What should I upgrade??

[lodingi]

I have a nice system (see sig). I have the itch to upgrade a part of my computer. I'm not sure which route to take, so I reach out to you. These are my options, please share your thoughts. Thanks.

• Q9550 to replace my Q6600. I'm currently at 3.3 stable but the thought of 3.8-4.0 is attractive.
• 24"-26" LCD to replace my 22" Diamondtron CRT 4:3 (20" viewable). I think I would enjoy the increased real estate. I am a gamer so I'm not sure I will appreciate gaming on the LCD.
• SSD drive to use for O/S & games. I like my Raid 0 setup, but reading the threads in the storage forum has me salivating.

I want to stay around $300 or less. FYI, I plan on upgrading to the new Nvidia gpu whenever that's released. Thanks again.

 

[galdoes16]

I would say go for the monitor. Nothing makes a bigger difference to me than more room.

 

[Dangman]

What exactly do you hope to accomplish with this upgrade?

 

[engiNURD]

1) Unless the apps you use will benefit from the 500Mhz increase and are optimized for SSE4, then this upgrade would not be worth it.

2) If you play FPS games, nothing will beat the CRT. TN panel LCDs will come close, but the colors won't be as vibrant. Some people are ok with this, others are not -- its subjective. I have both, an LCD and a CRT.

3) This or the monitor will probably give you the most satisfaction.

Answer Danny's question first.

 

[lodingi]

What exactly do you hope to accomplish with this upgrade?

I want what every addict wants....more. I want to enhance my pc experience.

1) Unless the apps you use will benefit from the 500Mhz increase and are optimized for SSE4, then this upgrade would not be worth it.

2) If you play FPS games, nothing will beat the CRT. TN panel LCDs will come close, but the colors won't be as vibrant. Some people are ok with this, others are not -- its subjective. I have both, an LCD and a CRT.

3) This or the monitor will probably give you the most satisfaction.

Answer Danny's question first.

1. Not sure if my games will benefit from this upgrade. Like I stated, I plan to grab the next gen Nvidia card when it releases. Not sure when/where a cpu starts to bottleneck a gpu.

2. I do play fps games so a bigger screen would be nice, but from what I've read, LCD's still suffer from input lag. What's your opinion on the LCD vs CRT drama?

3. The SSD looks like it would add some snap to my system. Not sure if the price will drop anytime soon. $250 for a decent 60 gb SSD makes me think twice. Is a single SSD enough or do I need 2 & Raid 0?

 

[engiNURD]

Nah, you can get an Indilinx based 60GB for under $180 these days. However, if you choose an Indilinx based drive, you'll want two for RAID0. If you only want a single SSD, go with the Intel X25-M G2. SSDs scale very nicely in RAID0, btw.

I still prefer gaming on my CRT. TN panels are still pretty good as long as input lag is minimal, but its mainly a personal preference thing. Playable is subjective, so you have to try it out for yourself. If its fine, then ditch the CRT. If you don't like it, keep both for dual screens.

Around 3Ghz should be enough for current Core2/Phenom2 CPUs to prevent bottlenecking the GPU.