crysis performance/confused about upgrading

[brandonw65]

Hey guys, i am new to the forum. ive had this system for a while, and looking to upgrade. i am unhappy with my performance in crysis, and i want to be able to play GTA4 (when it comes out on pc) with most of the eye candy on so i can show all my xbox friends whats good. My system will play Crysis on all Medium settings with no AA, on avg 20+ fps on my 22' lcd at 1680 x 1050. My Olevia 37' lcd tv is 1360 x 768 so when i play on that i get a little bit better performance same settings but avg 30 fps. My specs are

Vista Home Premium 32bit
EVGA 780i
C2D e6320 1.8, oc'd to 2.8
2gigs of G-Skill ddr2 800mhz
EVGA 8800 gts 320MB
seagate barricuda 7200.10 160 gb

ive been thinking about getting a Core 2 Quad q9300 and some 1066mhz ram, not sure what brand of ram i should get.. i was thinking this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820104008

do you guys have any reccomendations as to what ram i should look into getting? im pretty confused about that right now.

im also unsure about what card to upgrade to, i know my gts is a little out-dated. i was thinking about waiting for the new 9900 series cards to come out but im not sure yet if that card will be so fast to the point where my processor/ram becomes a bottleneck. i would update my gfx card of course after i get my q9300 and new ram. should i wait for the 9900 series or should i look into the 9800 gtx? ive been reading that the 8800 gts 512 isnt that far away in performance than a 9800gtx anyway. im so confused on what to get im going crazy!

thanks for the help!

 

[shadowduck]

Quad won't help you that much. I would look at the E8400 instead and overclock it to 4GHz. 1066 RAM likewise, won't help that much. DDR2-800 at 4-4-4-12 is more than enough. You might wish to upgrade to 4GB though.

Your biggest problem is your video card. Crysis is a killer on video cards. I would wait until nVidia releases the new video cards coming within the next month or so before buying anything. Evaluate the market and look at the benchmarks at that time.

 

[ausch30]

^agreed

Your biggest area of need would be your video card (by the way everyone is unhappy with their performance in Crysis) and if your looking to buy now the 8800GTS 512 would be your best bet but if you wait a couple weeks new cards from Nvidia and ATI should be available.

 

[ZOldDude]

No game uses 4GB even with Vista...may as well burn the money.

XP with 2GB of RAM runs @ 49% of physical RAM with 4 security programs,6 torrents while playing Frontlines:Fuel of War....Vista with 4GB of Ram uses about the same amount just to load the OS.

If your game will not run with a dual core CPU @ 3Ghz/2GB Ram/8800GTS 512 and XP then the game is a buggy as hell Beta and you should deleat it.

Or try this:
Uninstall the game and any other seldom used software,clean and defrag the REGISTRY and then defrag the HD. Now reinstall your game.

EDIT: I see you are using Vista. If you wiped the drive and reinstalled with XP you would -notice- a performance boost.

 

[shadowduck]

My recommendation to go to 4GB has little to do with gaming performance. RAM is so dirt cheap right now, if you are upgrading its not a bad upgrade.

Getting rid of Vista and going back to XP is not a very good suggestion. You will spend a lot of time and hassle for a very limited benefit. Stick with Vista.