Track just stop this. We've gone from "the GPU is the ONLY thing that matters" to "the GPU is the ONLY thing that matters - apart from .. ... ..."
The ONLY thing that matters is the GPU.
AS LONG AS THE CPU ISNT A BOTTLENECK - the GPU is the only thing that matters.
Whether or not the graphics card is the only beneficial part and everything else is limiting is a whole different debate, but what most certainly is not true is that the GPU is the ONLY thing that matters. Important yes. But when you say it is the only thing, then you are wrong.
In my own personal opinion I would say that the RAM is a limiting factor. Do you know what limiting factor means? Something that, if there is insufficent amounts of it, slows something down. If there is more of it than the required amount, then more adds no extra speed, or only negligable. If your game doesn't have enough RAM for its data, it will play very poorly. On the otherhand, if the game needs only 400MB, and we assume Windows et al uses little RAM for this example, then it does not matter whether the system has 512MB RAM or 4096MB RAM.. there is sufficient memory for the game, and so it is not a limiting factor.
Faster CPU, GPU, whatever, on the other hand, increasing their speed will always increase the speed of the game, assuming there is no built-in limit (eg some games cap at certain fps). Although humans find games smooth at 20fps, 30fps whatever the exact figure is not important right now, that is purely an arbitary figure. If humans had much slower reactions and thinking speeds, 10fps might appear smooth. As far as the computer is concerned, 1fps or 100fps it does not care. It has no notion of how smooth the game is running. You cannot clearly say that there is an absolute "optimal" frames per second rate, and everything below that is poor, everything above is acceptable.
With RAM on the otherhand, where you can work out down to the last byte how much space is needed (unless it is poorly programmed!), you CAN specifcy an amount of memory needed, where everything below is insufficent space and everything above has surplus space available. So therefore, RAM is a limiting factor, whereas CPU and GPU speeds are benefical factors.
Also on Calum's point, he is correct in saying how important components depend on what you are doing, eg a fast graphics card no use for a database, but I'm assuming your "this is always right in every situation" comment was aimed at playing games only.
Although of course I don't know why I wrote all this, because you are so stubborn I doubt anything I say will change your mind and if you was actually interestied in increasing your knowledge, rather than sticking to your own minconceptions, you would have discussed this in the many other posts the issue was raised, rather than just wimping out and leaving. If you, or anybody else, thinks I am wrong then please do feel free to point on where and WHY for a change. I am always seeking to enhance my computer knowledge, which involves admitting when I am wrong and correcting myself, but I also have a responsability to prevent incorrect knowledge and misinformation from spreading. Therefore everytime you make that incorrect statement on any post, I should haunt you constantly until either you stop saying it or I am proved wrong, in which case I will apologise. (By that I mean fundamentally; if I just made a slight nit-picky mistake somewhere that's a bit different). There is no escaping the wrath of Khan.. uh.. I mean Neil.
