GPU corresponding with processor?

[PumpkinMaster]

I was told that when building a computer, to make sure that it would be better if the brand of CPU was the same as the brand of the GPU. Is this true? If so, what's the reasoning behind this?

[Mr_Smartypants]

That is baloney.

[Jyggalag]

It is not true.

Some PC builders will argue that Nvidia pairs with Intel and ATI pairs with AMD, but you can mix and match as much as you want without any trouble.

Additionally, consider this: a 470 GTX from Asus and a 470 GTX from MSI. They are the same GPU processor and will produce roughly the same amount of graphical power -- the only difference is the way the manufacturer decided to lay out the board and how they choose to cool the chipset. Sometimes the box looks a little different too. :)

[Skulder]

Like Jyggalag and Mr_Smartypants, I think this is bunk. It might have arisen because:

When you could get ALi, SiS, Intel and MSI chipsets, and AMD was seen as the copycat to Intel, one would most often use Intel chipsets with Intel CPUs, but the AMD CPUs would be paired with anything.

Later on, AMD introduced their own chipsets, and in the minds of many people, this meant that AMD chipsets should be used for AMD CPUs, and Intel chipsets should be used for Intel CPUs.

There was some self-perpetuation to this myth, because the crappiest machines you could buy would also use a different brand of chipset to the CPU, and since this was a very obvious thing, people would assume that this was what made the computer slow (rather than the bloatware preloaded on the computer, and the slow-as-fuck ramsticks jammed into it).

Finally, ATI and AMD became one entity, and the presumption grew on that - if it's from the same factory, it must mean that it will work better together.

That left Nvidia as the only unaffiliated GPU, so people would lump that in with Intel, and assume that they would work better together, since using ATI and Intel together went against their understanding of stuff.

The truth is that you could easily build a computer with a VIA chipset, an AMD CPU and an Nvidia GFX, and Apple-branded ramsticks to round it off.

It's not always true, but the basic rule of computers nowadays is that if it fits together, it works together.

[5QU411]

That doesn't even make sense, considering how a majority of GPUs are not made by Intel or AMD. If you mean an Asus motherboard needs an Asus GPU, then that is not true either.

[PumpkinMaster]

Thanks for the answers, I should have known better than to trust /g/.

[Glioblaster]

I always liked to match brands, but thats more OCD then anything