little upgrade insight?

[AstroCat]

Current system:
AMD 4000+
2 gig DDR RAM
Asus A8N-SLI Premium
Nvidia 8800GTX
CL X-fi

It has served me well for years but I really want to upgrade, admittedly mostly for gaming purposes, thinking Age of Conan in May will be a big factor for me. I think I have at least one more big computer upgrade for gaming in me, then I will re-evalute when the '09/'10 next gen consoles come around vs. the state of PC gaming at that time.

I know that next month the x48 boards, and the new Intel ICs should be readily available. I also know that come end of this year the whole new Nehalem core will kick in.

So, what to do?

1) Get the best I can next month and ride it through Nehalem till the next "big" thing?
2) Try and upgrade the 939! Maybe a Opteron 185 or something, and then go with Nehalem come q4 '08/q1 '09
3) Do nothing yet, suffer and wait till the end of the year, I so don't want to do this.

Any ideas? Thank!

 

[MarcVenice]

You do have 2gb of ram, and a 8800gtx. It's only really the CPU holding you back I suppose. But a 260$ opty 185 isn't worth it. I mean, you could buy a p35 mobo and a e8400 for that money. You could hand down the cpu/mobo/memory or sell it, and keep the 8800gtx. Upgrading to a p35 mobo, like this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/...7031&Tpk=abit%2bip35-e and 2x2gb of ram like this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16820231122 only costs 150$ total.

Now all you need is a new CPU. When overclocking, an e4500 will do just fine for 125$, clocked at 3.0ghz there won't be a single AMD CPU that can keep up with it. Or a little more expensive, the e8400, no need for overclocking, but if you do, you can easily hit 3.6-4.0ghz. In the end it comes down to one single question, do you really need more CPU power in games ?

 

[LOUISSSSS]

i say get a new mb/cpu/ram combo... the jump from single -> quad will be pretty amazing

 

[dodgybob]

If you can get a cheap socket 939 dual core opteron or x2 2nd hand I reckon that setup will easily last you another year before you need to consider changing your platform. You have a very fast graphics card and that is really the major limitation with games today.