The CPU GPU relationship in the context of performance in PC games... To upgrade my CPU or not?

Hello everyone.





NOTE: My phenom ii x2 555 BE cannot unlock stably under any voltage, already tried, currently running it slightly overclocked at 3.5ghz.





I recently upgraded from a Radeon 5670 to a shiny new GTX 560 Ti and have seen absolutely huge performance improvements in games (as I should have). In fact as it stands I can run anything I've tried at 1920x1080 on the highest settings (Dawn of War 2, The Witcher, Dragon Age Origins, Dead Rising 2 among others). Many of these titles aren't brand new and with many releases this year on the way that I'm looking forward to such as Dragon Age 2, Mass Effect 3, The Witcher 2, Dawn of War 2 Retribution, Deus Ex Human Revolution and Metal Gear Rising, I'm wondering if my wee Phenom ii x2 555 BE is going to cut it? As far as most of the released system requirements go I'm above minimum, but with my recent taste for higher res and better textures I'd hate to have to dial them down in future.





How much weight does the cpu bear when you are gaming at higher resolutions on higher settings? Will an upgrade to a Phenom ii x4 970 or one of the faster x6s blow my socks off? Will it be that noticeable? Will I be that much better off for the next 12 months?





Being objective here, repeat objective (yes you intel fanboys, provide evidence (links to benchmarks preferably) before you rain praise or scorch amd cpus) would I see much further improvement with an i5 760 say?





I'm happy with my performance as it stands, I get 40 plus frames in everything I run (sits on v-sync 60 90% of the time) so that's decent enough, smooth enough where I don't notice. I'm just wondering if I will be safe with this years releases or should be considering an upgrade...





What do you folk think?|||have been monitoring your CPU? i would start with that. while you're in a game see if you are running between 90-100%, if you are then a new cpu would help, but a 3.5 x2 isnt exactly a slouch ya know?|||I think you could go for a quad core upgrade at some point. Your cpu is the weak link now, but it still ain't no slouch.|||well, it depends on the game itself. some games use some more CPU processing than others. upgrading to a quad or six core CPU will definitely give a very noticeable performance boost not only in games but heavy apps as well.





i suggest getting the x6 amd than the i5. it's faster and cheaper.