What do I need to upgrade for next years games?

My PC is not the top of the line gaming rig, however its what I've managed to successfully use over these pass years to play some of the most demanding pc games such as crysis 2 and Black Ops. My pc cannot handle Operation Flashpoint Red River nor can it handle most other games that will release in the next few months. I'm ok with running games on medium settings, its the low settings and choppy performance that gets to me...

I hope to do as little upgrading as possible, since I've already invested far more in my pc then I'd like to.

My specs are as follows.

I intend to upgrade my cpu from an AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ @ 2200 MHz to an AMD Athlon 64 X2 5800+ 3.0GHz.

I currently have an nvidia 9500 gt which I don't intend on upgrading just yet.

I've been told to upgrade my motherboard from a KN9 SLI am2 socket to something a bit more powerful but like i've mentioned before I don't want to spend too much, i'm hoping to spend below 250$.


I appreciate your help and suggestions.

My computer won't run any of those games. lol But, you definitely should upgrade your graphics card. That is, if it's not inside the motherboard, otherwise, you can't take it out. I'm not sure what to recommend because I don't know what system you have and what year.

your gonna need to spend at least $500 to get it up to scratch. a dual core, especailly a slow 1 like the amd 5800 x2 just wont cut it. your gonna need a quad.
antel 2400 and an h61 motherboard with 4 gigs of ddr3 1333 will set you back exactly $250 and should be your first purchase.
upgrading the gfx first will lead to an unbalanced system that will give worse performance than you currently have which is pretty much none already.
you always start with a new cpu if your upgrading from particularly old kit.
you will also want to check out a decent psu minimum 500watts theres another 70 and the rest of your 500 can go on a new gfx card.

What's the model of the PSU? That matters a lot more than the watt number it claims.

I know I need to replace plenty but the 9500 is alright for me for now is all, I'm content on playing my games on medium settings for the time being.

This is simply not true, please let this myth die already. In fact its console gaming that is very expensive compared to PC. If you are a regular reader of Tomshardware.com then you would note they have put up 500usd rigs that run most games out in 1080p, consoles only run 5% of their games in 1080p.

The cost of games on console itself is enough to make console more expensive then PC, Every game bought on console costs 10-20usd more then PC version, in the end if you intend to be playing lots of games then PC is obvious cost effective solution if you only intend to play 2-3 games a year then console is cheaper, however note console still wont do alot of the stuff that the PC can do IE(Work, web browsing, video editing etc).

To the OP, i would strongly recommend a GPU upgrade above anything else if you intend to be gaming on that rig. In todays day and age its the GPU that does most of the work when it comes to games. You can get a GTX 460 for about 150usd, and then overclock that rig to get decent performance.

He said its a athlon system @2200 MHZ that seems awfully low there might be potential of 400-500mhz there with a better cooler anyways. He wont be seeing much of a performance improvement on the games with the GPU he has anyways regardless of whatever CPU he gets. I said GTX 460 because its a good bang for the buck and in the future if he does decide to go for a full system upgrade like a 400-500usd rig, the 460GTX will come in handy at that time too, while allowing him to play any of his current games at much better framerates and AA.

Bottom line even with a CPU upgrade the 9500gt isnt really suited for games (its got a GPU thats actually weaker then ancient consoles out today).

^ +1 i agree, motherboard/cpu upgrade to newer platform first.

I will upgrade my video card in time.My problem now is finding a good cpu to fit my processor, I have an am2 socket and most seem to be dual core or lower. Any suggestions....I guess I have no other options except to upgrade my board.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814121390
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Comb [...] mbo.661563

if you can spend a little more these parts can play most games at high details. its a little more than you stated but you get what you pay for. also if you wanna save your money you can get an i5 2500k and a mobo for about 300 prolly. plus a gpu and that would be a much better option.

Q6600 are cheap.. and I've been thrilled with the performance I've had for almost 2 years now (?), I regularly overclock to 3.0 with nearly no issues coming up unless I leave the beast on for many, many days. Most my restarts come from game crashes that seem to be non fp related I believe.

Lately I've been running W2, Crysis2, and FONV mostly topped out save the AA

^ I second that , I have a Q6600 and it is awesome...no games (besides shogun 2) that i cant run maxed out...

Price is always an issue, if it isn't your in denial or headed for divorce my friend


Besides if you can run a Q6600 you can usually upgrade later to a Q9650 which easily competes with the mid upper i7's ^^, just add graphic card!