Upgrade suggestions

[Ubershank]

I was planning on upgrading my PC to bring it closer in line with the requirements with games such as GTA IV and Bad Company 2. I want to get started ASAP but I wanted to know if anyone can lend some suggestions as to what would be a good start.

My PC used to be a speed demon back in the day when it was running dual 7950gt 512mb VRAM 550mhz SLi along with a 2.6 dual core 2 gigs of RAM and one sweet wi-fi "gaming?" mobo one of those Fatal1ty rip offs.

All of that has been tossed out in order to keep up with the times, now another upgrade is in order. The old mobo is swapped for a ASRock with triple SLi capability, the old GPUs have gone the way of the dinosaur in favor of a very sleek 9800gt 1gb VRAM clocked at 700mhz, and the cpu has had a slight upgrade from a 2.6 dual core 64 athlon to a 3.0 64 but the system memory is still at 2 gigs

I have the option of upgrading the CPU to a decent quad core since my mobo is a AM2+ socket that if I remember correctly supports phenom etc (have to dig around for the mobo manual) or adding another 9800gt for added performance or even just adding more system memory, right now I'm leaning towards upgrading the CPU since I think a quad core will go a bit further with some of the more demanding games like GTA etc.

No real budget atm but I'm not gona go overkill either just anything sensible.

Opinions on which direction I should go are much appreciated.

 

[Ritwik7]

Well, GPUs are usually the most important component when considering most games. A second 9800GT should give you a considerable performance boost (on games where SLI scales well). A memory upgrade to 4GB would be in order if you intend to use a 64Bit OS.

What is the exact CPU you currently have? In case you decide on upgrading to a quad, the AMD Phenom II X4 940 BE would be a great choice.

 

[Ubershank]

I use an AMD Athlon 64X2 6000+ which if I recall is equivalent to a 3.0. I agree that I should improve the memory since I feel silly with only 2 and not taking advantage of my 64 bit OS. But as of late I have been in a pickle as to picking either between a new card for SLi or Quad Core like the Phenom since the prices for QC are much more affordable then they were say a year or two ago and I have been putting off upgrading until now with games coming out with much higher requirements.

 

[Ubershank]

I was also wondering, when using SLi does the core clock speed make a difference if the cards in use have different clock speeds? I have my 9800gt made by Gigabyte that has been OCed from the factory to 700Mhz but I believe they discontinued that card since the most I can find on the net after doing some searching was around 650Mhz OCed I wonder if that could affect performance or will it be a unnoticeable detail? (I also updated my System Specs if anyone is interested in taking a closer look at my current build)

 

[Ritwik7]

I suggest that you go in for a memory and CPU upgrade now. Save up a little and then go for the newer DX11 capable GPUs later this year.

 

[Ubershank]

Thanks for the suggestion, just put in the order for my Phenom should arrive next week, I'll have to see about picking up some memory later in the week.