Graphics Card, Processor or RAM?
Which is better for good gaming?
- Graphics card
- Processor
- RAM
Will only buying a very good expensive GPU (Graphics Card) ensure a good gaming experience? Friends say that you dont need to buy a new processor, a good graphics card is enough.
I like surreal 3D games most.
I have one 1GB DDR2 RAM and 2.0GHz Dual Core Processor, 7200 RPM sata Hard disk.
Whilst many people will tell you that a graphics card is the most important component for gaming, it is not strictly true. The truth is that the balance of components is the most important.
In your case, anything but a modest graphics card will be overkill for your system. Even if you had a top of the range graphics card, you wouldn't get much out of it, because you are severely limited by 1GB of (relatively slow) RAM.
Should you upgrade your memory, your CPU will become the limiting factor - and in certain games, the CPU will prove even more of a bottleneck than your RAM.
A single 7200rpm SATA drive isn't particularly speedy either, but you are some way off it becoming a limiting factor. Faster HDDs will enable you to load levels faster, but have far less impact on frame-rates and graphical quality.
However, in a system where all components are of a similar generation, the first component to upgrade would be your graphics card. As a rule of thumb, I might suggest you keep your components within one generation of each other.
Your PC would be regarded as obsolete, but that isn't necessarily a reason to write it off. What is does mean is that buying a gfx card one generation ahead of your current one, doubling (or perhaps even quadrupling) your RAM and upgrading your CPU by one generation would be cheaper and would yield a far greater improvement than buying a latest-gen gfx card.
Usually the graphics card is the most important part, but there are some very CPU-intensive games out there. Very important is the resolution you're playing at, the higher the resolution the better the graphics card should be. You don't need a very expensive card to play at medium to high settings at a moderate resolution.
With a 2GHz dual-core it probably does not make any sense to put a high-end graphics card into it, but combined with a midrange card it should be enough for most games.
RAM is only limiting if you have not enough and the OS is forced to page out parts of your game to the hard drive. About 2-4 GB are recommended for current games, more will most likely not improve the performance significantly. Your 1GB are not enough for most current games, if you upgrade anything you'll have to upgrade the RAM as well.