Upgrade Suggestion

[PlainOrdinaryGuy]

I'd like a few opinions on which upgrades some people with somerecent build insight might have. I have already have a new Antec Gunmetal case with BFG LS-550 PSU waiting. Current games being played: World of Warcraft, Fallout 3 with a little bit of occasional Call of Duty: World at War and World in Conflict and the odd legacy game of no system spec importance. My PC also functions as Blu-Ray/DVD player for my old plasma TV, not that the specs matter much for that, either.

Currently, I'm running an Abit AX78 AMD 770/SB600, AMD Athlon64 X2 5000+ BE @3.0, 2x2GB GeiL PC8500 DDR2-1000, HiS IceQ3 ATI HD3870 @800/1150. It's all going to be replaced before October.

Using the next few months as a timetable, how should I progress through my upgrades?

Right now I'm eyeing the XFX ATI HD4770 card, which I have considered buying one of now and one of later. I've considered waiting for a 1GB version to surface, but I don't play at high resolutions and the value of the 512 is too appealing. Any insight on the performance upgrade from 3870 -> 4770 would be much appreciated. Also considering the nVidia GTX260 as an upgrade possibility. This would also mean not using SLI/XFire in the future.

Also, I'm considering buying an AMD PhenomII X3 720 BE. My board is flashed to support the PII CPUs, so I could also plug that into the current box for an immediate upgrade. Again, any recent experience with an upgrade from X2 -> X3 (and +200/300mHz) would be appreciated. This will likely be a temporary upgrade to get me into early next year when I may splurge on a X6 CPU

Current motherboard technology has been on the table for quite some time now, and I think waiting for the next wave of tech would be smart... buying a board now would also mean buying new DDR3 RAM and likely needing the new CPU before I could even pull the build together - and by the time that happens prices are likely to fall on the already-paid-for components. So this build is based on market trend as well as current value.

Summary:

ATI 3870 vs 4770 (x1 now, x2 later) vs GTX260

X2 5000+ BE vs X3 720 BE

Which upgrade will give me the best boost for the buck now? Which is most likely to hold up for the next year?

 

[Eureka]

Well, you don't really say much on what you need it for. If its gaming, I'd say upgrade the video card. And the 4770s aren't the best value, 4850s are pretty good, and 4870s have the best bang for buck now (120-140 AR). The processor isn't that important here, I have a 7850 Kuma BE @ 3.2ghz, and it holds me through everything extremely well.

 

[PlainOrdinaryGuy]

As far as uses, I think I pretty much covered it. I don't see myself not playing WoW any time soon, and other games come and go - it also serves as my movie player, so the system is basically always on. Thus, system heat is a bit of a concern as my interests have gravitated toward the 4770 as opposed to the 4850/4870.

I do feel CPU-limited, though, or perhaps it's just the loose timings on my RAM. I have no doubt the biggest performance increase would come with the new MoBo/RAM but the CPU and VC upgrades are just cheaper at the moment.