upgrade the vidcard or the cpu?

[imported_sunchaser]

Hi guys,

I currently own a AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Black Edition, 4GB OCZ Platinum DDR2-800 + ECS Geforce 9600GT 512MB.
I'm about to order a new 22" LCD and want to play as much games as possible on native 1680x1050.
I know my current rig will have trouble with some newer games so i'm willing to upgrade, but only 1 component and i'm in the dark as to what upgrade would give me the best performance boost : the vidcard or cpu?
The reason i'm asking is because i was thinking of upgrading my vidcard to something like the 9800GT/GTS 250 but i'm afraid my CPU will keep it from running at full potential. So maybe it's better to upgrade the CPU to bring the most out of my 9600GT?
Could you also state what brand/model you would recommend? (for vidcards i like to stick to Nvidia)

Any advice greatly appreciated,

Sunchaser.

 

[Lunyone]

Well a 9800gt/gts 250 isn't too much of an upgrade from your 9600gt. Yes it is, but not sure how much will make a difference.
Questions I have:
* What PSU do you currently have? How old is it?
* What speed are you running the 5000+ BE at?
* What mobo do you currently use?
* What is your budget for this upgrade?
* What speed are your OCZ memory at, or what speed are the setup for?
* What case to do you have?
* Are you using an aftermarket CPU HSF?

I'm just wondering about these questions, so we can help you decide what will work best in your situation. I'd like to see you get into a GTX 260 216core if possible, but need to know PSU and budget before starting there.

 

[imported_sunchaser]

* PSU Enermax Noisetaker 485Watt
* Default CPU speed 2,6Ghz
* Asus AM2 mainboard (don't have the specific model number with me)
* Budget : 100-150? (i can get a new 260 here for 150?)
* Memory @ default speeds : CAS Latency (CL) 4 | RAS-to-CAS-Delay (tRCD) 5 |
RAS-Precharge-Time (tRP) 4 | Row-Active-Time (tRAS) 15
* Antec Case P160W
* Default AMD CPU/HSF

Thanks again.

 

[M0RPH]

This is a hard call. That video card is only about 50% faster than your current one, assuming the CPU doesn't hold it back. Not sure if that's worth spending $130-150.

I don't think a CPU upgrade is gonna help you much in games, though.

Check out Tom's charts to see what you might gain from a CPU or GPU upgrade.

You might want to consider waiting for the next gen Nvidia cards. The 9600gt does ok at 1680x1050 for now. If you really want to buy something, though, I guess I'd go with the video card.

 

[Lunyone]

It's a tough call to make. I'd probably OC the CPU, since it's free and designed to do so (3-3.2 ghz is a common OC area, w/out any voltage changes). Than if you really want to spend some $, I'd sell the 9600gt and use the $ plus the $130-150 for a GTX 260 216 core or up to the GTX 275. It's up to you.

 

[imported_sunchaser]

Thanks for the info guys.

The general consensus seems to be to go for a GPU upgrade.

So i'll prolly sell the 9600GT, see wat i can get for it, stretch my budget and see what i can get for that ?, something like that! 😛

I wrongly mentioned the CPU running at stock speed.

I forgot i oc'ed this CPU : from day 1 it's been running @ 3.0Ghz with standard HSF without a problem..

Greetz,
sunchaser