CPU or GPU ??

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Right, i have some money to burn from my birthday and im not sure whether to go for a new CPU or GPU!

Currently have an e4500 OC'd to 2.915Ghz (couldnt get any more) and an OCUK 8800GTX.

L4D uses pretty much 100% of the CPU so im leaning towards an E8400 so i can clock it nicely. SWith its extra speed and cache i think this will give some more life to my rig.

However, im also aware that the GTX isn't the beast it used to be for games thet have just been released or will be in the future. I currently game at 1440*900 but will upgrade to a full HD res monitr at some point this year.

What would you upgrade or suggest i do!??

Thanks in advance :)
 
Changing the cpu may not give you the boost you are looking for. Most games are GPU limited these days and from my own testing i have found that overclocking the cpu will make virtually no difference in fps. Going from a E4300 at 3Ghz to a E8500 at 4.5Ghz see's a 10fps in minimum framerates and no increase at all in average and max fps in games like COH Opposing Fronts and Crysis. See my charts here. 4th one down is the games charts.
 
I'd change GPU...
When I had My old PENTIUM D with GeForce (can't remember No, but couldn't play even 2000-2005 games on medium/maximum)
After changing to X1950pro could play even Crysis on medium settings, COD4 on high, etc. ...
 
If you're playing games that run on the source engine, such as Left 4 Dead, Half Life 2, CSS, etc, your best bet is to upgrade CPU, as it's a very CPU dependent game, if you want to play games such as GRID, Crysis, CoD4/WaW then you will need to update both of them eventually, GPU would be priority in this case for these games.
 
give me the money and I'll upgrade my rig for you :)
In all honesty, I'm still more than happy with my 8800GTX. I don't feel the bottleneck everyone goes on about. OK its not a 4870, but its still good for games like L4D, crysis and slightly older games
 
This really seems to have split the crowd, but im on the CPU side myself. The 8800GTX is a great card and is more than capable of running anything at even 1680x1050 smoothly and looking great. So I think you would see most benefit from An E8400 (or even an E5200) and overclocking them some.

Hawker
 
Thanks for your input! Plenty of votes for each there! Im still confused!!

The cooler for the GTX and an OC sounds like a plan...

Think i may have to go for the 8400 then and clock it up :)

Motherboard is Asus P5K and BIOs version 0603 from 07/03/2007.

Would a BIOS update possibly aid my clocking then?
 
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