CPU a bottleneck issue?

[alisbin]

hey folks,
i've been kinda out of touch techwise for awhile but now that i have a little time and a little money i'm doing the upgrade dance. i'm deffinitely getting a new EVGA 9800gtx+ since my 7600gt is seriously chugging. however, i'm undecided if i should be looking into a new processor or not.
my current CPU is an E6300 (conroe LGA 775) which clocks in the neighborhood of 1.85 GHz, i don't OC it. what i'm wondering is, will upgrading really give me any appreciable boost in performance. i game a bit (no cry engine games but i'd like to play mass effect and overlord on max), but i don't run much in the background, virus scan gets closed when i game and i'm pretty careful about using programs that clog up my machine. when i'm not gaming i admit to being something of a serial multitasker (6-10 firefox tabs, movie/tunes on realplayer, trillian, etc) but i don't think i do enough so that it strains my processor.
as far as what i'd be upgrading to i'm eyeing the E7500 or the E7400 since they are priced well for my purposes. the E8500 has nice specs and lots of good ratings too if its worth the extra money (my current mobo only has 2mb L2 cache so any of the above would be an improvement).

so the question comes around, with my upgraded setup is it really worth it to upgrade my processor as well, or should i just wait another year or 2 and upgrade (board and CPU) when the i7 line becomes more standard and better priced?

thanks in advance

system specs (including soon to be purchased vid card)
Windows XP (32 bit) (planning to upgrade to windows 7 in a year or so if it seems stable and gameable)
NVIDA EVGA 9800gtx+
3gig pc2-5400 ram (dual channel, corsair)
NF570 slit-a mainboard (was cheap, works fine)

 

[LinkedKube]

I would recommend a better cpu, I'd suggest going for a 8400 not the e8500, no need in paying for the extra few hundred megahertz. I'm not sure if you can upgrade with a bios update, but you need to make sure that you can, that's the first thing you should do.

 

[alisbin]

the last driver for my mainboard (at least as far as the manufacturer's site is concerned) was released in august 07 and i'm pretty sure i upgraded to it awhile back. i thought that any board that could use a core 2 duo could use any core 2 duo, no? i can't afford to also upgrade my mainboard, not for a year so maybe i should just leave it for now and start saving...

does the FSB matter? my board runs at 1066, also the cpu type is listed as: Intel Core2 Extreme/Core2 Duo/Pentium Extreme/D/4/Celeron D

edit: i found new drivers from nvidia, but no firmware.

edit part 2: found a compatibility list and alas the most recent processor my board will run is an e6700, i guess i gotta wait till i can upgrade my mainboard then, any mainboard reccomendations that would work with an E8400? (needs to have built in LAN and pci slots for both a wifi card and a sound card)

 

[LinkedKube]

you cant stick just any c2d in a lga775 slot. You need a bios upgrade to do so and one isnt available you're kind of sol. You dont have the later wolfdale cpu's as an option.

 

[klepto12]

if you can find a Q6600 it will work in your board just look for one and bam you got a quad and its clocked at 2.66 GHZ and will be a big upgrade. but be warned it goes for like $200

 

[alisbin]

i looked into it and my particular board (570 with SLI) doesn't work with kentsfield cores, i guess i'll save up for a wolfdale or yorkfield along with a compatible mainboard. or see if i can find an e6600 for real cheap on ebay.

how i found out (maybe useful for others in the future)
http://www.nvidia.com/content/nforce700i/nForce_Intel_CPU_List.pdf

thanks for the assistance mates, i appreciate it