We have conducted a series of tests to see what components are required to make a fast gaming computer.

We used 3Dmark06 (futuremark.com) which is a benchmark program designed to test how fast a computer can play games.

These tests all use the same Motherboard, a Gigabyte G31M-ES2L and a 9500GT graphics card in Vista Home Premium with all settings at default.

In the 1st test we used a Dual Core 2.5Ghz E5200 CPU with only 1 stick of 2gigs of RAM running in single channel mode.

In the 2nd test we increased the RAM to 2 sticks of 2Gigs each, in dual channel mode, a total of 4 gigs.

In the 3rd test, a Core 2 Duo 3.0Ghz E8400 CPU was used

In the 4th test a QUAD Core 2.83Ghz Q9550 was used.

As the above chart indicates, there is hardly an increase in speed at all by increasing the RAM from 2gigs single channel  to 4 gigs in dual channel .

The difference between gaming from using an E5200 with a 9500GT graphics card to a E8400 was a mere  2.6% and to a Q9550 was only another 3.1% increase in performance.

To upgrade this computer from a E5200 CPU with only 2 Gigs of RAM to a Quad Core Q9550 CPU with 4 gigs of RAM in dual channel resulted in less than a 7% increase in performance but a major increase in cost!

In the above tests, it is quite obvious that increasing the RAM and increasing the CPU power did very little to increase overall gaming performance.

So how do we increase gaming performance?

In the next series of tests, we went back to the E5200 2.5Ghz CPU and 4 gigs of RAM, but instead changed the graphics card from a 9500GT to a 9600GT to the 9800GT.

As is clearly shown, changing the graphics card makes a major difference!

The 9600GT gains an increase of an extra 120% in gaming performance while the 9800GT adds a further 16% in speed.

One more test...

And for the final comparison test we used the same 9600GT graphics card with the 3 different CPU's.  While there is an increase in performance, with the faster CPUs, the difference is only quite marginal.  Upgrading the CPU from an E5200 all the way up to the Q9550 resulted in an increase of only 14% in gaming performance.

SUMMARY & Final Words

Quite clearly, when purchasing a gaming computer, spend as much as you can on the graphics card before you spend big on the CPU. The graphics card does the majority of work during gaming and is the most important component in a gaming computer.

Soon to come.....  upgrading the motherboard,  are more expensive motherboards faster?