Week 10

The main piece of information that strikes me when comparing CPU to GPU usage, it is the GPU that causes the bottleneck of information. It seems wirth quad core technology we have the ability to push games to another level of graphics, we are just lacking the technology with the GPU to do so.
During the tests conducted for Aliens Vs Predators (AVP), 3GHz quad core and even the 4GHz are a definate inprovement to single or dual, however a single core runs the game well, but the GPU is running at almost full capacity.
Alpha Protocal is slightly different. Although the GPU is running at a high capacity, its not as high as AVP but the CPU usage is much higher (Single core in this case is not enough) Obviously this game has more game mechanics than AVP, but slightly less graphics.
Battlefield: Bad company 2 is different to the others, even with quad core CPU and GPU running almost at maximum, it is the GPU lacking for this example with poor framerates as a result.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 responds really well to CPU performance. There is a dramatic increase in framerate when we move from single core to dual-core. (Strangely quad-core lowers framerates very very slightly, possibly due to the data exchange lag between the cores).
GTA4 is by far the most demanding game trialed. It utilises almost all of the 4GHz CPU and GPU usage for less than 50 fps. Further testing shows upgrading the GPU did bump this up to 64.1 fps.
From this review I have learned its only really worth upgrading graphics card if your GPU is running at full potential with the CPU running with low usage. If CPU is running at full power and GPU isnt, its the cores than must be upgraded.