Upgrades!

[Garee]

Current Rig :

Phenom II X2 550 ( Unlocked to 4 core @ 3.1 )
Asus M4A785TD-V EVO
4GB DDR3
ATI 5770
250GB HD
400W Corsair

I mainly use the rig for gaming and it usually handles everything at max settings excluding Metro 2033 and Crysis. I do experience occasional slowdowns however.

Budget : £500

I was considering maybe a new HD and an SSD ( My current space is dwindeling and the HD is at least 5 years old ). The CPU could do with an update aswell.

Also, is my power supply a problem at 400W or do I have headroom for more powerful graphics cards?

Thanks.

 

[cmndr_andi]

To be honest - if you have what is effectively a 3.1GHz Phenom II X4 then you won't need a CPU upgrade for gaming for some time.

In games you will be limited by your graphics card - and this is probably what the slowdowns are caused by, however I imagine that the performance is still generally rather good. If you want a graphic upgrade then your 400W PSU could be an issue - it is very good quality, but many of the top-end cards need more power than it can provide. I would suggest waiting to see how the new generation AMD HD 5900 series cards perform, both in terms of gaming and power consumption (they come out in the week of December 13th).

 

[skylineboy]

Maybe look to a 6870 card. should keep your power ok. (Can someone else check I'm not good at these)

Samsung F3 Hardrive: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-082-SA
Or get the 500gb version.

OCZ vertex 60GB: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-047-OC

Then over clock it further if you can What cooler do you use?

Possibly an Antec truepower 650 watt at a great price: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-117-AN

 

[cmndr_andi]

Maybe look to a 6870 card. should keep your power ok. (Can someone else check I'm not good at these)

Good shout on the 6870 - it is pretty good with the power and I would be confident putting it on that PSU (here is a test which shows total system power consumption at load using an i7 system - 306W in furmark).

I would suggest the OP has a look through the various gaming tests in this review to determine whether the extra performance is worth the money for them.