DDR3 Upgrade

[jackofhearts495]

Hi, I was thinking about spending as little as possible to upgrade my system to DDR3 (I'm working with DDR2 at the moment).

My current specs:

Case: CoolerMaster Centurion 5
CPU: AMD Phenom II X2 Black Edition 555 @ 3.7GHz (200x18.5, 1.325V)
HDD: 500GB Hitachi SATA2
MB: ASUS M2N68-AM SE2
GPU: EVGA GTX460 768MB @ 907core/1814shader/2133memory
RAM: 4gb DDR2 cheapo generic brand
Sound: ASUS Xonar DS 7.1
PSU: Coolermaster 550W

WEI: 6.8 Processor / 7.5 RAM / 7.5 Graphics / 7.5 Gaming Graphics / 5.9 HDD

I'm thinking about upgrading the motherboard and memory to this:

Biostar A870U3 AMD 879 SATA 6gb/s USB 3.0 ATX (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138318)

PNY XLR8 2x2GB DDR3 1600 8-8-8-24 1.65V (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820178265)


Alternatively... I was thinking about just upgrading to an i5-2500K with a ~$120 P67 or Z68 board. I'm considering...

P67: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130576

Z68: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138317

Only 1 PCIe x 16 and one PCI is necessary. I'm a moderately avid gamer (WoW, BFBC2, etc).

Thanks in advance for any help/suggestions.

 

[striker410]

Well, you very well laid out the options. My personal advice would be to stick with AMD, as it's going to be a cheaper upgrade and will match your current GPU a little better. A 2500k with a 460 is a very powerful combo, but a tiny bit bottlenecked in my opinion.

If you go AMD, definitely get a board that allows core unlocking, like this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157198&cm_re=extreme3-_-13-157-198-_-Product My buddy has the same board and same GPU. They work like a dream.

The advantage of core unlocking is that with your CPU, you could very easily get a quad core due to dormant cores. It's a gamble, but it's a big payoff if you win.