Should I be considering a GPU upgrade???

Depends. What size is your monitor/what res do you play games at?

An X1800 XT is still a viable card up to 1600x1200.

If you have to even ask the question "Do I need an upgrade?" then you probably do.

Your games and everything else will run a lot better with a Dual Core CPU.

It's Christmas time. Give yourself an excuse to splurge and spend some money. Besides, I am sure AMD could use your dollars right now.

Watch your PSU load, that 420 may not carry a 3850, 3870 or 8800GT. Otherwise i would. Any new card for that matter. You 1800 would run better with a better PSU.

RWayne is right, a Dual core would help. I know. I had a pentium 4 HT and i was maxing my cpu out on COD4.

DAMNIT TO HELL PEOPLE! I am going to beat this drum until the day I die becuase I am tired of people giving bullshit information out.

A Dual Core processor, in and of itself, will not do anything noticeable to increase your performance in the vast majority of games. An AMD 3500+ and a 4200+ run at the same damn clock speed, 2.2Ghz, and are the exact same architecture and if you swap in the X2 for the old 3500+ you will not see an increase in your gaming ability. The only, repeat, ONLY difference comes when you change architecture! Going from a god-awful netburst designed P4 to a much more modern Core 2 Duo or Phenom or whatever will result in an increase in performance, IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH MORE CORES. You want to talk about 'multi-tasking' or games designed for multiple threads then yes, you see an increase with a dual core but the vast majority (read: 99%) of games will see no increase from a single to a dual core all other things being the same. (i.e. clock speed, architecture etc)

Someone will come back with something equally witty and try to prove me wrong by saying they got an increase. Its bullshit. You might be able to set the affinity of your horrible McAfee or Norton bloatware to one core and your game to the other to see a slight increase but there is no increase to be seen by adding a dual core. The programs aren't written for dual cores so let's stop this nonsense now.


Now...to the OP

you should always consider a GPU increase. Even at your grandmothers funeral, in the back of your head you should be running cost-benefit analysis' of GPU's, its the only way to go. I personally don't believe you will see much of an increase with a new setup, certainly not as much as spending the same amount of money on a new card but as has been correctly mentioned, you need to make sure your PSU will be able to support something else. If you can't afford a new PSU and video card then yes, I think it is a sensible upgrade as it will provide a good platform for a future drop in of a newer card like the midrange 9xxx series from Nvidia that should be out mid year next year...gives you time to save up!

thanks for doing the leg work for me, i was too lazy

ooo...good point, i missed the 'BE' part of that equation and you are right, they are designed to overclock like beesknees so he would see a larger increase vs just a non-overclocked drop-in. good call.

supreme commander was the first game (that i can think of) that was billed as being programmed specifically for dual core and i have heard the same thing about crysis but i don't plan on buying it so i will never have first hand knowledge.

that was exactly my point, thank you for clarifying. if the program or game is written to optimize multiple cores then yes, you should see an increase. games like battlefield 2 don't see an increase so if that's your game du jour then don't expect a jump in fps.

Soooooooo basically all you said in your rant was: If it aint multi-core (threaded) optimized you aint gonna see no increase n performence with a dual core over a single unless the dual's clock speed is faster.

rofl...fine...reduce my ranting and ravings down to a simple two line post. next time, i am going to tab you as my copy editor

I hold off my encoding until I'm done gaming, personally.

Maybe I'm living in the dark ages, I dunno...

I'd disagree with that, with a lot of newer titles developed specifically for for multi-threading.
Supreme commander is an example:

http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/arti [...] VzaWFzdA==

Single core score: 10.7 fps
Dual core: 26.8 fps

COLOSSAL difference.... three times the framerate with dual cores!

Oblivion is one of the first titles to take advantage of dual cores, and it's fairly old:

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipse [...] i=2747&p=3

Single core Athlon 64 2.4 Ghz: 39.6 fps
Dual core Athlon 64 2.4 Ghz: 44.1 fps

Not as dramatic as supcom, but clearly a 10% difference.

These are not differences caused by a background app: this is a benchmark setting, controlled, and the second core enabled or disabled. Clearly, these engines have been compiled specifically with dual core optimizations.

Multi-core is the undeniable future. It has taken devs some time to catch up, and games like SupCom are few and far between, but as next gen titles are released it will become the rule, not the exception.

upgrade when you can't play anymore to the settings you can't play. Unless you are graphics whore you should just hold on to the card long as possible.

Thx alot guys for the replies...sry i didnt reply sooner...i took ur guys' advice and didnt buy anything...instead, decided to save the money and wait until my games are unplayable (which they are far from...at least right now)...this will give time for prices to drop even more so I can get the best bang for my buck...
Once again, thx for the responses!