Upgrade Advice

Just looking for a little advise on an upgrade... I currently have an older mobo/cpu (Intel 975XBX/Core 2 6700) I have a GTX280 card and was looking at the newer cards... maybe a 570 or 580. My question is would the benefit of either of these card make a difference on my current setup or am I limited on mobo/cpu being as old as dirt?

Thanks

 

What speed are you running the CPU?

 

Welcome to forums!

Looks like you will need to replace cpu... Some q9450 etc (used) would be good deal with new gpu.

Does it matter ? It's dual core.

EDIT:

Mobo does not support quad core cpu's...
http://www.intel.com/products/motherboard/d975xbx/

So new cpu + mobo (if you go with Phenom2, you could use old RAM).

 

A C2D can cope with many games if its running fast enough.
I wouldnt recommend a dual core but in a tight situation, he may be happy with the result until he can afford a new mobo/CPU/ram.
I was going to present his options depending on the speed.

 

Try overclocking it, if not, you might benefit from getting a new mobo+CPU next month when Sandy Bridge comes out.

deltatux

 

I would probably upgrade the video card if you have decent clocks on your cpu. Even though he may be cpu limited, he'll still see a larger boost in performance with a better video card.

 

Thanks for the info. Im currently on 3.3ghz OC with the CPU.

 

Besides that, i'm sure you're going to try and OC that new card of yours, so i will recommend a PSU upgrade also, because 530W will be pretty unstable for your graphics card, because, it's an NVidia...
http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/Power+Supplies/Modular+700-950W/Corsair+HX+Series+750W+Modular+ATX2.2+SLI%2FCrossfire+Compliant+Power+Supply+?productId=36021
^ This is just an example of what you should be getting if you're going to upgrade your CPU and GFX card, more power=better performance.
You could also search for a cheaper model of that PSU...

 

HX750 for a budged PC ? VX550 would be enough for any single GPU, or the TX650 if budget allows it...

 

I take it that you would like to stick with your CPU as long as possible?
You will get a nice performance upgrade in many things.
Games like GTA IV, Dirt 2, Dragon Age, X3:TC and quite a few more will suffer somewhat.
A higher CPU clock will help but overclocking the gfx wont be as lucrative as you will hope/wont help at all until you get a decent quad core.

 

It's all about clockspeed!
Few few games actually use more than 2 core to any real extent...

 

If we could clock 2 cores to 6GHz+, you'd have a point.