If you were on a fairly tight budget and were considering improving one of the following components which do you think will deliver the biggest bang for the buck? I suppose FPS gaming should be a consideration as that is where the performance will probably show up most.
CPU Intel Core 2 Duo 6300 to 6400: £28.31
CPU Intel Core 2 Duo 6300 to 6600: £96.57
RAM 1024 MB DDR2 667 MHz to 2048 DDR2 667 MHz: £76.17
Motherboard MSI P965 Neo to ASUS P5N32 SE Sli Deluxe Sli: £74.83
Graphics Nvidia GForce 7600GT 256MB to Nvidia 7950: £134.57 (this option is really stretching what I can spend).
Or would you say the system is fairly well balanced already?
The system is already well balanced, but I don't know how high your expectations are for gaming. The 7600GT will offer very good performance for most people.
If you are a very demanding gamer then your upgrade priority should be as follows:
1. GPU upgrade to 7900GT or 7950 if you wish.
2. Upgrade to 2GB of RAM.
3. Upgrade the CPU.
Yea, obviously the GPU is what will matter the most. A CPU 3 years old would hardly make diddly-squat of a difference compared to better GPU. Even RAM has been proven to only offer minimal improvement. 1GB is fine, 2 will be unoticable in difference.
Although when I look at the extra cost I'm back to the quandary of whether to make do with the 7600 for now and use that money towards a DX10 card maybe sometime next year. Because if I go for the 7950 I'll be stuck with it for a long time!
Are you able to purchase the X1950Pro. At least here in the states they are $199. Now, the exchanger rate is currently 1:1.89 (rounded up - damn that's high. I thought is was around 1.69 not too long ago). Based on this, the card should cost you £106, but my guess is that you'll probably pay a lot more than that.
If the X1950Pro is unavailable for you, then I would wait for the DX10 cards to come out in a couple of weeks. This may bring some prices down.
How long is "a long time". 1 year? 2 years? 3 years? If you are going to have the card for around 1 year then I'd get the better video card. DX10 cards probably won't be reasonable for at least 6 months and in one year they will be even better.
If buying the more expensive video card will make you have it for 2-3 years, then I'd get the less expensive video card and upgrade to DX10 in 9-12 months.
From the looks of things, you don't plan on overclocking. If you get the cheaper video card, I'd get the E6600 to make up for this. If you do plan on overclocking, then the E6400 would be my choice but then you'd need to upgrade your memory to DDR2 800.
Btw, could you list the actual prices of the components.
EDIT: eeeeh, just wiped out my former reply - my instinct says get the RAM before either of the others as it'll be more useful. But then again you can pick up another stick whenever you can afford it, I guess, and 1GB will get you by (for now, and depending on the game/application).
I agree with the graphics/RAM/CPU order, but also make sure your power supply has enough +12V amps to handle the CPU & graphics card. People often skimp on the PS.
