Thinking of upgrading, need some advice...

[sarig13]

First off my budget is around $800-$900 for this potential upgrade.

I am currently running the following setup:

Athlon 64 3400
MSI K8N NEO3-F (socket 754)
Corsair TWINX2048-3200C2PT 2GB
EVGA 7900GT KO PCI-E
Audigy 2 ZS
Antec Neo HE 550 (SLI approved)
Samsung 22" 266BW (1680x1050 max resolution)


I am thinking of getting the following parts and using the EVGA 7900GT KO and Audigy 2 ZS card in the new build:


Intel Core 2 Duo E6400
CORSAIR XMS2 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800
ASUS P5B Deluxe


My main questions:

Should I do this upgrade now or wait until I can also afford the EVGA 8800 640MB card along with the new parts?

If I do upgrade, how much life do you think I could get out of this build into the future? (3 years like my athlon 64 3400?)


I think that with the new parts outlined above, I should get good performance with the 7900GT recycled into the mix. I can currently run STALKER max settings and 1680x1050 with dynamic lighting turned off and I get on average around 40 FPS. Games like Oblivion and Gothic 3 only give me 25 FPS and 17 FPS on average respectively, so I am starting to see some performance degredation in some games - just not STALKER for some reason.

My gut says to wait a bit longer until DirectX 10 games start trickling out being that my performance is still average. I've just been out of the game for a while and wanted to see what everyone thought. Thanks for the input in advance. I hope I covered everything.

 

[sarig13]

BUMP.

No thoughts on this?

 

[Vogel515]

If gaming is your main concern I'd wait. Prices will be dropping and your current machine will do what you need it to until then.

 

[zagood]

Yeah, I'd wait too. Late April = Intel price drops, and some new processors on the scene.

-z

 

[sarig13]

Thanks for the thoughts guys. My main concern is gaming. I will wait until the Intel prices drop. Anyone know when the prices for the 8800 series cards should drop more? Thanks again.