Should I upgrade or wait?

popowrx

Weaksauce
Joined
Sep 8, 2006
Messages
117
My PC is getting very, VERY long in the tooth:

Motherboard: ASUS MVA78-32 EMH-HDMI 780G (Terrible buy, lots of problems)
CPU: AMD Phenom 9600 2.3ghz (TLB-disabled, still bad)
Memory: G.SKILL 2x2GB DDR2 800
Hard Drives: Seagate Sata/300 1TB/750, Western Digital Sata 5400 250 GB
Video Card: Nvidia 8800GT Stock
PSU: Corsair HX520 PSU (2 years old)
Case: Cooler Master CM690
Monitor: Samsung Syncmaster 2232gw, 1680x1050
OS: Windows 7 64bit

Location: North Texas, DFW-area
REUSING: PSU, Case, Monitor, and the 1TB drive as a storage drive
Build Time: Variable
Motherboard Features: Don't need SLI/Xfire/Firewire
Budget: $1000 (Tax/shipping included, Willing to go over by at most, $200), Need: CPU, Memory, 1 Hard Drive (Boot drive), Video Card, and PSU if deemed a need

The only intensive thing I do on my PC is gaming so that is the main focus. I also don't plan on overclocking the CPU though I am open to overclocking the video card.

The games I want to play in the future include, Starcraft II, Diablo III, World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, GasPoweredGames RTS, Relic Entertainment RTS/Whatever, Dragon Age 2, Mass Effect 3, SWTOR, Guild Wars 2, Witcher 1/2, etc. Lots of MMOs/RTS/RPGs and Bioware/Blizzard games basically.

Now, onto my question. I want to have a computer that is able to max out WoW:Cat at 1680x1050, that is the primary goal. The ETA is around November 2010. Should I buy a Core i5/i7 system now with the Radeon 5850 or do you guys/gals think a 5850 can tide me over until Sandy Bridge hits early 2011? How badly am I bottlenecking a 5850 and would it even make a difference? Should I just wait for AMD 67xx?

Preferably, I would like to wait for Sandy Bridge so I can make a build that will last awhile and have longer legs. I'll leave it to your collective wisdom though.
 
If your current PC is just fine for your current gaming needs, I say wait until November, get WOW:Cat, play with it and see if there are any updated hardware reviews/news/requirements of that game. See how badly your system performs with WOW:Cat. Then decide whether or not to upgrade.

Alternatively, if you don't mind not getting the full performance out of your HD 5850, you could always get that and use it as a stop-gap upgrade until Sandy Bridge comes out. Then again the old computer adage "If you keep waiting for that next piece of hardware around the corner, you're never gonna build a PC" applies here.
 
If your current PC is just fine for your current gaming needs, I say wait until November, get WOW:Cat, play with it and see if there are any updated hardware reviews/news/requirements of that game. See how badly your system performs with WOW:Cat. Then decide whether or not to upgrade.

Alternatively, if you don't mind not getting the full performance out of your HD 5850, you could always get that and use it as a stop-gap upgrade until Sandy Bridge comes out. Then again the old computer adage "If you keep waiting for that next piece of hardware around the corner, you're never gonna build a PC" applies here.

Yea, I was leaning towards that. Sandy Bridge is basically my "buck stops here" CPU. Thanks for the advice.
 
I would say wait until AMD decides to release some new cards after removing ATi
 
Back
Top