Question about upgrading a dated PC

[Patriarch]

Greetings all,

Right now my PC is a little older, but still a decent rig. I was wondering what, if any upgrades I could put it in. I'd like to add a vid card, and possibly a different mobo.

But my PC knowledge is a bit lax

my rig is as follows:

Intel Core2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40 Ghz

4g ram

vista ultimate

radeon 4870

this is all sitting in an Antec Midtower, so i have a shitload of space
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id like to upgrade my card, and mobo to something high end but i dont wanna blow my life savings

help me bg!

[Mafai]

upgrade to windows 7

[Dmitry]

If you upgrade your motherboard, you'll most likely have to upgrade the processor and RAM as well. You may need to upgrade the power supply also depending on what upgrades you get. Are there certain games that you're wanting to play that is prompting the upgrade?

[Havocxx]

Edit: Derped a double post.

[Havocxx]

Yeah, you probably shouldn't get a new mobo unless you plan on upgrading the other core components. Also, a new video card won't be as a big boost since your CPU and mobo would still be choke points and hold your overall performance down. Going for a SSD might the best single upgrade you could use without upgrading everything else... though still pricey.

How far off do you see yourself building a new rig altogether? Would help in terms of giving you advice, since some parts can be more easily carried over to new builds than others.

[Isiolia]

You're probably looking at nearly a full new build. At least all the core stuff anyway.

[Patriarch]

I figured I would run into these answers, which I appreciate the feedback.

I am fine with spending a couple hundred fixing what I have, but I could probably spend a little more and buy a fully new rig.

I would like to spend between 400-700, I am a budget PC player. But in response to what I would like to be able to play with my Rig; I'd like to run FFXIV on Max.

Which I know, I might have to spend a little more $$

My Antec case I will probably keep, it works perfectly, its huge, and I have 4 fans with Variable speed settings. I'd just like to know the best combo of hardware I can buy to run FFXIV on the higher settings;

Mobo, Card, PSU, stuff of that sort. I have always been a console player and would like some tips on what to get but not spend a fortune

[Olo401]

This is actually not that bad of an upgrade..

CPU & Mobo: Core i5-2500K + Gigabyte Z68 Board - $380
Memory: 2x2GB G.Skill Ripjaws DDR3-1600 - $48

You can keep all the rest as is and you'll still have a decent gaming rig. Since I've used a 4870 and know how hot & loud they run under load, I would consider upgrading the video card at some point to at least a 6870 or GTX560 because that'll take some of the edge off the newer games.

[Dmitry]

To play FFXIV with everything on max is gonna cost a good bit. I have a respectable computer myself, and while I can run it on 1900x1080, most of the settings are mixed between Standard and Max.

[Patriarch]

This is actually not that bad of an upgrade..

CPU & Mobo: Core i5-2500K + Gigabyte Z68 Board - $380
Memory: 2x2GB G.Skill Ripjaws DDR3-1600 - $48

You can keep all the rest as is and you'll still have a decent gaming rig. Since I've used a 4870 and know how hot & loud they run under load, I would consider upgrading the video card at some point to at least a 6870 or GTX560 because that'll take some of the edge off the newer games.

thnx olo

[Ramor]

This is actually not that bad of an upgrade..

CPU & Mobo: Core i5-2500K + Gigabyte Z68 Board - $380
Memory: 2x2GB G.Skill Ripjaws DDR3-1600 - $48

You can keep all the rest as is and you'll still have a decent gaming rig. Since I've used a 4870 and know how hot & loud they run under load, I would consider upgrading the video card at some point to at least a 6870 or GTX560 because that'll take some of the edge off the newer games.

This is definitely the way to go at this point, ram is cheaper and cheaper and it's not like more than 4 gigs would be really necessary unless you do some encoding and the likes. After these, down the line that is, I'd agree that you'd probably want a better GPU though maybe not as big as the 6870 or GTX560, maybe something a little before one of those and a SSD would do the best for your overall performance at that point, although SSDs are pretty pricy now I get the feeling that in a few months even the 120gig ones will be quite a bit cheaper which is about when I'd imagine you'd want to pick some more power up.