I need personal opinions on an upgrade. Video card vs CPU

Nucklez · Post by **Nucklez** » Tue Nov 28, 2006 2:17 pm

I am building my wife a computer for Christmas, and I'm in a little delima. My funds have gotten extremely short, and I had ended up getting an older Pentium 4 3.0 Ghz process and Nvidia 6600 PCI-e card for really cheap. I have a little bit of money to spare now, and I'm wondering if you guys would think that upgrading the Pentium 4 to a Pentium D, or upgrading the 6600 to a 7800GT would be the best upgrade? I'm sure she is planning on playing Oblivion, Gothic 3 and other hardware intensive games, so I was just wondering what you guys would do.

P.S.
Sadly a Core 2 Duo is out of the question. Asus "tricked" me (and several others) when they released the mobo that I got into thinking that it would support the Core 2 Duo processors. When the processors were actually realeased, they dropped support and made a new "Second Edition" of the motherboard. The current board cannot be upgraded to run the Core 2 Duo's in any way or fashion without replacing the board entirely.

vb_master · Post by **vb_master** » Tue Nov 28, 2006 4:19 pm

What is your budget?

Here is some things for a cheap Core 2 Duo setup:

Code: Select all

CPU :

 Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 Conroe 1.86GHz 2M sharing L2 Cache LGA 775 Processor - Retail

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819115005

$182.00
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Motherboard :

ASUS P5LD2 R2.0 Socket T (LGA 775) Intel 945P ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813131048

$104.99
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Then just get an eVGA GeForce 7600GT and you can play all your games good.

Nucklez · Post by **Nucklez** » Tue Nov 28, 2006 5:08 pm

Currently I only have about $100 - $150 left. I know that is sad, but it's the life of being married with childrens. The motherboard that I have cost me a little over $200, so I have no plans on ditching it. It's an Asus P5N32-SLI Deluxe. I'm wanting to finish it off with a Pentium D 930 and a 7800GT I guess. I am just thinking about which I would rather have first. I found a 7800GT on newegg for $150 that I think I may try and grab up.

Ness · Post by **Ness** » Wed Nov 29, 2006 8:24 pm

Go with the videocard!

Processors are gonna drop in price soon with the duo processors comming out like crazy.

vb_master · Post by **vb_master** » Wed Nov 29, 2006 8:42 pm

Just RMA it to Newegg and get that, lol.

Post by **Sparkfist** » Thu Nov 30, 2006 9:32 pm

I'd suggest the video card. Games like WoW are going to work better with an upgraded video card. The CPU you have is sufficent for the kind of games likely to be played on it, and if need be she can upgrade to a Pentium D later on.