Upgrade Recommendation

[Reximal]

Thanks in advance for any replies...

I am looking at upgrading my current system (built about a year ago) and wondering what thoughts you all might have on what component to hit. My main performance concern is gaming. It plays most games okay (Oblivion, FO3, Crysis, UT3) but I'm looking for a bit more without a complete rebuild.

CPU: AMD Phenom 9500 Agena 2.2 GHz
MoBo: MSI K9A2 790X AM2+/AM2
Mem: 4 GB (2x2GB) Corsair DDR2 1066
GPU: MSI 8800GT 512MB 256-bit PCIe 2.0
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 160GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s

I am not interested in rebuilding a system from scratch, but can afford the time and $$ to upgrade a component.

What component would you upgrade?
Where do you think the system bottlenecks?

 

[serpent1202]

The 8800 GT is a decent card, although you would notice improvements with an upgrade. I'd say the best bang for your buck would be the CPU. The easiest thing would be just pop in a Phenom 2 for $235 and OC it to 3.6 - 3.9 on air. Then down the road when you notice the video card slowing you down, upgrade the video card.

 

[Mrbumbum]

What resolution do you game at? Will that be changed (higher) in the forseeable future?
What powersupply do you have?
Are you overclocking?
Do you prefer Nvidia or ATI or does it not matter?
What is your budget

 

[Reximal]

I usually play at as high of a resolution as I can achieve without sacrificing FPS too much... my tendency is to turn off detail settings (shadows, view distance, AA) rather than lower resolution. (I play on a 22" Acer widescreen LCD)

I have a Rosewill 950W PS

I am not currently overclocked, I did some slight tweaking but ended up going back to default values when I ran into some stability issues.

No preference on ATI vs. Nvidia, I've had good experiences with both, but with my mobo ATI would give me the option of Crossfire later (something I should have thought of when I built the system)

Budget probably depends on the "bang for the buck" factor. If a Phenom II X4 940 (currently around $275) is going to make my system sing, I'd go for it. Likewise, for about the same cost I could jump up to a 1GB 4870 card, or dual 4850 cards in Crossfire.

What I don't want to do is purchase an upgrade only to find that another part of my system is limiting me... acknowledging that different game engines require different things out of a machine, of course.