chrome
    Antivirus
    Norton 360 by Symantec
Different games use CPU differently, some need more and some less. The best way to see where you have a bottleneck is to monitor your CPU and GPU usage while playing a particular game, if it overloads all the cores you'll know what to do. You can also look for Minimum and Optimal requirements for particular games and see if you have enough CPU and GPU power.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1 Pro
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Home made
    CPU
    AMD Ryzen7 2700x
    Motherboard
    Asus Prime x470 Pro
    Memory
    16GB Kingston 3600
    Graphics Card(s)
    Asus strix 570 OC 4gb
    Hard Drives
    Samsung 960 evo 250GB
    Silicon Power V70 240GB SSD
    WD 1 TB Blue
    WD 2 TB Blue
    Bunch of backup HDDs.
    PSU
    Sharkoon, Silent Storm 660W
    Case
    Raidmax
    Cooling
    CCM Nepton 140xl
    Internet Speed
    40/2 Mbps
    Browser
    Firefox
    Antivirus
    WD
The cpu makes the calculations on what is going on, it also processes what the gpu is "drawing" and puts it in to use. Example: an FPS game, the CPU tells the GPU the positions of things, what the environment is and such, then the gpu does its rendering and sends it to the monitor and back to the cpu. Hence a strong cpu makes calculations faster, so the card does its stuff faster etc
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1 64 Bit
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Me
    CPU
    AMD Bulldozer FX-8 8350 Black Edition @ 4.5GHz
    Motherboard
    Asus Crosshair V Formula 990FX
    Memory
    Corsair Vengeance 16GB DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz
    Graphics Card(s)
    Gigabyte ATi R9 280X Windforce OC
    Sound Card
    Sound Blaster X-Fi 2 MB
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Samsung Syncmaster SA350 22" LED HDMI
    Screen Resolution
    1920x1080
    Hard Drives
    Seagate Barracuda SATA II 500GB 16MB Cache 7200.12
    PSU
    Corsair Professional Series Gold AX1200 (1200Watts)
    Case
    Antec 1200 Ultimate Gaming Case
    Cooling
    Antec Kúhler H2O 620 CPU Watercooler
    Keyboard
    Logitech G510
    Mouse
    Corsair Vengeance M65
    Internet Speed
    Upto 40Mb/s Fibre Optic Broadband
    Browser
    Google Chrome
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender
CPU also handles AI for the game and that can take a lot of computing to do.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1 Pro
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Home made
    CPU
    AMD Ryzen7 2700x
    Motherboard
    Asus Prime x470 Pro
    Memory
    16GB Kingston 3600
    Graphics Card(s)
    Asus strix 570 OC 4gb
    Hard Drives
    Samsung 960 evo 250GB
    Silicon Power V70 240GB SSD
    WD 1 TB Blue
    WD 2 TB Blue
    Bunch of backup HDDs.
    PSU
    Sharkoon, Silent Storm 660W
    Case
    Raidmax
    Cooling
    CCM Nepton 140xl
    Internet Speed
    40/2 Mbps
    Browser
    Firefox
    Antivirus
    WD
The role in gaming? Everything. Everything your computer does goes through the CPU.

Some games do utilize more CPU than others though. For example, Source engine games are heavily dependent on CPU.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1 x64
    Computer type
    Laptop
Well not exactly everything, a lot of calculations are left to GPU. Actually GPU does so much calculations that it's used for "Mining Bitcoins" etc. Older video cards did not have a GPU (the processor itself) and were just signal converters. Modern GPUs have more transistors and processing power than CPUs. Technically GPU (even as some refer to whole video card ) is just a part of it, it's a highly specialized processor on the video card (Adapter).
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1 Pro
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Home made
    CPU
    AMD Ryzen7 2700x
    Motherboard
    Asus Prime x470 Pro
    Memory
    16GB Kingston 3600
    Graphics Card(s)
    Asus strix 570 OC 4gb
    Hard Drives
    Samsung 960 evo 250GB
    Silicon Power V70 240GB SSD
    WD 1 TB Blue
    WD 2 TB Blue
    Bunch of backup HDDs.
    PSU
    Sharkoon, Silent Storm 660W
    Case
    Raidmax
    Cooling
    CCM Nepton 140xl
    Internet Speed
    40/2 Mbps
    Browser
    Firefox
    Antivirus
    WD
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