Maximum PC

I’m building a rig for my friend and he is a gaming graphic fanatic. So I’m setting him up with 2 BFG Geforce 6800 GTs in SLI mode. However, I’ve read in past MaxPC mag that combining SLI with lower grade processor with hinder the gaming ability.

What’s the role of the Processor in games anyway??
Will lower grade processor reduce the graphic quality of the game??
Do I need an AMD FX-53 chip to get the full ability of the SLI graphics cards or is the athlon64 3200+ enough??


PLMK, thanks

With the advent of the original GForce video card in the Autumn of 1999, for the first time the expression "GPU" was created to describe NVidia's then newfangled chip which began to off-load alot of the processing burden from the CPU. It's gotten even better since then with the succeeding generation GPUs. However, the CPU still is the computer and executes all of the code. And however much NVidia's "GPU" and ATI's "VPU" may have lightened the CPU's load, they didn't lighten the load for AI, audio, game physics, etc. Yep, the better the proc the better your friend's SLI rig will shine. Can't your friend wait until the end of May? By then Intel and AMD will have their dual core processors available for the desktop. AMD's dually will pop right into a regular 939 socket and I've read the tantalizing rumor that all that's needed for current 939 boards is a BIOS update. Awesome! Anand Lal Shimpi at AnandTech.com very recently posted a review of an AMD dual core chip; check it out. Intel is saying that you'll need their new dual proc chipset (955?).