An upgrade question

[digitalkryme]

Hi all,

I wanted to ask peoples opinion on what would be the best approach for an upcoming upgrade.
First off my current system:-

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 overclocked to 3.2GHz stable
4GB OCZ Ram
3 random hard drives 1x750GB 1x 150 GB 1x 320GB
Creative Sound Blaster X-fi platinum
BFG Nvidia 8800gts OC 512MB
Windows 7 Ultimate (Fully Legit)

I want to upgrade the graphics system as its just not up to scratch now with the newer games, and is tending to overheat unless i have the fan blasting out at 100%, I'm quite happy to wait for Nvidia to make there DX11 cards available as to be honest I'm not much of an ATi fan, and while their new cards are nice, i have no need for eyefinity and the performance gain over the already available Nvidia cards doesn't make them worth it to me.

However i have also been looking at Core i7 920 and really like the performance of them, i have priced up and could upgrade my CPU, mobo and ram for roughly £450, while this is slightly more than i wanted to spend on a graphics card it would future proof me a tad more.

So which upgrade should i go for, graphics or CPU? I'll be doing both eventually but which to do first? it probably wont be until Jan 2010 in the sales.

I'm main concern is that if i do the CPU,mobo,ram i still wont get the FPS from my Graphics card and I'll be putting more strain on it.

Anyway i would love to hear your thoughts, so post away

Digitalkryme

 

[rolli59]

Both your CPU and GPU are getting a little bit old. If it is strictly for gaming you would get the most out of upgrading the GPU (if your resolution is above 1680x1050). Your CPU is still a good speed Quad Core.

 

[digitalkryme]

Hi sorry totally forgot about my monitor, its a Hanns G 28" running at 1920X1200

 

[rolli59]

You will gain from a card with more memory than 512mb especially if you run with AA enabled. If I was upgrading your system I would be looking for a HD5850 and if money is an issue HD4870/90 or GTX260.

 

[MrDrift]

keep you system until DX11 nvidia cards come out

 

[aford10]

If they don't have the video cards out that you want, wait until they do. Nvidia is overpriced, so I'd go for the ATI dx11 cards, but they are hard to find in stock anyways. There's no point in paying all that $$ for a video card that you really don't want.

Either way you go, you'll have a slight bottleneck.

If you have some $$ now, it might be a good idea to take advantage of some of the holiday shopping discounts (if applicable on sites you shop from).