Right now im running a AMD 3800 x2 @ 2.5, would i see any real world gains by stepping up to a 5400x2 black edition running around 3.0-3.2 or higher if it will go. I was thinking that it would be a good upgrade to hold me over until i rebuild early next year.

Thanks

There will be a fair performance gain, but nothing massive. It depends, are you noticing slowdown in any applications/games at the moment? If so post your GPU and ram.

Yes, it depends on where you are expecting to see gains. You might be more limited in some applications (e.g. games) by your GPU.

I have 4x1 of geil dd2 800 and a 8800gts 320. I game on a monitor with a max res of 1280/1024

Your card is pretty good, so the cpu upgrade would be worth it. There would be no point in going for a card upgrade unless it was significant, i.e. sell you old 8800 and get a 4850.

at 1280x1024, i dont think you would notice much gain IMO

Thanks for the reply's.

On a side note if i did buy the processor, do you think i could get away with using the heatsink form my 3800x2 being that the 5400 black is a 65nm chip?

Thanks