To upgrade or not to upgrade

[loki5667]

Below is my current setup. I just built a budget rig for a friend and now I have the upgrade bug. Problem is that I really don't think I can do much with what I have. I'm thinking that the only choice would be new mb/cpu/ram.

Would I really notice a huge difference in performance doing an upgrade?

E6400
P5B Deluxe
SUPER TALENT 4GB (4 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800Corsair 620HX
XFX 8800gt 512MB
74gb Wd Raptor

 

[somethingsketchy]

Asides from a CPU upgrade, your current rig looks pretty good. You have more than enough RAM to do most applications, the motherboard looks very good, graphics card is very decent, although you could probably wait for a deal and get yourself an ATI 48xx series or Nivida 200 series graphics card to play at high resolution. You could probably pick up another Raptor HDD (150 or the 300gb version) if your current Raptor is a little old.

Other than that your only option would be to wait until Core i7 builds are little cheaper ($700-$1200) before you upgrade to a new rig.

Hope that helps.

 

[imported_wired247]

I don't see a real reason for you to upgrade unless you're playing some games that are struggling.

if that were the case, a gtx285 would be a good upgrade that would still make the most of your CPU.

if you are just doing number crunching or transcoding or something, then swap for a q9550

 

[Ausm]

Depends what type of games you like to play. I had a similar setup and recently upgraded to accommodate some newer games i bought.

 

[loki5667]

FEAR 2, COD4/5, Dead Space....those types of games. I also do basic dvd encoding.

 

[Denithor]

What resolution? If 1680x1050 and below you're not going to see much improvement by upgrading your GPU.

Is your CPU at stock speed or overclocked? If stock - overclock it - that's your best upgrade right there.

 

[loki5667]

I have an E6400 @ 3.4ghz

I'm thinking about an E8400. On sale for $142.49 would be a nice upgrade I think. I can OC it, less heat, and less power.