upgrading question. cpu/gpu

[atm743]

Hey guys, well its my birthday on the 17th and Christmas 8 days later and my father said he'll give me some $ towards upgrading my computer.

here's the deal, my current rig kicks butt. it plays what i play pretty well (besides crysis and gta4 but that obvious)

Now, i plan on doing is saving up over a few months and upgrading my 20" 1680x1050 monitor to a 24" 1920x1200 monitor but before i do this, i would like to upgrade my GPU

My current Graphics (8800gtx) is running pretty good but every now and then its starting to crash games. cod world at war, and an other that i cant think of at the moment. I have it overclocked (its a little lower than what my sig currently says) I know if i just set everything to stock it will be fine but i don't want to loose my performance that i have now. plus when i do go to a 1920x1200 monitor i don't think the 8800gtx will cut it for some of the games i play at framerates im looking for.

I REALLY want a 280GTX but they are quite allot (419.99) before $30 mail in rebate.

I saw that the 260GTX 216 was around 250. Now i was thinking i could do i get that gpu and upgrade my E6750 cpu to a Q9550 or Q9450. that cpu is 319 on newegg. and 250 for the 260 or so. it came to a total of $567.98. or i can just get the 280GTX for 419 and just save the extra 150 bucks for something else. what do you guys think. I'm afraid if i do go with a 260 that it may not do well at 1920x1200 while the 280 would probably do well with.

My current cpu works well but i really would like to jump up to a 45nm cpu and also it being a quad. I know quad's don't really do much for gaming but i do back up copy's of dvds to my computer allot as well as convert videos for my iphone and i would like to be able to do that at the same time as gaming. i thought i could set the affinity to half and half. 2 cpu's for gaming and 2 for encoding or whatever.

what do you guys say?

260 and a cpu upgrade, or juts get the 280?

[87poopcoupe]

i would say go with the 280... upgrade the cpu later if you feel it is needed......

sell the 8800 and save up for the cpu ?

[necrokiller]

CPU upgrade will always help, but your cpu is overclocked pretty well so don`t jump on a new one..at that high res it`ll do a good job at feeding your gpu.

You didn`t tell us the budget (if any) for your upgrade. Are you getting a new monitor for sure? or do you have to compensate its price in your limit as well?

The GTX 260 core 216 is just as good as the GTX 280. Don`t go for the 280..the difference is not worth the extra money. overclock that thing and it`ll perform on level with GTX 280. And at about $250..you cant go wrong. You can read this article and see for yourself how close they are at higher resolutions:
http://www.guru3d.com/article/evga-geforce-gtx-260-core-216-superclocked-review/

Go for the GTX 260 core 216... and save the money for a cpu upgrade down the road. (maybe wait further for price cuts)

[$SOLID$Necro]

Like Necrokiller said..the GTX 280 is overpriced for the slightly better performance it offers. An OC'd GTX 216 is so close it's not funny (In most games.)

You have a few options though..for about the same money, you could simply add another 8800GTX from ebay, and pick up an inexpensive SLI motherboard.

http://www.evga.com/products/bstock.asp

You might find a decent deal on a 680i board there, but that won't support a 45NM CPU, you would have to look more at a Q6600.

Your PSU would probably be right on the edge of supporting them, since they are pretty big power hogs, especially if they are OC'd and you add an OC'd 65nm Quad...but it would be more powerfull in most games then even a single GTX 280 that was OC'd.

If that doesn't apeal to you (It would be a fairly power hungry rig with 2x 8800GTX's and a 65NM Quad) then just go with your original plans.

EDIT: You might want to look into finding the 55NM GTX 260 216 according to the link below, they are due to start shipping soon...and will probably OC better then the current versions. (Rumors suggest there might even be one with 1.5GB of ram at some point...that would be realy sweet for your rig!) I would wait for some "Real" tests before jumping on them, as some of the first places to offer them might charge a premium, and might not make sense in "Bang for your buck" terms.

http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=10803&Itemid=1

[atm743]

i thought the 55nm 260's wont be out till February?

[jobrien2001]

i would say wait, even if its february. New cards are coming out and it suck to buy a new card and 1 month later new ones are coming out for the same price.

[necrokiller]

theres never a good time to buy graphics card then.. new ones are always 'on the way' and we're hoping for further price cuts. its about choosing the right one at the time when you want/need one.

you should wait if you can.. otherwise at this time gtx 260 core 216 is your best option!

[$SOLID$Necro]

i thought the 55nm 260's wont be out till February?

In high volume, easy to find, yes, late Jan early Febuary.

But there are going to be some places that stock them this month, and will probably charge a bit of a premium until the volumes ramp up.

[jobrien2001]

theres never a good time to buy graphics card then.. new ones are always 'on the way' and we're hoping for further price cuts. its about choosing the right one at the time when you want/need one.

you should wait if you can.. otherwise at this time gtx 260 core 216 is your best option!

I wouldnt say that is true for the performance market. The 4000 series came out July, and the 200 series on June.

Thats over half a year and no new tech is released by either company, except for the 260 216 (same card with a few more shaders unlocked.)