Mini-upgrade this year or "all out" a year or 2 from now?

[ezmo85]

Ok, so looking forward to Battlefield 3 and Skyrim, I'm thinking my rig may finally start showing its age...

I currently have:

Intel Core 2 Duo e8400 OC to 3.6 Ghz
G.skill 4GB DDR2 800 Memory
BFG Geforce 8800 GTS 512mb (the one that was basically performance equivalent to the 8800 GTX)
Crucial M4 64GB SSD (Boot drive, some apps and games)
WD 250GB 7200rpm HDD (Media, Indexing)
Seagate 1.5TB 5400rpm HDD (Movies)

Up until now, really, this rig has been great for gaming, but again, based on what I've seen of the graphics of some of these upcoming games, everything could change...

My Mobo is DDR2 only, and only has 1 PCI express slot (no possibility of SLI or Crossfire). Right now, I can't really afford an all-out upgrade (CPU, mobo, ram, video card); I won't really be able to justify that kind of upgrade for a year or 2. I was, however, thinking about adding some more ram and upgrading my video card:

-extra 4GB DDR2 800 ~$55
-Geforce GTX 560 Ti or equivalent (5 tiers above my current card in Tom's hierarchy chart) ~$240

I figured that, as my CPU is still currently in the 4th tier in Tom's CPU hierarchy chart, it should still be good for a while yet. Would something along the lines of this mini-upgrade bring me up to par for some of these upcoming games, played at 1920x1080 with max detail and maybe even a little AA and AF? Any other comments/suggestions are welcome!

*Oh, by the way, if I were to proceed with this mini-upgrade, it would probably happen around the holidays, so I would assume video card prices will come down a bit by then...

 

[ezmo85]

PS- yes, the current prices of DDR2 vs DDR3 do make me cry just a little bit. is 8GB going to be noticeably better than 4GB?

 

[wintermint]

I wouldn't jump full gun yet. You should get the 560 ti or 6950, whichever floats your boat, and possibly a better hard drive like a Samsung Spinpoint F3 [amazing performance for price]. You can reuse those in your future upgrades without a problem and still be getting good performance. Your CPU should last you some more but don't forget to check out Ivy Bridge release and see if it's worthwhile for you.

Depending on which PCIe slot you have, you may be bottlenecked for awhile until you upgrade your motherboard. This shouldn't matter if you're not playing high res/setting.

 

[ezmo85]

Thanks for the input! I hesitate to get a new HDD as my SSD seems to be working out for me pretty well so far (lightning fast!), and even my secondary 7200rpm HDD I would think should be sufficient for gaming. From what I understand, the hard drive will really only effect my load times within games anyway.

I'm glad for the confirmation on the video card idea, although now I'm wondering about whether my PCI Express slot is 8x or 16x... I'm currently on vacation, so I can't confirm right now. I can tell you the Mobo is a Gigabyte, purchased in mid-2008, right when DDR3 was still a little too expensive to adopt over DDR2. Now I kinda regret not making the jump up to a DDR3 board...

 

[wintermint]

Well the performance is negligible. You can hang on to ddr2 for now but don't spend any more money on it since you will be jumping onto ddr3 later on. Download CPU-Z and go to the motherboard tab. Find out which motherboard you have > find it on newegg > read specs > determine PCIe slots. Hope this helps.

 

[ezmo85]

Again, on vacation so no access to my computer at the moment, but I'll be sure to double check the mobo when I get back. Hopefully, if it is only 8x PCIE, I'll still see a significant performance increase with a new video card...

 

[ScrewySqrl]

I'd suggest just going with HD6870 instead of the 560ti. Or save up for ivy bridge in 6 months. I just rebuilt a new PC myself in april that was comparable to yours (I didn't have an SSD, but a slightly faster GPU (HD4850)

 

[ezmo85]

Thanks ScrewySqrl; just out of curiosity, what benefits do you see in the HD6870 over the 560ti? I noticed the 560ti is a tier above the HD6870 in the hierarchy chart, but does seem to be a little more expensive...

 

[ScrewySqrl]

price basically.

if you're going to be buying a whole new system soon, why spend a ton of money on an upgrade? you can get a 6870 or even 6850 now see a huge improvement over your 8800, then Crossfire them in 6 months or so, when you build the new system.

 

[ezmo85]

Good point... Realistically I won't be upgrading for a year or more, so really I just want something that will hold me off until then. Specifically I want to be able to run BF3 and Skyrim with no problems. So if the 6870 should be able to run those in combination with my core 2 duo e8400, I'll probably go with that.

Also, do you think I would see any difference between 4GB and 8GB DDR2? If not, I won't even bother with that upgrade. DDR2 is getting expensive...

 

[ScrewySqrl]

for games, no, you won't see any difference.

more intensive programs, like photoshop or 3D rendering software will use every byte of RAM and still demand more.