Upgrade advice...

[jake_]

So, I'm going to be getting 4GB of RAM from my brother sometime before January (I hope). That's gotten me thinking about doing a PC upgrade or two. We're taking minimal money spending here though, definitely not more than $300. Consider my PC specs (they're right under my name), what ought I upgrade to?

I was thinking either a new video card or possibly a newer C2D or C2Q, as mine is quite old and one of the 65nm ones. It is overclocked, but I wouldn't mind having, say a quad core who's stock speed is at or above what my current one is. Would just upgrading the CPU that much have a very visible performance boost with an 8800GT? Or would I see more improvement if I upgraded the gfx card and stuck with my current CPU? I assume the bottleneck would be less in one case over the other, but I'm not sure which.

[jesus]

Re: Upgrade advice...

are you unsatisfied with your performance or graphics quality in your vidya games?

[jake_]

Re: Upgrade advice...

Not quite yet. But, I'm thinking forward within the next 3 months or so. In time for, say, BC2 (which I'm guessing I could, hopefully, play on medium settings at best). Plus, before then, I might buy (or even get for free ) a new monitor, that's more than a 19" 4:3. :p

I'll admit I don't really need anything right at this moment, but I would like to set aside some money for a video card or CPU now, if I'm going to by one in the near future. But, like I said, it don't know if it will be worthwhile and (hopefully) within a year or so I'll have enough money to do a full overhaul (CPU/Mobo/Gfx/etc).

[McSteviee]

Re: Upgrade advice...

It's all about building a balanced PC. At the moment your cpu is nicely balanced with your graphics card, if you upgrade one without the other, the older component will bottleneck the new one and you won't get the full benefit.

If I were you I would wait to see how you current setup runs the new games coming out in the new year, then decide.

[Death Merchant]

Re: Upgrade advice...

Id wait for a few months, until Nvidia releases something

also the CPU should be fine for FPS's, you will be able to get that to 3.2ghz easy if you need to

[KillerStickMan]

Re: Upgrade advice...

Don't skimp on a PC upgrade because you're impatient. You'll waste your money and regret it in the long wrong.

I'll just leave this here...

[jake_]

Re: Upgrade advice...

har har. It's not like I am thinking about going out and buying something right this minute that is subpar, because it's all the money I have to spend. I'm just considering buying one upgrade in the near future, probably a gfx card, so that I'll be able to play any games I get in 2009 comfortably. I was leaning more towards a new gfx card, too. If I were to buy one, it wouldn't be a 9800GT or something with a minor improvement. Nvidia's latest cards would significanly improve my FPS in demanding games, assuming the bottleneck wasn't too severe. Plus, if I got a high(est) end gfx card within the next 4 months, I would be fine if I were to upgrade to a new mobo/cpu like i7 within the next 12-18 months.

Not skimping or being impatient.

But as I look at the data and whatnot, I'm leaning towards saving my money at this point. I should be able to run BC2 (which is mostly the only game I'm looking at buying in the near future) decently. I'll just wait until then to see what I need, perhaps.