Processors for the most part aren't the bottleneck in PC game performance. You'll find that if you already have a multi-core processor that offers good performance, upgrading to a CPU with higher clock speeds or additional processing cores won't improve game performance as much as upgrading your video card.
Processors for the most part aren't the bottleneck in PC game performance. You'll find that if you already have a processor that offers good performance, upgrading to a CPU with higher clock speeds or additional processing cores won't improve game performance as much as upgrading your video card.
However, that doesn't mean you can go cheap on the CPU. You still need to have a good processor that's powerful enough to run the game. Upgrading from an Intel Pentium 4 to an AMD Phenom or an Intel Core 2 (or the newer Core i7/i5/i3) processor will certainly increase frame-rate performance. You don't have to get the top-of-the-line $1,000 CPU if you're upgrading your processor or configuring a new system. A $200-$300 processor will perform almost as well in gaming applications.
