What upgrade can/should I get?

[MikeDennis]

Hi guys, this is my first post. Please excuse me if it's in the wrong subforum or I'm breaching forum etiquette in any way by asking for advice in my first post (it's happened before) !

I put my first build together about 5 years ago and it is still serving me fairly well. It is:

Asus P5QPL-AM m/b (I skimped on this a bit, I realise now)
Core 2 Quad Q8400 2.66ghz
2 x 2GB Kingston HyperX DDR2 800mhz
Thermaltake 420W PSU
Geforce GT520 1GB GDDR3

I'm an enormous fan of the Total War games and, contrary to most of what I've been reading in the thread about it in the PC Games section, now that Rome 2 is playable from all the recent patches, I'm finding it a really enjoyable game and want to get more from it.

Problem is, as you might expect from that spec list, my computer has a bit of a tough job. I currently play it with everything pretty much medium detail with a few things lowered and a couple of things raised (i.e. antialiasing on) and it runs with a just about bearable FPS rate and never freezes or crashes. That's a lie, it has crashed a couple of times, but I don't think it was to do with the graphics options and I can live with it for now

My question is: I've been looking at Geforce GTX 650s and Radeon HD7850s - my motherboard doesn't have a PCI Express 3.0 slot but it does have one PCI Express x16 slot that my current graphics card is in. Is it worth me buying one of these super-looking, highly recommended cards with the setup I have and with the (what I've gathered from recent research is) limited bandwidth I will get from the PCI Express slot?

Secondary question: Would I benefit from more RAM at the 4gb point...? I know an upgrade from 4mb to 8mb used to make a massive difference back in the day but is 4gb to 8gb a comparable change?

I'm basically trying to ignore the likelihood that it's time I start a whole new system from scratch!

Thanks for your help in advance.

 

[varkanoid]

You have PCIE 2.0. All graphics cards are backwards compatible so a PCIE3.0 works in a PCIE2.0 at the lower speed so dont worry about it. It also will make no difference to the speed of games whether you are using PCIE 2.0 or 3.0 so forget about it. At the moment games do not push a PCIE 2.0 let alone a PCIE 3.0 so you are not limited by bandwidth at all.

7850 is faster than a 650 dont bother with a 650.
The GTS520 is pants and is holding you back big time. This is the problem in your setup

4gb is fine most people buy 8gb just for headroom but games rarely need more than 4gb ram. It makes little difference nowadays unless you are doing lots of photo/video work.

A R270 is basically a rebadged 7850 and a R270X is basically a rebadged 7870.

If you monitor is 1920 x 1080 or less buy something like this

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-093-HS&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1982

if it is within your budget and it will stand you in good stead till your next big upgrade.

 

[arc@css]

Good advice above. Just make sure you overclock the cpu as much as you can, and keep an eye on the temps.

At the earliest opportunity in the future, I would overhaul your system, because even with an overclock a new card will still be held back from its full potential.

 

[MikeDennis]

Thank you guys! This was exactly what I needed and wanted to hear. I oc'd my cpu to 3ghz the other day and think I've noticed a slight improvement. Temperatures are never above 40 degrees which is nice
So you'd recommend an R270?