Voting poll: Do you think that the CPU is more important than the GPU? Say yours

[Mario.]

I think the 5 options above should covere every one of you, computer users. There is a maximum of 3 votes per user, so you can express your needs for all your computers or your job.

[aznstriker92]

Graphics FTW!!
Then we won't have to spend extra money and we'll get greattttt gaming performance!!

[Mario.]

Graphics FTW!!
Then we won't have to spend extra money and we'll get greattttt gaming performance!!

Well, you don't really play Supreme Commander, do you?
There is a reason why maximum number of units in Supreme Commander is so limited (choices are 250,500,1000 units) - when are only four players playing, the game performance drops drastically with every new unit and with every command. On old 1.6GHz Sempron I had some 500-800 units in a game mod which is played on a chequered field, after issuing commands to move... the reaction time was so slow that I lost the game. Some units took as long as few minutes to calculate their paths and go...

In regular game it is also noticeable that the more units you have the slower they respond to your input. And their proper response to what you command is the key to victory.

[Mario.]

Okay, so Intel and NVidia managers got to resolve their dispute whether GPU or CPU is the better computer part.
So, they managed to sit behind the computers with Intel managers equipped with the lastest Core2Quad Extreme, a 45nm, 4GHz processors, and NVidia managers had in their computers the very latest graphic card - a GeForce 9800GTX.

The game to be played is Supreme Commander Forged Alliance, on 80x80km map ... both computers have expensive mainboards, 1kW power sources and 4GB of RAM.

The battle is about to begin any moment now.

I forgot to mention one more rule: The nVidia team has no CPUs and the Intel doesn't have a GPU. Well, all computers are lacking monitors too, they were rather useless, that is.

[Nele]

If you ask me, both sides are acting like a bunch of capricious kids, running around, yelling, beating each other silly and spreading the sour smell of FUD all over the place.

I can understand Intel (to some extent), but Nvidia ?! What the hell were they thinking ? At least Intel has some "graphics" of its own (IGPs and a discrete solution on the way), but what does Nvidia have on to hope for on the CPU side ?

For my line of work, the CPU is much more important (3D, video). Not to dismiss the relevance of graphics in the equation, but you just can't compare the two. What about the "silent majority", people who don't play games, or better yet people who don't do anything demanding on their machines ? An Intel IGP is great as far as they're concerned. Not sure they would enjoy working on a machine with no CPU and a 9800GX2 though...

[manwe]

If you ask me, both sides are acting like a bunch of capricious kids, running around, yelling, beating each other silly and spreading the sour smell of FUD all over the place.

I can understand Intel (to some extent), but Nvidia ?! What the hell were they thinking ? At least Intel has some "graphics" of its own (IGPs and a discrete solution on the way), but what does Nvidia have on to hope for on the CPU side ?

For my line of work, the CPU is much more important (3D, video). Not to dismiss the relevance of graphics in the equation, but you just can't compare the two. What about the "silent majority", people who don't play games, or better yet people who don't do anything demanding on their machines ? An Intel IGP is great as far as they're concerned. Not sure they would enjoy working on a machine with no CPU and a 9800GX2 though...

you're getting it wrong , i were a nVIDIA fan since my old and beloved TNT till the 7th series of Geforce i didn't liked they're marketing startegy and rebranding and so on so i left nvidia camp for ATI lol, but i like the nVIDIA point of view , what nVIDIA says is quite logical ,if you go from an Intel E8500 to 2 * QX9770 which will cost you about 15 times more , you won't even gain twice the performance in games , but if you go from an Intel G33 to even the cheapest nVIDIA or ATI graphics which is 8400 GS/ 2400 pro you'll end up paying three times the money and gaining at least 5 times in performance it's quite logical , the price of CPU's doesn't scale logically , there shouldn't be so much differ in price of two identical processor with difference in just i don't know 333 MHz clock pulse , for instance the differ between Q6600 and QX6800 , for 600 MHz you have to pay four times the price , and gain less than 25% boost in speed , in graphics card market it's not like that , you pay 130 $ for 9600, when you're paying about 250-60 $ for 8800 GTS you'll pay about 200% the price but at least you're gaining 50% more performance , i believe those Extreme edition processors are bullshit !!! , i remember the nice days of gold fingers , intel FCPGA Celerons AMD thunderbirds , XP's and even mighty Opteron 144 ,146 processors , ATI X800 Pro and so on , those days were days of overclocking not now , the terms of overclocking was to buy cheap components and squeeze them as much as you can , now a days they're just telling you , common buy this CPU for 3 times of the price that it worth , we've underclocked it !!!
you can increase the clock speed by just clicking on a button on you're mouse , no skill required , all you need is just to buy a book which is called overclocking for dummies !!!!
you can overclock this processor at least by one gigahertz !!! , you've got the money , so common !!!
at least nVIDIA/DAAMIT are not underclocking their own GPGPU's more over i was just reading this article :" http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/36436/118/1/1/ " and Sweeney just mentioned some interesting idea's (i don't remember in which part) , he predicted that we might someday see a running linux kernel on NVIDIA GPU .
there are two things which i don't understand: the first is why nVIDIA's losing it's value while it have launched so many successful products lately , and secondly , why DAAMIT's not backing up nVIDIA anymore .
anyhow , i believe nVIDIA's right , all Intel's doing is to put more transistors (in form of cache or more cores) on it's CPU's and call it innovation !!! while application's aren't ready for that sort of multi-threading they're  not improving IPC/Performance/GHz ratio at all , i believe that the future lies in hands of GPGPU , I hope Intel's wrong , just like it was wrong with netburst , and tried to prove to people that more GHz means more performance !!! i believe multi-core war will get an end soon !!!

