Upgrading my PC

[lcg]

Hello,

I'm looking to upgrade my PC, which I built in November 2007. I'm looking to spend around £300 on doing this.

As you can see my specs are low,

Intel Core 2 Duo E4500, ASUS P5K AiLifestyle, 2GB DDR2, NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GS 256MB, Corsair 500W power supply.

I would like to upgrade to a Quad Core (I'm considering the Q6600), increase the RAM by 4GB, and upgrade the graphics card to an ATI 5770. I don't do much gaming, but I did buy GTA IV in the Steam sales, so I would like my upgraded machine to at least play that relatively well.

What recommendations do you have? What would be the best upgrade I could do with this budget? Do you think there is any need for me to upgrade the motherboard? - I believe the P5K I have is low end one - it isn't the Deluxe version.

Thank you in advance.

 

[lcg]

May i ask what are you going to be mainly using this pc for? As there's no point in going for a heft GPU if you wont use it. 4 gig of Ram seems a good start however.

I'll be using it for browsing, work, watching movies, and some programming and gaming. I'd like a graphics card that can handle games like GTA IV.

 

[lcg]

You should first goto the ASUS website and see what the max CPU your board can take(probably need a later bios).

The graphics card you want is good

Your psu will be ok too.

4gigs of ram should be minimum these days.

Yeah, I've checked before, and it can take a Quad Core. I'm just not sure whether it's best to leave it as it is, or try to find some more money for a motherboard upgrade.

 

[lcg]

Thanks for your suggestions skippy2421 and stulid. I think I will be using my current motherboard, and buying the Q6600 and the HD5770, and either 2GB DDR2 or 4GB depending on the amount of money I have.