Need advice upgrading

[Built4thekill]

Hi there!

I'm upgrading my pc and I need advice regarding the best choice of Processor, Mobo, hard drive and Memory.

Basically my initial 3 yr-old build consisted of a Core 2 quad Q8200, MSI P45 Neo3-FR motherboard, 4gb Ram DDR2 PC2 6400, HD4870 512mb VGA card, 250gb Hard drive, gigabyte 720W power supply all boxed in a NZXT casing.

I recently sold the HD4870 and replaced it with a HD6970 2Gb Card, which took a huge chunk out my budget but I wanted it bad enough. I also added a 512gb hard drive with7200rpm last year.
I'm holding on to my power supply and maybe the casing.

I use my home pc to play games, only to play games. All my work stays in my office (including social networking) and I'm not the sort to overclock or tinker with the bios of my hardware but I am on a budget. I'm planning to buy Skyrim, NFS Run and Arkham City as soon as they release so that's gonna also take its toll on the budget.

So back to my question: Should I go for an i5 2500k or an i7 2600? an i5 2500 or an i7 2600k? Do I really need a Mobo with 2 or 3 PCI-e x16 slots or will just the one be enough? Do I need a new hard drive which runs at 6gb/s? For the memory whats the optimum speed I should be looking for and much memory do I really need?

I'm looking to keep the next build for the next 18 months at the least! Your views are much appreciated

Cheers

 

[tecmo34]

This topic has been moved from the section Opinions and Experiences to section Systems by Tecmo34

 

[HugoStiglitz]

you will not notice ANY difference in games between the 2500k and 2600k.
so save the money and get the 2500k

you will only see a difference in loading times (and very small diff) changing you hard drive.

memory of between 4 and 8 gb, more and u wont see any difference. (make sure you have 64bit windows)

1333 to 1600mhz ram is about right.

changing ur CPU, MOBO & RAM isnt going to be a OMGWTFBBQ performance increase.

PSU Will be good for another build or 2 after this one so dont worry about replacing it yet.


Gone are the days where you replaced your 2-3 year old computer and got 2-3x the performance or more.

the change from your 4870 to the 6970 will be the biggest change you will see.
even after you add a new CPU, Motherboard & RAM, it will be less of a performance increase than when you changed the GPU.

 

[Built4thekill]

Hmmm....now I'm thinking if I should upgrade at all. Maybe I should just get a SSD