300$ budget need help with upgrade.

[zuel]

hey i built my first pc about a year ago. Now theres all this new hardware that makes me wish i could afford to build a high end pc every year. but any way ive got a 300 dollar budget to blow on a upgrade on my existing pc. ive got an idea of what i want but just want some opinions since they were so helpful for my first build.

heres the gist of what i got

abit ip35 pro
e6750 c2d
550 watt corsair psu w/ 41 amps on +12v
8800 gt 512mb
4 gb ballistic pc6400

all in a case i paid too much for.

the gtx 260 "216 core" has my eye so far.

 

[johnyeah]

Everything you have is pretty good, I'd say save the $300.

My setup is pretty much the same as yours (slightly slower CPU) and I have a decent amount of money I could spend if I wanted to. However, nothing out there justifies the cost for the performance increase on the system you have (unless you can sell your old video card).

 

[Nica Guy]

+1 for johnyeah...
if u manage to sell ur 8800gt i would recomend getting a normal gtx 260 for $250 ($220 after rebate), if ur going to jump for the new gtx 260 216 u might as well consider getting the 1Gb 4870 which performs better...
except for crysis but i dont like the game anyways...

 

[megamanx00]

Hmm... You know, your board supports crossfire. I suppose there are a couple of things you could do. One is to get a Radeon 4870, and buy a better heatsink to overclock your CPU. You could also consider going for a Q6600 to overclock it, and might even want to consider going with a Wolfdale CPU if your board will support it. You'll have to check the Abit website to find that one out. You can get another 4870 latter on.

Another solution is to swap out your motherboard with an SLi Board and get another 8800GT to SLi it. Again I'd recommend overclocking your CPU to get the most out of it.

Either way once Intel's new platform becomes mainstream in a few months the prices of their current CPUs will fall pretty far. That should let you upgrade to a quad rather cheaply then.

 

[Wolfshadw]

Bah... Maybe a 22-24" monitor, but beyond that, there's nothing wrong with your rig. Maybe take the S/O out for a weekend instead?

-Wolf suggests

 

[xizel]

you could easily sell your 8800GT for about 100$ and get a HD4870 1Gig and you would save a big deal on your 300$