Upgrade question

[tbones17]

I play on a 22" at 1650x1050. I play a lot of games, but otherwise no video editing/processing etc.

Current:
c2d e4300, no OC. No desire to mess with OC settings.
8800gts 320mb.
2gigs

Would I notice a significant improvement with either the new ATI 4850 512 card or 9800GTX (both around $200).

If yes, should I also upgrade to an e8400 or around there?

 

[JimmiG]

You would probably notice a small improvement. Many games are starting to take advantage of 512MB video RAM. I would go with the 4850, it's a newer architecture, maybe a little more future proof. 9800GTX is basically a refined 8800GTX which is several years old now.

Why not try and "mess" with overclocking? You have one of those CPUs that can reach 3 GHz..if you get it to above 2.6 GHz then there's no need to upgrade for a while
It's not that "messy", you just change a couple of settings in the BIOS setup and run some stress tests overnight to make sure it's stable.