AMD 955BE + 4850 upgrade for competitive gaming fps

[thomas49th]

Hi,

I wish to upgrade a system for a friend. His current system

Phenom II 955 @ stock
4GB DDRIII
ATI Sapphire 4850 512mb
Either MSI 770-C35 or C45 AM3 motherboard (1 PCIE)

He is into gaming and wants to upgrade his system for FPS boost, particularly for Red Orchestra HoS. He also wants visuals in COH and single player games. But I also want to make it a bit future proof.

His budget £350 (but can stretch higher).

I am thinking OC the current CPU and get a a cheap xFire AM3 board (where are they?) to get a good system OR is it really worth getting say, an i5 2500? or wait for bulldozer? With this a couple of 5850 which he can OC a little? AM3+ for bulldozer upgrade in future. Or would 2x 6850 be a better choice?

What are people's opinions? It's really for getting a good fps in games (plays COMPETITIVE gaming so need +60 fps AT ALL TIMES).

2 Most important games: RO:HoS, COH

Thanks
Thomas

 

[Reaper 392]

if your going to get a crossfire/SLI motherboard you really want to get something that is socket AM3+ so it will support bulldozer because theres not really enough room in the budget for a crossfire/SLI intel motherboard + i5 2500k + graphics card

can you tell me what make and model case + PSU your friend has, as well as if your friend has standard height RAM like corsair XMS3, or higher profile RAM like Gskill Ripjaw or corsair vengance. then i can make sure everything i recommend will fit and wont blow the PSU

 

[mp260767]

what size monitor/resolution does he game at ?

as per reaper what case/psu does he have.

would definately consider overclocking the processor, might need a new cooler if its running on the amd supplied one.

if needs be i'd consider case/psu/gfx card((current price of the 6870's go for them)/cooler (multi socket so would be ok for 2500K if required) then check how that improves things with your overclocked Phenom II 955.

if it's not up to it then consider the 2500K route, previously brought case/psu/gfx/cooler will be reusable with that.