Upgrade Dual Core CPU to quad of upgrade RAM

Current Set Up:

Windows 7 64bit
Intel Pentium Dual-Core E5300 "LGA775 Core 2" 2.6Ghz (800fsb)
Seagate Barracuda 7200 12 500GB SATA-II 16mb cahe - OEM
Nvidia GTX470 1024mb
Gigabyte GA-G41M-E2SL Intel G41 (socket 775) PC-I Express DDR2 Motherboard
Corsair 600w psu
Corsair XMS2 4 GB (2 times 2gb) DDR2, TwinX Dual Channel




Hi, I'm having a little trouble playing the latest games on my system. I have just upgraded to a gtx470 I found on the cheap, but in high performance games (i've been trying to play battlefield 3 beta) the fps are 20 or below (sometimes 15).

Should I upgrade my CPU (the best I think I can get for my motherboard (Socket 775) and limited funds is an intel duo quadcore 2.66ghz). Or should I upgrade to 8gb RAM?

When playing games my Free Physical Memory hovers on zero and CPU usage is 100% (according to performance manager)

Any help would be really appreciated.

Thanks

your RAM is fine, CPU will struggle in CPU demanding games. if you can get a quad CPU cheap (socket 775 is old) it would be a good step up.

As you can see in my signature I have much of the same hardware as you but with a quadcore. My machine handles BF3 without a glitch

I was looking at the q9400

http://www.pc-titan.com/product_in [...] 9400-.html

I've also seen a Intel Core 2 Quad Q8300 LGA775 'Yorkfield' 2.5GHz 4MB-cache for slightly cheaper than the above.

I would appreciate your opinion. Thanks

quad will make a huge difference, i've the same gpu but a better CPU and BF3 was quick enough

plenty of power

Also does anyone know where I could find a Intel Core 2 Quad Q9400 reasonably priced. There doesn't seem to be many out there. I can find plenty of Q8400's for £120ish. Is there that much difference between the two?

Actually BF3 and some other games are a lot happier with a slower quad than a fast dual, and do use the extra cores extensively.

I'm surprised you are seeing 15-20 FPS in BF3, the duals in the above benchmark run 40+ average and they are not much faster; you may be GPU limited if higher than 1080p.

If you cannot find a reasonable priced core 2 quad consider a core 2 duo like the E8400, or a LGA1155 setup since DDR3 is so cheap right now.

Newegg is a US company? I've seen a q8400 for £120 inc delivery, so might go with that, fingers crossed. Thanks for the help!

As for dual core vs. quad core, that depends on your programs. Some people have addressed that issue above.

You can overclock your current processor. Check old tom's articles where they have gotten that processor to near 4 GHz. You would need a new CPU cooler for that, and maybe a new motherboard. Or you could just try it with your current motherboard to see how high it will go.

The Q6600 and Q9400 are good processors but require a lot of other stuff for a successful overclock. The Q6600 has a multiplier of 9, the Q9400 has a multiplier of 8. My experience is that the Q9400 will overclock a little higher. I took a Q6600 to 3.5GHz and that was as high as I could go. With a multiplier of 9 this requires system bus speed of 389 and 800MHz ram. Your motherboard might or might not do this. A Q9400 can go higher, mine went to 3.8GHz, but with the multiplier of 8 this requires a real good motherboard that can run at 475MHz and ram that will run at 950MHz.

I'm not sure where his chip is compared to those in the chart, but my guess is the Athlon II down at the bottom. That chip scores 40FPS, but it clocked nearly a gig higher. OCing his CPU might help, but if he can score a quad cheap enough it should keep him gaming for a lot longer. OCing his CPU is also probably not possible in his case as he has a G41 chipset. Not known for their OCing abilities. I'm on the other side of the pond and don't know your websites.

Sorry guys, one more question...

I've been tinkering with my Bus Speed. In CPU-Z the multiplier fluctuates between 6 and 13 (the core speed appears to jump between approx 1412mhz and double that value)

Why is this please? Is it to do with some sort of energy saving setting? How can I accurately assess my increased CPU speed after overclocking?

Thanks