Graphics or Processor

[Torren]

I have a intel 2.4 quad core 775 very old cpu.

***I had a NVidia 8800gts and could play a lot of games on high settings np, because of the CPU and my raptor HD drives etc.***

When playing this game, I had to have everything on low and could just barely run around in game it was jerking around so bad and my frame rate was 2 and 3 frames a sec. I went and bought a NVidia 770 and did not replace anything else but the card and I can now run on HIGH EVERYTHING. Same 2.4 quad etc I did not change anything but my vid card and went from unplayable to I can handle anything this game wants to dish out.

One followup to this. my card is a pcie 3.0 card. my mother board is still the old 1.0. np at all. card works just fine and the game screams now.

Don't get me wrong - I am not sure how your CPU stacks up against my 2.4 quad if it is lower than mine I would prol do cpu, however that's when you start talking maybe a new board and new memory etc etc. I went with a card first because I plan on building a new computer and I can put this fancy new card in my old out of date system and by in another year before I upgrade. I was just overwhelmed that the game was UNPLAYABLE like 1200 on the full benchmark with every setting turned down unplayable and just by buying this really nice vid card I have no lag at all and I went with desktop high on the benchmark and got over 8500.

Just my 2 cents for what it is worth.

[raelgun]

sheer, people have done benchmarks for other mmos, even wow, and they dont relate very well with raids as ive mentioned, benchmarks are synthetic, if you check linustechtips, he knows his stuff for hardware quite well, and all his benchmarks are all ingame runs in the same area all the time, hes stopped using tools to bench with since they are misleading

[Sheer]

sheer, people have done benchmarks for other mmos, even wow

I'm aware that benchmarks aren't something to blindly follow. As I said:

I really do suggest reading through a few sources you find on Google before making a final decision.

Some MMOs are more dependent on the CPU than the GPU. It depends how optimized the game is for each component. From what I have seen and have found through my own experience, the game is much more reliant on the GPU than it is the CPU. Having a decent GPU and CPU is crucial to any game in general, and there are games that are hugely dependent on your CPU (PlanetSide 2, anyone?), but particularly for ARR, I feel they've smoothed out the optimization for the CPU so well that it would be a better deal to invest in a better GPU than a better CPU.

On top of that... If they do decide to invest in a better CPU, and it turns out they want a CPU that uses, say, requires an AM3+ socket, they may very well have to upgrade their motherboard, since the Phenom II X4 945 requires only an AM3 socket (unless the motherboard is already an AM3+ socket). Glancing over AM3 socket CPUs that would be better... I can't really find any that would be worth investing in unless they upgraded their motherboard to an AM3+ socket.