Upgrading Dilema: Old enough for an upgrade?

[socrates047]

among my PCs my personal flagship houses a bunch of components showing their age in some tasks/ games.
the parts:

Athlon X2 6400+ [3.2ghz]
MSI 750aSLI -recently upgraded from nforce 560SLI
2Gb Corsair DDR2-800mhz
650W Ultra LSP
e9800GT - recently upgraded from SLI 8500GT

I cant make up my mind on what needs to be upgraded most... or if i need a new build.
do I need a:
a. CPU coler for OCing?
b. new CPU?
c. CPU cooler + new GPU?

I have no idea what my hard-earned cash deserved the most.
any help would be really appreciated..
thanks in advance!

 

[ohiou_grad_06]

Depends on your budget. I'm actually at the same crossroads as you in a way. We've even got the same power supply, lol.

Personally for me, my board will support some am3 cpu's even though it's an am2 board. I'm thinking for myself I'm wanting to drop 2 more gb of memory in to give me 4 gb of ram. And probably go up from my athlon x2 5200+ to a Phenom 2 720 Black Edition. That coupled with the extra memory and my 9600gt should perform decently, after that I'm probably going to go to a 5750 or 5770 for video.

What resolution do you game at? I don't know if a cooler is going to do you much good and if you will get much more than 3.2 ghz from that chip. Depending on resolution I would think of possibly a Phenom 2 chip if your motherboard supports it, and an upgrade to 4 gb of memory.

Once you get there, then that should give you a decent base to work from.

 

[socrates047]

i game around 720p - 900p (but crysis is pathetic) and have enough for a cpu/ cooler upgrade....but can squeeze anything else in there if its reasonable. with the mobo i have a lot of CPU options (can go to AM3 with update) but logically its restricted to nvidia GPUs
thanks for the reply

 

[jennyh]

Try to keep your components balanced. There is not much point having and i7 and a 9800gt, same as there is not much point having a 4200+ X2 and a 5870.

You could get a 720 X3 and a 5770 for the same price, and that would be a much more balanced solution.

 

[ohiou_grad_06]

I agree with jenny. The 720 is 120 bucks, which should be good for now. Instead of grabbing the cooler, I'd go for 2 gb more of memory to make it 4 gb, this ought to give you a decent boost I would think. As for the ati vs nvidia gpu. I have the sli board, but honestly it's looking like 1 more power gpu>than 2 in sli/crossfire in my opinion at this point. So I'd still consider the ATI gpu down the road, or maybe by the time you upgrade your gpu nvidia will have something supporting dx 11 out.?

 

[socrates047]

k thanks guys. I have a better perspective of what is more important now... cuz i was definately going to make some hasty decisions

 

[mindless728]

actually, i would grab 4GB of ram while DDR2 is still affordable, same thing is starting to happen that happened to DDR, it become obsolete and more expensive