What do you recommend to upgrade on my PC?

Kopogero

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Jan 10, 2010
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Hello,

I am using quite outdated PC. If you could upgrade one hardware for gaming what would be the best possible choice?

Intel Motherboard:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131615

Socket: LGA 775
CPU Support Type: Core 2 Quad/Core 2 Extreme/Core 2 Duo/Pentium dual-core/Celeron dual-core /
FSB: 1600(O.C)/1333/1066/800MHz
Number of Memory Slots support: 2×240pin
Memory Standard: DDR2 1066(O.C.)/800/667

Memory: OCZ Platinum Rev 2 6400 800mhz
2x 1G sticks = 2GB RAM

GPU/Video Card: Radeon 5750 HD (Core clock 700Mhz, Memory Clock 1150Mhz)

CPU: e4400 2.0 Ghz dual core,
overclocked at 2.66ghz with 5-5-5 / 15 Memory timings and 667 Memory Mhz with 2.1v

PSU:480w (My watts are also low, so getting high voltage GPU probably wouldn't be good option)

If there is also more what I can do to overclock some of my hardware I would be happy to do it. I'm using EPU motherboard that doesn't allow me to overclock my CPU voltage and I've lost stability above 2.7ghz. CPU temperature is low with a decent cooler.

Also I do not plan to overspend. Any CPU/GPU over $150 would be excessive and any RAM over $50 as well. It would be great if I can get away by upgrading one hardware than my entire PC that would keep my gaming performance decent for the next 2 years on 1920x1080 rez.
 
To be brutally honest with you it would be best to upgrade you whole Pc because the Pc as it is now is outdated and to put a new component in there like a new video card is going to run up against the other older parts like the DDR2 ram and the low frequency cpu which will surely bottleneck a new card , then you have the low wattage psu which will not be able to supply power to a new video card that would be an upgrade to what you have now.
I can see two options for you and they may not be earth shattering but they are an upgrade.
1. Add another 2 gb of the same ram that you now have for a total of 4 gb , even if you have Windows 32 bit you will still be able to use almost all of this ram.
2. Add a second 5750 video card for crossfire , this may give you the most improvement for gaming.
3. If you had the money to both it would be the better option.
 

gerry410

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Jun 17, 2010
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An SSD is a miracle worker for boot up and application load time and more memory never hurts. Next in line would be a video card but your limited with that power supply.
Since your machine is so out dated just buy a piece at a time from Newegg when things are on sale. The poor mans way to build a new computer that's what I did.