Does processors improve graphic cards?

[Urzuxo]

Hey!

So I'm looking at a whole bunch of HP computers to buy and I notice that all if them have the "Nvidia GTX 550 Ti 1GB" graphics card. A quick research online showed that it received mixed-slightly positive reviews and this got me thinking...

Why would they add this graphics card to a i7 3.4 Ghz $1500 computer? Does the awesome processor improve the graphics card? Or am I about to buy a PC with a weak graphics card that I'll have to replace soon?

Thanks!

[RAMailley]

Hey!

So I'm looking at a whole bunch of HP computers to buy and I notice that all if them have the "Nvidia GTX 550 Ti 1GB" graphics card. A quick research online showed that it received mixed-slightly positive reviews and this got me thinking...

Why would they add this graphics card to a i7 3.4 Ghz $1500 computer? Does the awesome processor improve the graphics card? Or am I about to buy a PC with a weak graphics card that I'll have to replace soon?

Thanks!

I don't recommend you buy from HP. I have never had a great experience with their products.

That being said, you shouldn't ask why they added the graphics card, but why do you want to buy it with that specific card? It sounds like you don't, or aren't sure you do.

The processor doesn't 'improve' graphics cards. Your GPU is your GPU, and your CPU is your CPU. Now, that being said, a GPU is often bottlenecked by the processor. But if you're just looking for a computer to play D3, I wouldn't worry too much about this. A GTX550 should have no real problems with D3. There are better cards. There are worse cards. For games, GPU is much more important than CPU, generally speaking. My laptop has a 460M in it, which I think is a little weaker than the 550, but not by much. The processor is a 1.3Ghz i5, much slower than that i7. I can run D3 on max at 1920x1080 without many issues. My only problem was with AA turned on, but that may be an optimization problem with D3.

[Tilitoon]

^ this

The 550 TI is not bad, but it's not in a good spot. For about the same price, you can either get a GTX 460 or a Radeon 6850 which will perform way better. So if you were to build your own custom PC, there is no way in hell I would recommend a 550 TI over the aforementioned video cards. In your case, it's not a big deal, if that PC suits your needs and you are ok with the price then go for it. You will still be fine playing DIII @ high setting.

[aerial]

550ti for its price is pretty bad, gtx460 is much better.
Also don't get i7 for d3, diablo can't use properly 4 cores, let alone hyper threading (that is feature of i7 processors). You will be more than fine with i5, for all games, not just d3.

[Urzuxo]

I don't recommend you buy from HP. I have never had a great experience with their products.

Yeah I wouldn't buy a HP either but they're the only computers with Beats Audio and that's really important to me.

As for the rest, thanks for your replies! It wasn't what I was hoping for but it's better to know the truth. I've got some serious thinking to do!

[jamesL]

I wouldn't buy these myself (I'd buy the parts and build it myself)
But if I had to choose between these and HP, I'd choose these

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883229283
Intel Core i7 2600K 3.4 GHz
8GB
Hard Drive 1TB
AMD Radeon HD 6850 1GB
Power Supply 600W

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883227382
Intel Core i7-2600K 3.4GHz
16GB
Hard Drive 1TB
Nvidia Geforce GTX 560 2GB
Power Supply 700W

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100006736%20600030537&IsNodeId=1&bop=And&Order=REVIEWS&PageSize=100
find more

[Curik]

550ti for its price is pretty bad, gtx460 is much better.
Also don't get i7 for d3, diablo can't use properly 4 cores, let alone hyper threading (that is feature of i7 processors). You will be more than fine with i5, for all games, not just d3.
Don't talk about stuff you have no clue about, there are plenty others who can do that. :thumbsdown:

Diablo III uses 4 cores just fine, and hyper threading is an old feature that has been on processors for the last 15 years.
FMOD (which D3 uses for Sound) uses up to 3 threads alone (streaming, mixing and DSP threads), and if you check your Task Manager you can see that D3 sometimes uses up to 9 threads at once. You're excused.

[Enlil]

Don't talk about stuff you have no clue about, there are plenty others who can do that. :thumbsdown:

Diablo III uses 4 cores just fine, and hyper threading is an old feature that has been on processors for the last 15 years.
FMOD (which D3 uses for Sound) uses up to 3 threads alone (streaming, mixing and DSP threads), and if you check your Task Manager you can see that D3 sometimes uses up to 9 threads at once. You're excused.

LOL owned him : )

[Urzuxo]

I wouldn't buy these myself (I'd buy the parts and build it myself)


Yeah that thought just crossed my mind and I'll probably end up doing that. So I can get exactly what I want. :)


Don't talk about stuff you have no clue about, there are plenty others who can do that. :thumbsdown:

Diablo III uses 4 cores just fine, and hyper threading is an old feature that has been on processors for the last 15 years.
FMOD (which D3 uses for Sound) uses up to 3 threads alone (streaming, mixing and DSP threads), and if you check your Task Manager you can see that D3 sometimes uses up to 9 threads at once. You're excused.

Thanks for the info! :)

[jamesL]

LOL owned him : )

not really

"You will be more than fine with i5, for all games, not just d3."

his statement is correct ^^

a Core i5-2500K is all you need to play D3 or any other game

this shows a comparison between the 2 processors on various games using the same graphics card and same settings

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4083/the-sandy-bridge-review-intel-core-i7-2600k-i5-2500k-core-i3-2100-tested/20

the i7 only gets 1-8 fps more per game than the i5
and sometimes the i5 gets more

the i7 is $300
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115071


the i5 is $220
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115072

$80 for 1-8 extra fps ?

and when you're already getting 78 fps, going up to 82 fps isn't going to be noticeable

it would be SO MUCH better to get the i5, take the $80 you save and spend it on a better graphics card