[Nele]

you're getting it wrong , i were a nVIDIA fan since my old and beloved TNT till the 7th series of Geforce i didn't liked they're marketing startegy and rebranding and so on so i left nvidia camp for ATI lol, but i like the nVIDIA point of view , what nVIDIA says is quite logical ,if you go from an Intel E8500 to 2 * QX9770 which will cost you about 15 times more , you won't even gain twice the performance in games , but if you go from an Intel G33 to even the cheapest nVIDIA or ATI graphics which is 8400 GS/ 2400 pro you'll end up paying three times the money and gaining at least 5 times in performance it's quite logical , the price of CPU's doesn't scale logically , there shouldn't be so much differ in price of two identical processor with difference in just i don't know 333 MHz clock pulse , for instance the differ between Q6600 and QX6800 , for 600 MHz you have to pay four times the price , and gain less than 25% boost in speed , in graphics card market it's not like that , you pay 130 $ for 9600, when you're paying about 250-60 $ for 8800 GTS you'll pay about 200% the price but at least you're gaining 50% more performance , i believe those Extreme edition processors are bullshit !!! , i remember the nice days of gold fingers , intel FCPGA Celerons AMD thunderbirds , XP's and even mighty Opteron 144 ,146 processors , ATI X800 Pro and so on , those days were days of overclocking not now , the terms of overclocking was to buy cheap components and squeeze them as much as you can , now a days they're just telling you , common buy this CPU for 3 times of the price that it worth , we've underclocked it !!!
you can increase the clock speed by just clicking on a button on you're mouse , no skill required , all you need is just to buy a book which is called overclocking for dummies !!!!
you can overclock this processor at least by one gigahertz !!! , you've got the money , so common !!!
at least nVIDIA/DAAMIT are not underclocking their own GPGPU's more over i was just reading this article :" http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/36436/118/1/1/ " and Sweeney just mentioned some interesting idea's (i don't remember in which part) , he predicted that we might someday see a running linux kernel on NVIDIA GPU .

You're right, but Nvidia is risking too much and doesn't stand to gain much in a brawl with Intel. My point was, not enough people need discrete graphics nowadays. A modern IGP is quite good for most people, and this wasn't the case back in the old days (Celerons, T-birds, XPs ). Nvidia is right about performance in games and games only, but only a fraction of the market is interested in gaming. What's worse, both the graphics guys have drastically lowered prices in the mid range, you can get a 38x0 or 9600GT for 100-120 euro and this is plain silly. Most casual gamers will do just fine with one of these cards, especially if they're using a small screen (14x9 or 12x10). It's not easy to sell 400+ euro products in such an environment, just take a look back at this time last year, (R600 and G80 pricing). On the CPU side it's even worse, it's just not easy to convince anyone to get a quad core instead of an E8400. A 100-150 euro CPU is more than enough for gaming and everyday work. Quad cores ? I do 3D, I need them, but I'm guessing most people just don't...

there are two things which i don't understand: the first is why nVIDIA's losing it's value while it have launched so many successful products lately , and secondly , why DAAMIT's not backing up nVIDIA anymore .
anyhow , i believe nVIDIA's right , all Intel's doing is to put more transistors (in form of cache or more cores) on it's CPU's and call it innovation !!! while application's aren't ready for that sort of multi-threading they're  not improving IPC/Performance/GHz ratio at all , i believe that the future lies in hands of GPGPU , I hope Intel's wrong , just like it was wrong with netburst , and tried to prove to people that more GHz means more performance !!! i believe multi-core war will get an end soon !!!

Nvidia is loosing its value along with the rest of the industry, but there's more to it than meets the eye. Analysts look for much more than just a series of successful products, and Nvidia had some setbacks as well (its chipset business for example). Then there's a million of other factors, financial stuff, P/E, long term forecasts, market mood, stuff like that. It's just not that simple to value a company, especially not on one series of successful products. Basically, the market realized Nvidia was overvalued last summer and that's about as simple as it gets.

And DAAMIT ? Well, looks to me like they're just standing on the sidelines, waiting for Intel and Nvidia to bash each other. It's a win-win situation for them no matter what happens in the end.