Looking to Upgrade my System

[AliasX]

You can see my system in my signature. I can play CoD4 smoothly, and most other games pretty damn well. Really, I have some money lying around and I'd like to put it into my computer to prepare it for the future, as well as make it a contender to run Crysis and some other new games due out soon.

So, I have about $500 to spend and was thinking about putting it all on an 8800GTX. Then I realized I might run into some problems with my CPU bottlenecking it. Do you think my processor would bottleneck the 8800GTX?

And my other question is, is now a good time to purchase a graphics card? It seems like every month new ones are released, but just how soon will the new line of Nvidia cards come out?
Thanks

Edit: My sig seems to have dissipated.

AMD X2 4400+
evga 7800GT
2gigs of OCZ platinum ram
500watt power supply
22 inch widescreen lcd

 

[Blain]

I'd think it over.

 

[DSF]

Maybe it's just me, but I don't see your system in your sig. Nonetheless, I don't see any point in dropping the dough on a GTX now when the 9-series or whatever they decide to call it should be out in 3 months or so from what I understand.

 

[AliasX]

Bump. Need more advice. Would my processor bottleneck an 8800GTX?

 

[MegaVovaN]

Don't know about bottleneck, but I recommend holding on to $500, and when some more new games come out and nV rolls out 9 series (or that new ATI chip, assuming it's high end), do this:
sell your current parts = ram, mobo, vga, cpu, maybe PSU
buy faster cpu (new 45 nm chips from Intel due), 4gb ram, new mobo and video card

This way your system will be current to the future. Best way to future proof something is buy it when this future comes, not NOW.

As for when new CPUs and nv9 series come out, I dunno, I would wait a few months - and you're killing 2 birds with 1 stone: getting new hardware and waiting for games.

I don't know why Crysis is so hyped up, it is still too hard for today's hardware, but new CPUs and VGAs should be able to handle it easily.

 

[DSF]

Originally posted by: AliasX
Bump. Need more advice. Would my processor bottleneck an 8800GTX?

Just to make sure, you're aware that the 8800GT offers performance very close to that of the GTX at around $250? And the 512MB G92-based version of the 8800GTS is basically equivalent to the GTX at $350 or so?

A GTX just isn't a smart purchasing decision right now.

 

[DSF]

Originally posted by: MegaVovaN
I don't know why Crysis is so hyped up, it is still too hard for today's hardware, but new CPUs and VGAs should be able to handle it easily.

It runs smoothly for me with all settings on high, for what it's worth.