upgrade?

[100%scottish]

Should I upgrade my gfx (560 Ti) or will my cpu bottleneck it? (q9550 @3.5ghz). If it is worth upgrading what would you recommend for around £150. Thanks

 

[snips86x]

A 280/280x should keep you going until you can upgrade the rest. You'll be limited to PCIe 2.0 and there may be a small bottleneck, but you'll get good performance out of it!

 

[r7slayer]

Id say upgrade and look at overclocking your cpu. This would be the most cost effective upgrade otherwise youll be looking at new mobo and cpu too.

These two cards are within your budget and will give you a very nice performance boost. Your cpu shouldn't bottleneck that much with a small overclock maybe though im not that familiar with that cpu in guessing its allready overclocked. Might be some small bottleneck tbh. But depends how much your willing to upgrade lol.
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-221-XF&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1842

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-171-PC&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1842

 

[arc@css]

There will probably a bottleneck of some sort, but you should still see nice gains. I wouldn't leave it too long before your grab a new cpu and mobo, though.


In your shoes, I would probably go for one of these :

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-221-XF&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1842

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-171-PC&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1842

 

[100%scottish]

Could probably get the cpu to 3.8 if I learn a bit more about overclocking. It is 2.8 stock so already has a slight o.c. Is radeon the way to go at the moment then? Not had one since the x1950 pro about 1000 years ago. I remember drivers being a constant issue and that's why I went nvid. Is this no longer a problem?

 

[100%scottish]

There will probably a bottleneck of some sort, but you should still see nice gains. I wouldn't leave it too long before your grab a new cpu and mobo, though.


In your shoes, I would probably go for one of these :

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-221-XF&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1842

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-171-PC&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1842

Cant really afford to do the mobo, cpu and ram atm mate even though it needs it

 

[r7slayer]

Could probably get the cpu to 3.8 if I learn a bit more about overclocking. It is 2.8 stock so already has a slight o.c. Is radeon the way to go at the moment then? Not had one since the x1950 pro about 1000 years ago. I remember drivers being a constant issue and that's why I went nvid. Is this no longer a problem?

It's not so much the way to go but the AMD cards recommended are cards which offer the most performance for that price range compared to competing cards.

If you could manage to get your cpu to 3.8 i'm sure the bottleneck would be very small on not noticable!

 

[arc@css]

Cant really afford to do the mobo, cpu and ram atm mate even though it needs it

That's fair enough, but as I say, try not to leave it a long time before getting some more hardware. Just get a cpu + mobo when you can.