Upgrade - what component to go for?

[illusionx]

I was thinking of upgrading my system. I've got a budget of around $400
My current system specs are:

CPU: C2D E6600 (2.4ghz stock) oc'ed to 3.16 GHZ with a Tuniq Tower 120 cooler.
MEMORY: 4 sticks of 1 GB each of Kingmax DDR2 800
MOTHERBOARD: Asus Commando
VIDEO: ASUS 8800GTX
HDD: 400 GB WD SATA2 / 16 buffer

After doing some research I figured the video card is okay for now.
I was thinking of getting better ram instead of the noname. Go for a dual pack and try to overclock the cpu harder and get somewhere to 3.6GHZ.
On the other hand I was thinking of completely changing the CPU to a Q9550.

A friend told me that the HDD is slow and should get a 640GB(2 plates) WD or Seagate.

What do you guys suggest? What should I change in order to get the best overall system performance?

Thanks.

 

[modode]

You could upgrade to a C2D E8400, which with your Tuniq tuner and the GSkill RAM below will likely let you overclock to 3.6-3.8GHz or higher.
G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1000 (PC2 8000)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231145

Upgrade the hard drive to an WD 640 gig for another 80 bucks or so (faster than your drive).

All that'll run you less than 400, and you'll notice maybe a 20-25% system speed increase, I'd guess, depending on the application. For gaming, you might still be GPU-limited with most games, so you might not notice much improvement.

Caveat: not sure if your 965 chipset board will even run the newer 45nm C2D's much less let you overclock to the level above?

 

[falconzfan007]

3.6 ghz is a lot for a home-based pc. i would say either get faster RAM, or get a Q9550

 

[illusionx]

You could upgrade to a C2D E8400, which with your Tuniq tuner and the GSkill RAM below will likely let you overclock to 3.6-3.8GHz or higher.
G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1000 (PC2 8000)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231145

Upgrade the hard drive to an WD 640 gig for another 80 bucks or so (faster than your drive).

All that'll run you less than 400, and you'll notice maybe a 20-25% system speed increase, I'd guess, depending on the application. For gaming, you might still be GPU-limited with most games, so you might not notice much improvement.

Caveat: not sure if your 965 chipset board will even run the newer 45nm C2D's much less let you overclock to the level above?

1. From the specification the motherboard only supports up to 800mhz ram why do you suggest faster ram or ddr2 1000 mhz ram? will that work?

2. And would a E6600 to E8400 be a good enough step up? (worth it)

3.6 ghz is a lot for a home-based pc. i would say either get faster RAM, or get a Q9550

Same question what yo you mean by faster ram? brand ram?


Thanks for the feedback and I'll be waiting for some more.