What would be the best upgrade?

[anarkeygodslam]

First off, da specs

Sony Bravia 52" HDTV 1080p
Western Digital VelociRaptor WD3000GLFS 300GB
2x GeForce GTX 280 1GB 512-bit GDDR3 in SLI
ASUS Black 5X BD-ROM 12X DVD-ROM 32X CD-ROM
ASUS Blu-ray player and CD/DVD burner
OCZ Platinum Edition 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1000 (PC2 8000)
XFX MB-N780-ISH9 LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 780i SLI Intel Motherboard
Intel Core 2
Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz 2 x 4MB L2 Cache LGA 775 Quad-Core Processor
Antec TruePower Quattro TPQ-1000 1000W
Microsoft Windows Vista 64-Bit Ultimate
Logitech MX518 1800 dpi Gaming-Grade Mouse
Logitech G15
Pioneer VSX-LX50 7.1channel Surround Receiver

Now, I want to push harder than before, and upgrade. Even if this means canning the HTPC and going with a big time gaming monitor.

 

[mcnuggetofdeath]

A faster HDD ( the new WD Caviar Blacks, and Seagate's 7200.12 series are both wicked fast, especially in a cheap RAID 0 setup ). Or a faster CPU, but I think the best thing to do would be to buy a nice heatsink and overclock your CPU. Ive heard that they could do 3GHz on the stock heatsink, but you could push further with a good aftermarket one.

 

[ahslan]

well I agree with mcnuggetofdeath in that you should definitely try to OC your cpu...with a solid aftermarket cooler, im pretty sure you should go past 3.2ghz...then see if you think you need more performance...you definitely have the gpu power, and I wouldnt think you would need more than 4gb of ram unless your video encoding or something like that...

 

[anarkeygodslam]

I have an aftermarket CPU cooler, a ZALMAN CNPS9700.
The GPU's are set to 100% fan speed in Ntune (it never changes and lets them get to 70+ degrees celsius, and it shows in games)

I have overclocked it before, to 3.2ghz, but it felt unstable. Maybe I just did it wrong.

I just bought Street Fighter IV and maxed the settings, 16xQ, 1920x1080, 16xAA, keeping Vsync on because of known screen tearing if not. The game runs at the 60FPS without dropping at all. Not a single problem, which I think is pretty nice.

 

[ahslan]

if the overclock is unstable at 3.2ghz, then draw back to 3.1 or 3.0 and see how that runs...any overclock WILL help

 

[frozenlead]

A q6600 is rarely unstable at 3.2. You've got something awry there...but there's always the possibility for a bad OC chip.

Have you noticed any CPU limiting in your games? I'm surprised you haven't felt the stock CPU holding the 280's back.

 

[jitpublisher]

A q6600 is rarely unstable at 3.2. You've got something awry there...but there's always the possibility for a bad OC chip.

Have you noticed any CPU limiting in your games? I'm surprised you haven't felt the stock CPU holding the 280's back.

Lets refine this a little, a q6600 is rarely unstable at 3.2 on a board with an Intel chipset.
Sorry, but the first problem I see is you have a board with an nVidia chipset.
At this point, if you are not happy with the performance of what you have, not into overclocking all that much, I would say you need to do something drastic.
Buy an i7 board (that supports SLI), processor, and memory, move everything you have over to it. It's a chunk of change, but I believe the performance increase will make you smile.

 

[anarkeygodslam]

The only thing the PC is used for other than gaming and internet is the occasional blu-ray I watch. What is the recommended cpu/board/ram without cost in question? (granted nothing ridiculous like some $2000 chip, lol)

Heres a bit more info that may shed some light on this.

I have a spare 8800GTX, 2 74GB Raptors and want to basically turn this into a HTPC, and moving on to a big PC monitor and bring along my 280s and thats about it. The drive I am using atm will just be used for backup later. I pretty much turned this topic into a 'help me upgrade without price being a big deal'.

 

[jitpublisher]

The only thing the PC is used for other than gaming and internet is the occasional blu-ray I watch. What is the recommended cpu/board/ram without cost in question? (granted nothing ridiculous like some $2000 chip, lol)

Heres a bit more info that may shed some light on this.

I have a spare 8800GTX, 2 74GB Raptors and want to basically turn this into a HTPC, and moving on to a big PC monitor and bring along my 280s and thats about it. The drive I am using atm will just be used for backup later. I pretty much turned this topic into a 'help me upgrade without price being a big deal'.

Well, these days I am not into spending my time shopping around, sorry about that, but I am busy!
Take a look around on Newegg, put something together and post it back here.
You will get a lot of feedback and more suggestions. Have fun!