The Glade 4.0

I've got about $150 to spend, and I'd like to breathe a little life back into my PC system. Here are my current specs:

Athlon 64 X2 5400+ (2.8 GHz)
4 GB DDR2 800 RAM
Radeon HD 4830 512 MB

I thought about getting a Radeon HD 6790, which is about $150 on newegg, right now. But I'm concerned my aging dual-core processor will be slowing it down. I've suspected for a while now that my cpu is bottle-necking my current video card. For example, in Crysis, dropping my resolution from 1920X1080 down to 1280X720 resulted in no FPS increase at all. I still got the exact same 21-22 fps.

So I was wondering if getting a newer quad-core cpu would be a better idea. This is the fastest quad-core Phenom II that my motherboard supports. My question is, which one would be the best upgrade? I realize, that both of them will need to be upgraded relatively soon. But I can only afford to upgrade one, at the moment. The question is, which one should I upgrade first?

_________________
"I Live, I Love, I Slay, and I Am Content."
- Conan the Barbarian

So your processor was released in 2006, and your graphics card in 2008?

You need to upgrade everything. I'd start with the processor if I only had $150... but really you need a new computer if all the parts are this old. A patchwork computer of old and new parts isn't going to work well.

I have to agree with Lex.

Do you have MicroCenter anywhere near you? They got some AMD motherboard/CPU combo deal's can get for that price $150, and then pick up a newer video card when have the money. usually not the greatest motherboard, but would be a better upgrade than just CPU.

Will not find cheaper processor's than MicroCenter...They beat Newegg, Amazon etc prices on CPU's but lure you in on the rest, its there door busters to get ya in.

http://www.microcenter.com/specials/pro ... PROMO.html some good motherboard CPU combos here for $150ish.. Quite a selection on Boards, I have not kept up on this in a while, as just built my I7, so part refernces especially AMD side, I really have no idea, I have not followed AMD stuff in years..

Well, I don't really want to replace my motherboard at the moment. It's actually a decent board, and newer than my cpu/gpu. It's an AM3 socket 790GX chipset. I know it's not top of the line anymore, but it does support most of the newer AM3 cpu's. If I was going to get a new motherboard, I'd be looking at replacing everything else anyway. Which is something I will most likely be doing (or buying an entirely new pre-built system) around the first of the year or so. This is more or less something to get me by in the meantime.

_________________
"I Live, I Love, I Slay, and I Am Content."
- Conan the Barbarian

Yeah, really it's your CPU, i'm in the same boat, I have an Athlon 64 X2 4200+ overclocked to 2.75ghz so it should be in the same ballpark as your CPU, I upgraded from a 8800GTX 768mb (believe is what it was) to a 5770 1gb because I was having issues with the Sims 3, well it no difference at all, nor did going from 2gb of ram to 4gb.

Well, I got another $100 for graduation, so I think I'm gonna upgrade both.

AMD Phenom II X4 945 (3.0 GHz) - $119.99

Sapphire Radeon HD 6850 1 GB - $169.99

That should be a pretty significant upgrade over my current system. It might even let me hold off on purchasing a whole new system in 6 months or so.

_________________
"I Live, I Love, I Slay, and I Am Content."
- Conan the Barbarian