should i even bother

[mordantmonkey]

so i have a 2.6c p4p800 and a 9800 pro for over a year.

i want to upgrade to pci-e eventually. should i

a) wait another year or two, and replace it outright.

b) sell my stuff now and replace it with a winnie, nf4, and 6600gt for 450-500.

will i even notice the difference? i doubt it will be much, but i will also have the benefit of pci-e and 939 for the future.

guess it comes down to, should i upgrade a bit at a time, or wait till my system becomes too slow and sell it outright. kind of wondering what are other peoples approaches to upgrading.
edit spelling

 

[stevty2889]

Depending on what games you play, the 6800GT alone will give you a nice improvement. The P4P800 is a nice overclocking board, so I would go for a 6800GT and overclock that 2.6c. I had a 2.8E at 3.5ghz on that motherboard.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

I try to wait until I feel my current stuff is limiting me from doing what I want to do. If you're playing games and you're not getting the performance you want, then go ahead and do it.

If you're upgrading so you can play future games, why not wait until the new games come out and you're unsatisfied with how your stuff performs? That way the stuff you would have bought will be cheaper and you'll be able to get better components for the same cost.

That's my view on it

 

[fireontheway]

A.

 

[Jeff7181]

I'd go with option B... your current stuff will be pretty useless in a year and you'll have a hard time unloading it if you're like me and sell your current hardware to fund new hardware.

 

The 6600GT only has a slight lead on the 9800 Pro. Not the great.

 

[mordantmonkey]

yeah i'm inclined to go with B for that reason. I tried to go A with my last upgrade, but by that time my box was worth about diddly. I figure the 100-150 difference is worth the added longevity. i don't find the 2.6 to be much of a bottle neck for the 9800 at the res's i like to play. The processor and board i have are nice overclockers, but i have value memory that isn't. so i've just stayed stock speed. one of the reasons i want to move to 939 is the performance with mem dividers. perhaps i will play with the overclocking a bit more on the p4p800 with some memory dividers, and then make my decision.

Thanks for the responses. It seems like there are two distinct approaches to upgrading, i've already tried A once, so i think i might try out B this time.

 

[gamerj]

Wait a few months..then upgrade for sure...(wait till May, June)... New processors,...windows 64...."old" procs prices should take a hit....

 

[dashiki]

wait for dual core

 

[mordantmonkey]

i'm kind of leary of the early dual core, support wise. plus switching to 939 now should give me some latitude with dual core in the future. but i'm gonna hold off on dual core for a while. i'm sure it would help with my video editing and rendering, but it will probably suck at gaming for a while. besides, waiting for a video to render gives me time to goof off on my other pc.