cwcollins06
Geek Trainee
Ok, so I'm trying to plan my next batch of upgrades for my machine. I'm wondering, if I have about 300-400 dollars to spend late this year (December) what would be the next pieces to change out in my system. I'm not looking to make a machine that will make the hardcore gamer jealous, I just want it to be respectable and play any new games. Most of the time I use it for general computing, but occasionally I'll see a game I'm interested in and I don't want to have to sweat whether or not my machine will handle it. What I have right now, I built myself from scratch, so I'm pretty comfortable swapping stuff out. I'd rather not do any overclocking. My existing system includes:
AMD Athlon 64 X2 600+ @ 3.1 GHz
8GB GSkill Pi Black edition RAM DDR2-800
Gigabyte MA790X-UD4P Motherboard
Visiontek ATI Radeon HD 4670 w/1GB DDR3 Memory
Rocketfish 750-watt SLI/Crossfire Ready Power Supply
Samsung 20" LCD @ 1600x900
Thermaltake SopranoRS case
Thermaltake V1 CPU Cooler
LG BD-ROM
2 Seagate 500GB 7200RPM hard drives: one as the main drive, and one for paging/backup
Vista Enterprise 64-bit edition
The processor is the limiting factor in my Vista experience score at a 5.5, and the only thing under a 5.9 other than that is the 3D graphics at a 5.7. With 300-400 bucks to spend in December, what's the next step? Keep in mind that for whatever reason, I'd like to stick with ATI/AMD hardware for now. My thinking is that I should go to a Phenom and upgrade to DDR2 1066, but I was wondering what someone smarter than me thinks. I'd really like to upgrade the graphics system, but want to do whatever will boost performance the most. Thanks in advance.
AMD Athlon 64 X2 600+ @ 3.1 GHz
8GB GSkill Pi Black edition RAM DDR2-800
Gigabyte MA790X-UD4P Motherboard
Visiontek ATI Radeon HD 4670 w/1GB DDR3 Memory
Rocketfish 750-watt SLI/Crossfire Ready Power Supply
Samsung 20" LCD @ 1600x900
Thermaltake SopranoRS case
Thermaltake V1 CPU Cooler
LG BD-ROM
2 Seagate 500GB 7200RPM hard drives: one as the main drive, and one for paging/backup
Vista Enterprise 64-bit edition
The processor is the limiting factor in my Vista experience score at a 5.5, and the only thing under a 5.9 other than that is the 3D graphics at a 5.7. With 300-400 bucks to spend in December, what's the next step? Keep in mind that for whatever reason, I'd like to stick with ATI/AMD hardware for now. My thinking is that I should go to a Phenom and upgrade to DDR2 1066, but I was wondering what someone smarter than me thinks. I'd really like to upgrade the graphics system, but want to do whatever will boost performance the most. Thanks in advance.