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775 Upgrade with a new Graphics Card

Last response: in Systems
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I am stuck with a decision about upgrading my current build. From what I have been hearing, the new graphics cards are the workload to many of the games we play now (BF:BC2, MW2, GTAIV, the new APB"cant wait"). Therefore I am torn to upgrade my card from the Geforce 8800 GTS to a GTX 470 or 480. From what I understand the graphics quality is better on Nvidia, but performance is better on ATI cards. Then comes my bottleneck, i currently have an E6600 2.4 Ghz Dual Core on an EVGA Nvida 680i chipset motherboard. I want to purchase the 2.6 Quad core (Q9400) which is recommended the best for the money on Tom's. I do limited multitasking, if its game time, that is the only thing going down. I feel that I will notice a large gain in gaming FPS and quality with the vid card, but how much will I be bottlenecked by the CPU? Also considering, down the road a new build in the next few years while still carrying over the invested graphics card. Should I buy both the CPU, graphics card combo or buy one or the other first?

EVGA 122-CK-NF68 motherboard
E6600 2.4 Intel Dual Core
4 GB Crucial DDR3200
EVGA 8800 GTS
650W powersupply.

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The 680i chipset will not support the 45 nm Yorkfield CPU's - even with a BIOS update. Check the eVGA website for user comments.

Mine didn't. It wouldn't POST with a Q9550 and the latest BIOS. That's why I changed to Gigabyte motherboards.

OTOH, I was able to run an E6600 at 3.6 GHz - 24 hour Orthos stable - with a TRUE HSF. This was before the Xigmatek coolers were being marketed.

Thanks for that update, did not even look into it that far. I do have a decent Zalman CPU fan, never traveled into the realm of overclocking. I suppose I can to overclock it if the graphics card does not give me significant improvement on games. I'm thinking the GTX470 or 480 would be a good investment that I could put into a new build within 2 years.
 
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