Upgrade Suggestions?

[kdeaner]

Hello all!

I currently have an ASRock A780GXE/128M, 8 Gb of G.Skill DDR2 800 (5-5-5-15), AMD Phenom II X2 550 BE (at 3.6 GHz), two PowerColor PCS HD4850 1 Gb (4850 XFire). The OS is Windows 7 64-bit.

I'm itching to upgrade either the CPU or the gfx cards. For the CPU I'm looking at the Phenom II X4 955 BE and for the gfx card I'm looking at a single HD 6870. I figure when AM3+ MBs come out I'll get a new board, switch to DDR3 and get a 2nd 6870.

But for the time being, what should I upgrade first, the CPU of the gfx card?

Thanks!

 

[happita]

If you want the most benefit out of what your considering upgrading, I would definitely say the graphics card. Your AMD chip clocked at 3.6 won't be any bottleneck for a 6870. My vote is for a 6870 for sure.

edit: woops, didn't notice it was 4850 crossfire....doh!

 

[meran]

well the graphic card wouldnt make allot of difference since he have 4850 crossfire =5850=6870

so not worth it unless u really love dx11 or u want to xfire 6870 then u will need a new cpu too

 

[jpierce55]

a pair of aftermarket coolers on the g-cards might make more sense than new g-cards, and if you can do that and a cpu I say go for it.

 

[meran]

for now if u find a good sell on the pair 4850s sell them and get u single 6870 or better 69501gb worth the extra 30$

 

[kdeaner]

Thanks for the input! I may hold off on the CPU and gfx card. Maybe I'll put my money into a bigger monitor. I'm still using a 1440 x 900 resolution.

The 4850's are water cooled. Sorry, I forgot to mention that. I kinda had too use alternative cooling as the PCIe slots on this board are are only two PCI widths apart. On air they got very very hot.

 

[jpierce55]

If it is a specific water block, and not something that can be converted to a new g-card I would sit on those for another year. Your biggest difference from 4850x2 to 6570 is going to be power consumption.

Get a better processor and more importantly get something with DDR3 if you still have that ddr2 800, I picked up a lot on this system getting DDR3.