Gaming upgrade advice

[drnick]

Hi All,

Have been out of touch with goings on for 18 months now and wasn't exactly knowledgable in the first place. Brought a system from overclockers about 18 months ago which at the time was a fantastic deal reduced and was mainly what I wanted to put together anyway. Excellent service and system

Current system is;

quad 6600 2.4FHz clocked to Qx6950+ 3.00GHz.
antec 900 case (loadsa fans very cool primary is Arctic cooling freezer 7 pro)
corsair 650 SLi compliant PSU
4GB (2x2GB) 800MHz Black Dragon DDR2 Dual channel
Leadtek Geforce 9800GT 512 card
Abit IP35 Pro XE Mobo
running Vista Home prem 64bit (SP1)

Was what I could afford at the time and not a bad system, (£600) was a bargain. Still plays everything I have fine and i'm more worried about frame rates than maxed out settings.

What I am wondering now is what an upgrade would look like for gaming purposes. I play a mix of FPS and RPG just ordered Dragon Age origins and CoD4 (the initial version) also play Grid a fair amount have the Fallout 3 expansions at the moment.

I realise the Mobo was old even at the time and the card is now also looking a bit long in tooth if perfectly servicable. I don't want to spend loads but would like to notice the difference and not struggle with new games, but don't expect max settings. Am I looking at Mobo memory and card or are there still just some card options (I don't think the mobo will do SLI) that would last me a year or two before a more expansive upgrade then.

Any words of wisdom, bare in mind a little knowledge is being pushed a long way here so keep it simple if possible.

Regards to all,

Nick

 

[Biz.Kid09]

I would say just go for a 5770 as an upgrade of gfx because it will give you be better fps and also it's dx11

 

[Plec]

Personally, i would try and get another 0.4/0.6Ghz out of the 6600 and buy a 5850/70.

You could possibly sell your 6400 memory and get some 8500 in its place - but with the addition of a the 5850/70 your rig would be fighting fit again (and perhaps getting win 7).

 

[manbearpig]

you could get a ati 5770, or a ati 4890 or a gtx 260 or get a second hand card of ebay, out of all the things you could upgrade, i would say the graphics card should be top of your list.

 

[LEUVEN]

I'd say get a GPU too, and wait untill your next "big" upgrade rather than spend on anything else for two reasons mainly.
The graphics card is more "out of date" and will give you more of a noticable boost in gaming performance.
Also the graphics card will go with your next big upgrade and any part you buy now like memory etc.... you would not really have gotten your moneys worth from as youd be likely to be doing more of a whole system rebuild.