Cheap upgrade for wifes PC?

[Kyrne]

Her PC is getting a wee bit old now, and strugging abit for the games we play (Guild Wars 2 & Planetside 2) Moneys abit tight and dont really want to waste it if the CPU will just bottleneck.

CPU - E8400
GPU - GTS 250

Worth putting another card in there?

Thanks

 

[Marine-RX179]

Ideally for the best improvement, you would want to upgrade both the CPU/platform and graphic card together...but it's down to how much you want to spend...

The way I see it, you can:
a) Minimal spending - Overclock the E8400 to 4.2GHz (or higher if possible) and upgrade graphic card to 7850 2GB (or 2nd hand 5850 or similar if want to save money)
b) 2nd hand combo - Upgrade to 2nd hand i5 2500K+ram+board for under £200, and graphic card to a 2nd hand 5850 or simliar for around £50-£60 (or spend more for faster card if prefered)
c) Big spender - i5 3570K+ram+board for under £300, and a 7950 for £240 (or 7850 2GB or 2nd hand cards)

The two game you mention are quite CPU demanding, but with that side the GTS250 is also not fast enough to run at decent settings. The benefit of having i5 would mean you would be more in control of the performance (keeping frame rate above 40fps more often), as frame rate would increase if you are willing to turn down graphic details/quality when the graphic card is limitation; sticking with your E8400 but upgrading graphic card would mean there would be demanding moments which the frame rate in games could dip down to 20s~30s fps, and adjusting graphic setting won't help improving the frame rate as the limitation is the CPU not the graphic card.

Personally, I would go with option a) if I don't have a lot of money to spend. Upgrading graphic card comes first, the rest can be upgraded in the future (especially with new Intel socket coming soon).