What do I need to upgrade?

[nightside]

What do I need to upgrade? Would upgrading my computer to a 5870 be bottlenecked by cpu?

Intel core 2 duo CPU E8400 @ 3.0 GHZ

8.00 GB RAM (DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)

windows 7 64 bit

9800GTX+ XFX

resoluiton: 1920X 1080 23' inch 1080P HD DVI connection

CORSAIR CMPSU-750TX 750W

regular hard drive- I hear getting a harddrive at 15k rotation is extremely helpful in FPS. is this true? when i do a windows system speed check my lowest score is my hard drive?



Questions:

1. What should i upgrade?

2. IF i upgrade my cpu what should i do? or should i wait for newer technology?

3. Will a 5870 bottle neck my computer?

4. If i upgrade my cpu i have to upgrade my motherboard, meaning new ram or not? wont new motherboards only except ddr3 memory?

please give me some suggestions..

I wil be playing World of Warcraft Cataclysm and Bad Company 2 on PC.

 

[jay2tall]

A faster hard drive will just load games faster and transfer files quicker. Unless you have little RAM and the operating system is using virtual memory (aka page file) during gaming, a fast hard drive will not help FPS. And even then a HD is a "bottleneck" for RAM. (notice the trend I take with the whole bottleneck argument.)

1) Your best bet is a higher end video card. You can upgrade to an i5 or i7, but you will see moderate benefits in gaming as opposed to lets say a 5870. Granted some games REALLY take advantage of more than 2 cores and the i5/i7 architecture, but a e8400 is very capable.

2)go the 1156 socket route for main stream, or 1366 for highend. There will be 6+core chips coming for the 1366 socket.

3)Yes, but that is a loaded question. PC's are FULL of bottlenecks. My OCed i7 is a bottleneck for my 5870, but not as much of one as if I would have a lowend pentium chip. You can never eliminate bottlenecks in a computer. You can only remove the problem bottlenecks. You wouldn't put a highend card with a lowend CPU because it would simple not process information fast enough for the card and it would be a waste. The bottleneck would be to large to make it worth your while. However, an e8400 will run a 5870 just fine.

4)If you are a gamer, upgrade your GPU first. Maybe next year worry about your motherboard, CPU, memory.

With those games you would benefit most from a video card upgrade.

 

[nightside]

Awesome, thank you.