Upgrading ~5 year old Q6600, socket 775 build. Could use some help.

[semisonic9]

I've got a 4+ year old rig that's starting to suck wind a little bit. I'm looking at some options during the Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales to kick performance up a notch. I've been reading /r/buildapcsales and am hoping /r/buildapc can help me target bottlenecks and figure out how to allocate my funds most intelligently.

Current specs:

• Q6600 lightly OC'ed to 3.2ghz
• Biostar Tpower I45 Mobo (socket 775)
• 4GB DDR2-1000
• EVGA GTX 260 216 variant) running stock.
• 2x large 7200 RPM drives with 16-32mb cache on each.
• Windows 7 x64

This is the primary desktop computer in our house and serves as media center (and media server) to our two laptops. It's also my primary gaming rig for relatively low-end gaming (TF2, WoW, Batman Arkham * and Mass Effect * games, all at 1900x1200). I haven't run into anything yet that the GTX260 hasn't been able to handle yet, but I did pick up Crysis 1/2 awhile ago and am considering Borderlands 2, Planetside 2, etc in the near future.

I'm not sure I really need or want to throw a couple hundred bucks at a CPU/mobo/RAM upgrade yet, but I can and will if this is a good time to do it. I am thinking about slapping an SSD and an upgraded graphics card in for now and trying to ride the 775 set up out for another year or so.

Here's what I'm thinking re: cpu/mobo/ram swap:

• i5 Sandy Bridge @ 2.9Ghz) - $160
• ...vs $195 for the i5 Ivy Bridge @ 3.5Ghz?
• I'm completely lost on motherboards and open to suggestions. Thinking about going with Biostar again) for a relatively no-frills board at $70 after MiR. I could care less about integrated graphics and do not plan to Crossfire/SLI, but I really like quality onboard audio. Any recommendations along those lines would be great.
• 16GB G.Skill DDR3 for $50
• Are CPU coolers compatible between 775 and 1155 motherboards? I'm guessing "no"?

However, swapping out all that is about $400 worth of upgrades just to get around what seems like a GPU and RAM bottleneck on my current system. I do not seem to be CPU limited at this time. Here are some other options:

• Maybe it's SSD time? Are my HDs bottlenecking anything here?
• Just grit my teeth and pay for more DDR2 RAM?
• Edit - Pulled the trigger on a Sapphire AMD 7870 for $210 before rebate nonsense. The 7870 runs slightly ahead of the 660Ti in most reviews I've seen, is about $50 cheaper atm, and more than a few notches above my GTX260 on Tom's Heirarchy Chart. However, I've been in the nVidia and EVGA camp for years, so ....*fingers crossed*

I'd appreciate any thoughts on bottlenecks or advice on where best to spend my money this go-round. Thanks in advance, guys!

 

[mfenn]

I've got a 4+ year old rig that's starting to suck wind a little bit. I'm looking at some options during the Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales to kick performance up a notch. I've been reading /r/buildapcsales and am hoping /r/buildapc can help me target bottlenecks and figure out how to allocate my funds most intelligently.

Did you mean to post this to Reddit? :awe:

If not, there are some questions that we'd like answered (especially budget).