I'm a power user, but only game casually. I like to game at high resolutions, I play Civilizations IV Colinizations, Age of the Empires III, Madden 2008, TrackManiaNations, and a little Call of Duty 4/Battlefield 2.
My current rig:
Q6700 (stock cooling, undervolted .125volt)
Foxconn Geforce 256MB 7900 GS-OC (factory overclocked almost 50%)
2x2GB Gskill PC2-8500 1066MHZ CL5.5.5.15
Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L 2.0
Windows XP SP3/Windows 7 Dual boot
24" 1920x1200 LCD Monitor
I use Office 2003/2007, Adobe Design CS4, and a bunch of networking tools (VPN/SSH/RDP)
My games run decent. I know simply putting in a better graphics card will help somewhat in the games, but I want to increase overall system performance. I'm wondering if how much I would have to spend to get a decent upgrade, or if I should invest in a better CPU cooler and try overclocking. Energy costs & noise are an issue, so I haven't done much with overclocking.
I saw this one on the Egg...Would it be much of an upgrade?
E8500: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115036
Q9200S:
My current rig:
Q6700 (stock cooling, undervolted .125volt)
Foxconn Geforce 256MB 7900 GS-OC (factory overclocked almost 50%)
2x2GB Gskill PC2-8500 1066MHZ CL5.5.5.15
Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L 2.0
Windows XP SP3/Windows 7 Dual boot
24" 1920x1200 LCD Monitor
I use Office 2003/2007, Adobe Design CS4, and a bunch of networking tools (VPN/SSH/RDP)
My games run decent. I know simply putting in a better graphics card will help somewhat in the games, but I want to increase overall system performance. I'm wondering if how much I would have to spend to get a decent upgrade, or if I should invest in a better CPU cooler and try overclocking. Energy costs & noise are an issue, so I haven't done much with overclocking.
I saw this one on the Egg...Would it be much of an upgrade?
E8500: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115036
Q9200S: