gpu/cpu upgrade advice

[greenhills]

ok, so for the first time ever my husband has hinted at maybe playing a multiplayer game that isn't a shooter with me, so i want to get both of the pc's we have in the house equalized. the one i am more focused on is an lga 775 dual core with a 512 256 bit card and 4 gigs of ram.
i want to put a new graphics card in it, but idk if i should wait and see if prices drop when/if nvidia rolls out a new device cause of course new device is always better and makes old device look so much older. also, i have a gtx 470 in the other pc i was thinking of just switching out so they are balanced a bit.
or, would it be better to spend money on a quad core for it and just sit on the gpu for the time being? would a dual core with a gtx 470 be able to play a game like ff14(gw2 is my real aim) on any (read: lowish is ok for me) settings? in that same line of thought if it can, will an i7 quad with the 512mb gpu also handle 'ok'?
i'm not super techish so i don't want to start just throwing money at it unless it is worth it. help.

[hey]

a 512 256 bit card

This tells us nothing.

Anyway, based on your also ambiguous as hell cpu description, it sounds like the computer is at least 3-5 years old, so you may actually want to replace the entire thing, if you can afford to. There aren't any real options for the lga 775 architecture, so i would not upgrade it at all, unless you also replace the motherboard, which will also require new ram, at which point you've already almost replaced the entire thing anyway.

If you only have a little money to spend on it, then you'll want to upgrade the gpu. A good gpu will allow you to play most any game, even with an old crappy cpu. A 5770 is a good mid range card that you can get for $100-120, and should play most games on medium- high, even with an old cpu.

[Isiolia]

^ I wouldn't bother upgrading an LGA 775 CPU (and sticking with the same platform) unless you were getting the replacement CPU for free or close to it.

[TacoTaru]

Seconding the 5770. My friend used that as his budget card to buy him time until he could get a better one and he's been happy enough with it he's not really looked for a better one since.

[greenhills]

yeah, the dual core pc is over 2 years old and it was cheap then. have been using it as a work/typewriter pc. i don't even remember what the card is, it has been a while since i cared to look. (is at office atm temporarily)
i hadn't looked into the quad 775s before this thread, only thought about it, didn't realize how old they are now. maybe i'll go check out goodwill, hah.

[Tymon]

the CPU is the bottleneck on the gtx 470, a gtx 470 should be able to easily play GW2 or FF14 on mid-high settings, look into getting an i3 2100 or i5 2500k

for a good GPU, a radeon 6770 or 6850 are both good, cheap(ish) options

[greenhills]

thanks for the input, after digging around a bit at goodwill and only finding 1 possibility that would have left me with spare garbage parts i've decided to take the advice here and not worry about upgrading the cpu on the old 775 machine. i popped the 470 card i had from the other pc into it and it seems to be able to handle ok, have only run dragon age 2 and the opening from ff14, but neither stuttered with settings fairly high.

so all in all i just need a new graphics card to place in my i7 machine and we are ready to waste some time. as far as that goes i am leaning towards http://www.amazon.com/Zotac-GeForce-...6476309&sr=1-5 .

[hey]

as far as that goes i am leaning towards http://www.amazon.com/Zotac-GeForce-...6476309&sr=1-5 .

That is probably the best you can get at that price point.

[Tymon]

I prefer EVGA, but yeah, that's nice

[greenhills]

I prefer EVGA, but yeah, that's nice

thats funny, i had picked the zotac to save 20$ or whatever. the first thing my husband says when i showed it to him was "that other one looks cooler". so we did actually end up going with the evga.