Performance of Processors and Computer Games
How powerful should a processor be to not slow down games? Which games do already support dual core processors? The following articel covers these aspects.
The impact of the performance of a processors on current games depends heavily on the run game. In general the more powerful architectures by Intel (Pentium M, Core Duo, Core Solo, Core 2 Duo) and AMD (Turion 64, Turion 64 X2) are fittest for games. Among the slower processor series like Sempron or Celeron M only the ones with the higest clock-rates might be ready for games and this only with limitations. Please also refer to the benchmark list of mobile processors.
However, the most important aspect regarding gaming performance is the graphics card. Powerful video adapters (e.g., a 7900 GTX) can be utilized to their full capacity if they are not slowed down by the processor. This statement is especially true, if a game demands much calculation performance (e.g., Oblivion, Half Life 2 - Lost Coast). Other games, e.g., Doom 3 have only slightly better frame rates if the the processor is more powerful.
| Notebook | Processor | GHz | Frames per Second in Doom 3 - Ultra |
| Toshiba A100-153 | T2300 | 1.66 GHz | 37.2 fps |
| Asus A6Ja | T2300 | 1.66 GHz | 37.7 fps |
| Asus A7Jc | T7200 | 2.00 GHz | 39.7 fps |
| Nexoc Osiris E704 | T2700 | 2.33 GHz | 40.3 fps |
The performance of games like Splinter Cell and Call of Duty 2 is also rather limited by the graphics card than by the CPU.
Middle-class video cards, like X1600 and X7600 are sooner at their performance limits. So, a powerful processor can only slightly improve the performance if at all.
There is only a performance gain between single core processors (e.g., Pentium M) and dual core processors (e.g., Core (2) Duo, Turion X2) if a game supports dual core processors. You'll, e.g., notice a big difference when running FarCry in newer versions. However, more and more games support dual core processors as dual processors get popular. E.g., HalfLife 2 should provide an updated engine in Episode 2, which promises a performance increase of up to 20-30 (source).
Verdict
Only systems with high-performance graphics cards profit from processors with high clock rates. Middle-class video adapters limit the frame rates at an early stage. So, a faster processor cannot improve the performance much.
More and more new games support dual core processors. So, these CPUs can be recommended to gamers.
