Upgrade Questions? Mobo/CPU or Video Card?

[Elesirdur]

Okay, so here's the situation. I'm currently running this system:

• Intel E8400 (3Ghz dual-core)
• 6 Gigs Ram
• GTS 250 (512 MB) Video Card
• Win7 x64

So my tax refund is coming in soon and I'm looking for an upgrade to my system. I'm a pretty low-level gamer; mostly play WoW, TF2, etc. However, trying to play Metro2033 or the Crysis 2 demo just turns things to a grinding halt on even mediocre settings.

So, I feel like I've got two options. Do a full upgrade of CPU/Mobo and then get a new video card down the road, or invest in a good card now and do the cpu/mobo later. I know the 512mb of VRAM is a big limitation on how I experience my games, so I'm leaning towards the video card right now. I feel like the E8400 cpu is still decent enough, and I can't find any LGA775 mobos that allow for SLI, should I decide to just double up on the GTS250.

Now, here are my options.

http://ncix.com/products/index.php?s...s&promoid=1293
Just saw this today and it looks like a pretty sweet deal. However, with a hexacore processor, I'm not sure how much benefit I'm really getting for most games since each core is only 2.4ghz (yes, it's a pretty big upgrade from my dualcore 3ghz)

Or, a new gfx card. A thread that's been active recently has pushed me towards either one of these:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...&Tpk=msi%20560 N560-GTX
or
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130610 N560-GTX Ti Fermi

Halp!

Edit: I see this is on sale at NCIX (I'm in Canada, they have the best prices for me): http://ncix.com/products/index.php?s...c&promoid=1293 N560-GTX Ti, though looks like the core clock is slower than the above Ti Fermi but it's only $200 and comes with a free DL for Just Cause 2 and Mafia 2

[Cephius]

I'd probably upgrade the video card first, though your CPU will be a pretty large bottleneck once you do. Don't go by gigahertz alone - the i7 core processors are several times more powerful than the E8400. As you can see from http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html the current i7 processors get benchmark scores 4-5 times higher than yours is capable of.

[Elesirdur]

Interesting, thanks for the perspective on CPUs.

[Olo401]

In your case it looks to me like a GPU bottleneck. The GTS250 is a rebadged 9800GTX+, which is a decent card but still quite old. Running on a pure dual-core CPU also lays a factor, but the E8400 is still a great gaming CPU. If you're on a tight budget, I would upgrade the GPU to a GTX560 Ti (or even a discontinued 460/470 they're still fantastic cards)

If you want to go for a base rebuild, there's a bunch of options out there right now. The two most viable in my opinion are to go all out and get a new Sandy Bridge system (which are running a premium price for the CPU and motherboard) or go with an i7 system on the 1366 platform (to save some money on slightly older tech). I just upgraded from an E8400-based machine to an i7-960 myself and after discounts I got the board, CPU and 6 gigs of memory for about $500 delivered. If I had some extra money and was hell bent on getting a cutting edge system tho I'd have waited and gotten an i7-2600k.

[chiyio]

I'd definitely do the gfx card first.

[Isiolia]

GPU is likely to be more the factor - could depend on the game.

IE, http://www.techspot.com/review/374-d...est/page8.html

Not a lot of difference there, all things considered. There'd be a lot more of a performance difference if you were looking at, say, encoding video.