Updrade GPU or CPU first? Currently own ATI 4650

[damon88]

CURRENT GPU: ATI Radeon HD 4650

OTHER RELEVANT SYSTEM SPECS:
Intel Core 2 Duo E7500 (2.9 Ghz)
2Gig ddr2 RAM (800 MHZ)

MONITOR RESOLUTION: (e.g.: 1024x768,1152x864, 1280x1024)

On my current setup i am playing Mass Effect 2 and i get decent framerate except for a few cut scenes where it drops to like 25 otherwise on average i get 38-40FPS. Quite enjoyable and sometimes it reaches 50 which is a breeze.

I am thinking of upgrading my system so i can play games released recently this year.
Assassin creed brotherhood
(right now it runs kinda slow, in dense city environment it drops to like 25 , settings are all maxed, AA off and shadows are med.)
And i heard Mass Effect 3 is gonna be out soon.
Fallout 4 etc.

I want to play these latest games on rez no more than 1280x1024 , AA can be traded off in favour of fps. And im satisified if i get 40 - 50 fps. anything below 33 fps at any point just ruins the experience.

So the bottomline is im thinking should i upgrade my CPU or my GPU, I know i should upgrade them both cuz thats when i wud get the max performance boost as Cpu is a bottelneck for some games. But im thinking overall.

So folks, given my current requirements what will be best. Should i upgrade my GPU or my CPU ? which one will give me the max performance gain with respect to my current setup.


My Budget is 200$ for GPU.

 

[assassin123]

hello friend you should upgrade your gpu because gpu is very necessary for gaming and your system is good
so try changing your gpu

 

[iam2thecrowe]

If you only have $200 to spend now, i suggest an AMD 6770/5770 video card, another 2gb RAM, and a decent CPU cooler to overclock your CPU. your gpu is a bottleneck, but your cpu will also limit your FPS in many new games. The last few big release titles have needed quad core CPU to run really smoothly. At your resolution something like a 6770 should be ok, but a 6850 or gtx460 would be better and allow you to enable AA in recent releases at your resolution. If you are in to overclocking that CPU can easily go to 3.5ghz and beyond if you get a decent cooler. You are unfortunately stuck with socket 775 and going to a quad core means you will need to buy an overpriced core 2 quad, or the better option is to get a new AMD motherboard, x4 CPU and ram. Also 2gb ram is not enough, you need at least 4gb. You really want to check what power supply you have to make sure it has enough juice to power whatever upgrade you decide on.

 

[Chirag Borawake]

You should upgrade your GPU first, or both is possible..
For GPU, you can go for ATI radeon HD 5770/5670, you'll get good performance at that resolution.

 

[damon88]

Should i go for nvidia or ATI among the suggested models ?

 

[assassin123]

in my opinion i will suggest u nvedia because it will beat ati every time

 

[Chirag Borawake]

in my opinion i will suggest u nvedia because it will beat ati every time

I myself own nvidia card, and I too am nvidia fan, BIG time. But I respectfully disagree to your opinion that nvidia beats every ATI card, everytime.
ATI is as good as nvidia. And if his budget is limited, why not go for ATI card?

@damon88: dude, nvidia or ATI, the company is not the concern. Your budget is $200, right? So let us know the details about your PSU, so that we can suggest you the model directly, whatever it maybe, nvidia or ATI, doesn't matter for sure..!!

 

[assassin123]

yeah its also good but it depends upon his choice

 

[damon88]

I will need to upgrade my 400watt psu in any case , ati or nvidia, ati 4650 works fine with it but i guess upgraded cards will want more juice.

Ive seen some benchmarks where performance was severely affected when physx was enabled.The hit on fps makes games unplayable. Ati cards are affected the most. That had me thinking.
Ati has an edge when it comes to supporting more monitors though, but im not really interested in it.