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What should I upgrade?

A

Aaryn101

n00b
Joined
Aug 9, 2005
Messages
14
First off, my system specs (as far as I can remember)

Intel E2160 @ 3.00 Ghz
Gigabyte P35-DS3L
4x1GB PC 6500 RAM
Cooler Master 600W PSU
NVIDA 8800GT 512MB

I have my eyes on the new E8400 processor, which is currently retailing for $189 off of Newegg. If I get it, I would get a good cooler for it so I could overclock it (hopefully near the 4Ghz mark).

My question is: Would this be a good enough upgrade for gaming to make it worth it? Is the processor the bottleneck in my current system, or should I worry about upgrading my MOBO/Video Card first?

Any help/advice is much appreciated.
 
Your biggest bottleneck is definitely your cpu. I would upgrade to the wolfdale cpu and also consider moving up to pc2 8500, since it's not at all expensive. Your mobod doesn't support multiple gpu's but if your a seldom gamer, don't waste any money on a new mobod, since skt 775 will be phased out soon enough. Also, it's not worth upgrading your gpu yet, since you will just end up paying too much for a card that will be out dated in less than a month. Also, the ati 4870 x2 will be released soon, which will drop gpu prices yet again.
 
Would the performance benefits of PC2 8500 really be worth the money that it would cost me to get 4GB of it?
 
I agree with the above poster that a Wolfdale would be a worthy upgrade, but I disagree that you should get new RAM. Unless you have trouble overclocking your current memory, there's no point in switching it out, especially since most tests show RAM speed as having a fairly small effect on general performance with Core 2 systems.

Your video card is also fine for now. Although the 4850 has supplanted the 8800GT as the mid-range card to have, your card is by no means a slouch and should last you a while, by which time card prices will have dropped anyhow.
 
CPU, but with that OC.. I doubt you're having TOO much of a bottleneck...
 
I think that it depends on what you are having problems with in your current system. If you are having slow framerates in your favorite games, then go for video. If you can't run all the programs you would like to at the same time, then go quad core. What size monitor do you have? When I upgraded from a 17" LCD to a 20" it was like night and day.
 
I am looking for faster framerates in my video games; but I'm not sure that upgrading my video card (or running SLI) would give me a performance boost that would be worth the price.

I just upgraded my monitor, I went from a 20" Sceptre to a 24" Acer and... well, it was definitely the most worthwhile upgrade I have done for some time.
 
The 8800GT struggles with games on a 24" monitor... during the (initial) [H] review of the G92 8800GTS, the 8800GT was the only card that was unable to play Crysis at a 1920x1200 resolution.

You may want to go with one of the new HD 4-series cards. The HD 4870, which can be found for around $300, seems to performs better than the HD 4850 (and, by extention, the 8800GT) on playing games at a 1920x1200 resolution. But it may be more money than you want to spend.
 
I can't spend more than $250 on my current budget. So, I guess the question now is: what would give me the biggest performance boost for my games?
- an E8400 OC'ed to around 4Ghz
- an HD 4850
- or, waiting for the HD 4870 price to drop and then purchasing it
 
A 4850 would give you a bigger boost than a new CPU in games, but your current video card is already pretty good so there isn't a huge reason for you to upgrade altogether IMO. My suggestion is to wait until you aren't satisfied with the performance of your current card anymore and then get whatever fits your budget. Chances are that would be a 4870 or 4850X2 depending on how soon that time comes.
 
My problem right now, is that at the high resolution of my monitor (1920x1200) games like Crysis and even WoW starts to choke in places. I just played a session in Crysis, and at that resolution and all settings on high the game is hovering around 20fps (with no AA). The framerates get significantly better as I lower my resolution, but at all resolutions my fps will die if I enable AA. I know that Crysis is a demanding game, and I am not hoping for a miracle - but I do need a modest boost in my framerates if I want to play most of my games at my screen's native resolution.

I have heard that the 4850 is significantly better at higher resolutions than the 8800GT, but I haven't seen many great benchmarks on the 4850 vs 8800GT regarding these sorts of things...
 
Check out the OC Club's review of the PowerColor HD 4870 -- it has benchmarks that compare the HD 4870 to the HD 4850, the 8800GT, and other popular video card models.

Because of the high resolution of your 24 inch LCD, Danny's advice is best.
 
I do think that I would go for the 4870 if I were to decide to upgrade the video card. From the reviews that I have read, it seems like a pretty sizeable upgrade. But then again, $185 for an E8400 that has six times the cache (6MB) that my current CPU has, and is overclockable to 4Ghz, seems to also be a sizeable upgrade.

I'll have to give this matter some more thought. I appreciate the help and advice given so far, and any more would also be taken with equal appreciation.
 
well the e8400 is going to be dropped to 163 in a few weeks but id still go get the 4870 because at higher resolution your cpu is going to be doing less and less work compared to gpu
 
The 4870 will give you a significant improvement in games, whereas an E8400 will give you a small improvement at best. If gaming performance is what you're after, a new video card is definitely the best upgrade. For general purpose tasks an overclocked E8400 would be faster than your current CPU, but at high detail settings and high resolutions like you plan on running at, the bottlenecking from your CPU at its current speed will be small or nonexistant.
 
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