What to upgrade, Q6600 or AMD 5770?

[vcdorantes]

Hello,

I'm on a tight budget and I want to upgrade my PC to be able to run The Witcher 2 and GTA 4 at 1080p with most options set to high (and be ready to run Battlefield 3 and Skyrim). Currently I have:

Q6600 OCed to 3.2Ghz (Can't get past that speed)
4GB DDR2 800Mhz
Gigabyte cheap-ish P35 MOBO
ATI HD 5770 1GB

I need to decide whether to upgrade the CPU or the GPU, as I don't have the money to upgrade both. My main options are:

1.- Core i5 2500k + P65 MOBO + 4GB 1033 RAM ($480-ish)

OR

2.- ATI HD 6870 Video Card. ($270-ish)

(Both prices are the best I found here in Mexico)

What do you guys think will provide a better performance increase?

Sorry for my English.

Thanks a lot for your feedback!

 

[werxen]

Those games you listed all run off different things. GTA 4 is more CPU, BF3 will be more GPU.

IMO, get a GPU upgrade first. That thing is ancient piece of crap power eater.

 

[joesumo]

at that overclock that cpu should be fine. If you want to save money you could possible think about crossfiring the 5770. the extra heat might be bad for your cpu though. I would just get the 6870. maybe even a 6950 if you want to be a little more future proof

 

[Uther39]

Hold on to your system with that OC its pretty decent still go and get one of these

Asus ATI Radeon HD 6950 DirectCU II 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card

 

[vcdorantes]

Thanks a lot for the replies! I was afraid that sticking with the Q6600 would cause a bottleneck problem.

I guess I will get the 6870 for now and save for the 2500k (or Bulldozer, who knows).

@ps3hacker12, Yes!! I meant P67 and not P65, hehe.

 

[vcdorantes]

Thanks a lot for the replies! I was afraid that sticking with the Q6600 would cause a bottleneck problem.

I guess I will get the 6870 for now and save for the 2500k (or Bulldozer, who knows).

@ps3hacker12, Yes!! I meant P67 and not P65, hehe.

I actually went forward with a 6950!

I'll post my impressions here as soon as I get the card. So anyone out there with a Q6600 knows what to expect from this card.

 

[quantumdawn]

Here's an article about CPU bottlenecks with graphics cards:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/balanced-gaming-pc-overclock,2625-9.html

The 6950 benchmarks similar to the 5870 OC, so you'll be CPU bottlenecked by around 20% with your current CPU. Still, it'll be a big performance boost.

You'll see another big jump when you upgrade your CPU.

 

[sportsfanboy]

Don't worry about the bottleneck...At 3.2 maybe a touch higher your performing around the same speed as a Q9650, which in turn performs similar to a i5 750, just to put it into perspective for you. http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/49?vs=109