Sell and start over or upgrade current system?

[antwanman12]

So back in Jan I built my current system and I have now come to realize that I didn't fully understand what I wanted out of my computer. I built something that was purely for gaming (though I didn't do a good job of that) and I want something that can both game and do video encoding and rendering.

My system now:
i5-650 stock: @ 3.2 UC to 4.1
nVidia GTS 250 1GB
EVGA H55 123-CD mobo
Corsair 650w PSU
Arctic Freezer Pro 7
Various HDDs summing up to 3.5 TB
OCZ Vertex 32GB SSD
Samsung DVD reader/writer
Linksys Dual band wireless N card
Antec 902 mid tower case

What I want to upgrade to:
AMD Phenom II x6 1055T (cant afford the black edition /sadface)
ATi Radeon HD 5850 (crossfire later)
Any 890FX mobo with 2 PCI slots
Corsair 750w PSU
Suggestions welcome for the cpu cooler
Thermaltake Spedo Full tower

My question is, should I upgrade my current system or sell my old one on craigslist or ebay or something and put that money towards the new system

If you think I should sell, give me a good starting price. All of the stuff I would be willing to sell adds up to about $1100 on newegg just fyi.

Thanks in advance

 

[coldsleep]

Why not just upgrade your processor & graphics card? And then if you decide to CrossFire later, you could upgrade the PSU at that point.

An i5-750 or i7-860 would/should be a drop-in upgrade for your current system, as would the ATI 5850.

 

[antwanman12]

I was thinking about that but the mobo I have now only has one x16 PCIe slot and one x4 so I would have to upgrade it if i wanted to crossfire which would basically be the cost of a new system with a new mobo, 2 gfx cards, PSU, processor.

 

[antwanman12]

fair enough.

+best answer

 

[coldsleep]

Unless you're primarily doing video encoding/rendering, and not a lot of gaming, I don't think the 1055T is worth it.

Encoding
Rendering

The i7-750 performs better than the 1055T on about half of the benchmarks. The i7-860 performs better on all but one of the benchmarks.

I think that you'd see better results for less money by upgrading your current setup, since you say that you can't afford the 1090T. Until CrossFire/SLI becomes necessary, I'd suggest putting off that upgrade. A 5850 should hold you for a while, possibly until you end up building a new computer. (Depending, of course, on how demanding your games are and what your monitor's resolution is.)

 

[antwanman12]

Best answer selected by antwanman12.

 

[coldsleep]

For gaming builds, I prefer to get CrossFire/SLI-capable motherboards, to leave that option open. However, in my experience, the reality is that by the time you really need to get that 2nd card, there's a bigger & better graphics card out there to upgrade to instead.