CPU (Central Processing Unit / Processor)

The CPU is what gives most applications the speed they need to get the job done quickly. If there is no bottleneck from other components such as the RAM or the HDD, the processor is the main culprit when assessing problems such as RAR files taking a long time to pack and unpack and long crashes or stutters when doing basic actions on the computer. In gaming, a slow processor would give a slow, stuttering framerate with 'lag spikes' every so often. To assess whether your processor is slow, open Task Manager (Windows 7 / 8) and you will see the 'CPU Usage' percentage at the bottom of the window. If this usage is high whilst your system is idle (25%+ is usually fairly high) then your CPU isn't coping too well with the applications that are running or even your operating system in general. A better processor can directly increase framerate in gaming.

The 'GHz' or 'frequency' of a processor does not always indicate how 'fast' it is. There are many advanced factors to take into account when looking at how good a CPU is. To keep it simple, we'd say to look at reviews of processors online if you're questioning how well they may perform.

- Good CPUs can offer higher FPS in gaming

- Good CPUs cut down RAR pack and unpack times
- Good CPUs increase general productivity, allowing applications to run more smoothly

- The 'GHz' or 'frequency' of a processor often doesn't indicate how well it will perform

GPU (Graphics Processing Unit / Graphics Card)

The GPU is what displays the media on your screen. Even low end GPUs can display almost all information on the web with ease and may even play casual games very easily. If you want to play the newest games with great looking visuals, you'll need a fairly powerful graphics card.
The main thing to take note of here is that the amount of VRAM or 'GB' that a graphics card has does not indicate how well it will perform. There are a lot of other complicated parts of a graphics card which actually determine how well it will perform at certain tasks, to keep it simple you can just look at the model of the graphics card to determine what kind of class it is in. With NVidia cards, the model of the card is three numbers - with letters like "GTX", "GTS" or "GT" before them and sometimes letters like "Ti" after them. The first digit determines what generation the car is in, the second digit determines how powerful it is within that generation and the last digit is usually '0'. The second letter of the cards model is the most important as it tells us how fast we should expect it to be, cards that have the second number highest are almost always faster. For example, a GTX 480 is much, much faster than a GT 630 - even if the 630 is a much newer card. For AMD cards, this is also true. EG: A HD 5850 is much faster than a HD 7550 and an R7 280X will most definitely be faster than an R7 360X when it is released. The amount of memory a graphics card has will affect how well games can be played at higher resolutions. For example, a card with 2GB VRAM would be expected to perform better at 1920x1080 resolution than the same card with 1GB VRAM, this is a very loose explanation, however, as there are different kinds of VRAM (GDDR > DDR).

- Good GPUs almost always offer higher FPS in gaming
- Good GPUs can be beneficial in CAD work

- The amount of memory a graphics card has does not explain how well it will perform in gaming

- Overclocked cards are usually faster, though slightly more expensive
- CTC offers free overclocking on almost any system, just ask