E6600 upgrade

[nanotube]

Currently I have a Core 2 duo e6600 processor. This computer is just for gaming. I am thinking about upgrading to a i920 (or i930) processor but I am wondering if it is worth it. I have a GTX 285 video card and I can pretty much run all new games on max settings including ME2, Bio2, AVP, L4D2, CODMW2, Dirt 2, etc. The only games I see some low fps is the snow scenes in Crysis and GTA 4 at max settings. My monitor is a 24" with a res of 1920x1200. I plan to get the Fermi whenever that comes out. Looking at toms CPU guide I know the I7 is better at low resolutions but what about 1920x1200 or higher. Will an i7 increase my framerates and make my gaming experience more enjoyable or am I GPU limited. Are there going to be any new games that I will need an cpu upgrade for or should I just keep upgrading my video card? Should I just wait for Sandy Bridge. I got a large tax refund and it's just dying to be spent.

 

[welshmousepk]

if you buy a Fermi card, i suspect you will be CPU bottlenecked.

its hard to say, given that we don't know how Fermi will perform, but if nvidias hype is correct, and it performs similar to a 5970, then a dual core CPU from last get is probably not going to cut it.

a simple upgrade to a same architecture quad would be a nice boost for you(maybe a q9300 or similar), given that more and more games use more than 2 cores it would be a good upgrade either way , but an i7 would be the best way to ensure your CPU does not hold anything else back.
and since you are getting a Fermi card, i imagine money isn't that great a concern to you.

 

[buwish]

I concur. You will definitely be bottlenecking yourself when you upgrade to a fermi based card by sticking with lga 775. Trouble is that you'll have to buy a new mobo and RAM if you plan on going with an i7. If you want to stick with lga 775 for now, a quad core would help (as mentioned above). The q9550 or 9650 would be a good replacement until you decide to go to a new set up.