First off, my specs:
Mobo: GIGABYTE GA-EP43T-UD3L
CPU: C2D E6850 @ 3.65ghz
CPU Heatsink: Corsair A50 (essentially a cooler master hyper 212 minus one heatpipe)
GPU: MSi Twin Frozr GTX 260 core 216
PSU: Corsair Gaming Series GS600
RAM: 4x1gb G.Skill DDR3 1333
HDD: Western Digital SATA 500gb
Monitor: Asus 23' @ 1920X1080
Everything excluding the monitor and cpu are about 2 years old, after my original 8800GT SLi build sort of exploded and took almost everything with it. I use this computer almost exclusively for gaming and running BONIC programs in its idle time. I like to be able to run games on higher, but not all high, settings with 40+ FPS, which i cant do anymore and why i wish to upgrade. After playing thru a few games with Msi Afterburner on i noticed that in many games my GPU usage hangs around 45-75% usage, with the CPU churning at 100%. When my GPU is around 85-99% usage i get very much playable frames (50-100+).
Now i could be wrong in thinking this, but to me it seems my CPU has become a bottleneck to my GTX 260, which isn't exactly the most powerful thing around anymore, so i think it would make more sense to upgrade the "foundation" of my computer (mobo, CPU) before i throw a GTX 560ti at the problem.
After selling a bunch of stuff on Ebay, i have a budget of $400 firm. That leaves me with enough money to move to a i5 2500k along with a new mobo (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157271) and whatever dual channel 4GB DDR3 1600 ram is on sale. Or, i could take a much cheaper, but less effective, route and build a Phenom II x4 965 BE build, but i really think that would just be a "sidegrade" to something like a Q9550 that i could just slap into my current motherboard. So i ask, is it time to make a hand-me-down computer with my C2D parts, or would a GTX 560 ti solve most of my issues?
Mobo: GIGABYTE GA-EP43T-UD3L
CPU: C2D E6850 @ 3.65ghz
CPU Heatsink: Corsair A50 (essentially a cooler master hyper 212 minus one heatpipe)
GPU: MSi Twin Frozr GTX 260 core 216
PSU: Corsair Gaming Series GS600
RAM: 4x1gb G.Skill DDR3 1333
HDD: Western Digital SATA 500gb
Monitor: Asus 23' @ 1920X1080
Everything excluding the monitor and cpu are about 2 years old, after my original 8800GT SLi build sort of exploded and took almost everything with it. I use this computer almost exclusively for gaming and running BONIC programs in its idle time. I like to be able to run games on higher, but not all high, settings with 40+ FPS, which i cant do anymore and why i wish to upgrade. After playing thru a few games with Msi Afterburner on i noticed that in many games my GPU usage hangs around 45-75% usage, with the CPU churning at 100%. When my GPU is around 85-99% usage i get very much playable frames (50-100+).
Now i could be wrong in thinking this, but to me it seems my CPU has become a bottleneck to my GTX 260, which isn't exactly the most powerful thing around anymore, so i think it would make more sense to upgrade the "foundation" of my computer (mobo, CPU) before i throw a GTX 560ti at the problem.
After selling a bunch of stuff on Ebay, i have a budget of $400 firm. That leaves me with enough money to move to a i5 2500k along with a new mobo (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157271) and whatever dual channel 4GB DDR3 1600 ram is on sale. Or, i could take a much cheaper, but less effective, route and build a Phenom II x4 965 BE build, but i really think that would just be a "sidegrade" to something like a Q9550 that i could just slap into my current motherboard. So i ask, is it time to make a hand-me-down computer with my C2D parts, or would a GTX 560 ti solve most of my issues?