New Motherboard or CPU

[dltyrrell]

Hi,

I have the following system:

Q9450 CPU
GIGABYTE EP35-DS4 MOTHERBOARD
8GIG DDR2 CORSAIR RAM
XFX GTX260 VIDEO CARD
INTEL 160GIG SSD
(2) LG DVD DRIVES
THERMALTAKE V9 BLACK EDITION CASE

Which would be the cheapest one to update and see a difference?

Thanks for your info.

 

[Guest]

You will need to update Mobo and CPU.

Skt 775 is old and no new processors for it.

Your q9450 is only beaten by q9550, q 9650 and qx9750

Not worth upgrading CPU as your motherboard Socket is dead now.

You are looking at new AM3 or Intel 1156 / 1336 ...

These unfortunately require ddr3 so you will have to change memory as well!!

Only socket 1366 with i7 930 or greater or socket 1156 with i7 860 seems like a worth upgrade over what you have now for it to be really noticable as what you have is good already.

You are better off getting a 5850/5870 if its gaming performance you are after!

have you overclocked your Processor, If not there is room there for some free performance.

Some people are getting up to 3.2ghz overclocks on your setup, which will be noticably faster than the 2.66ghz default clock!

 

[requiemsallure]

Only socket 1366 with i7 930 or greater or socket 1156 with i7 860 seems like a worth upgrade over what you have now for it to be really noticable as what you have is good already.

I'm going to have to disagree with that, for a substantial amount less you can get the i5-750 and the P7P55D-E PRO with some deacent ddr3 ram and it will be performance to price better (my opinion) than the i7.

other than that i agree with the 5850 or 5870, in addition ive heard that the 5830 is an amazingly good overclocker.