Another crappy Upgrade thread

I'll get down to brass tax. I have done a lot of searching and thinking. I currently have a Phenom 9950be on an asus m3a78pro board. I'm rockin 2 sticks of g-skill 2x2gig ram 5-5-5-15

I have the stock cooler and it's at idle right now at 53c according to cpuid. It was at idle @ 61 till i scraped the tim off and put some thermal on. I was thinking of getting a little OC out of this but haven't had a lot of luck... can't up the multiplier more then 1 without it getting unstable. so...

Phenom 9950
M3a78pro
radeon 4850
DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500)

I have an i7 laptop with a 6770M in it and i can do pretty much whatever on it. I want to upgrade my desktop so I can be comfortable playing games on it. I play SWTOR & WoW. Sometime some steam games Left 4 dead... everything i read basically has the i5-2500k blowing everything away. but maybe the other options would be better suited for me?

For me to upgrade to a 2500k i'd have to buy board, cpu, ram putting me ~ $400. my m3a78pro says it'll support up to a 1100t or 970. I could get a 960t ~$100 or a 110t for ~200. I could overclock them as well and buy another video card... hopefully prolonging my complete overhaul for maybe a couple more years?

So I guess i'd like to hear some thoughts.

A 960T / 970T / 1090T / 1100T is a powerful chip and will match a 2500K with new games frame for frame.

Its only older games where the 2500K is better, but having said that you would need a top end GPU and have the game settings maxed running multiple monitors, yet even then you might still not notice the difference (depending on the game)

With Radeon 4850 you just wouldn't notice it as it will crap out long before the CPU.

With respect your rig is pretty old (that's why you can't overclock much) so it might be worth you upgrading the whole thing, then you can get what you want depending on what your willing to spend.

A 2500K will cost you more than a 960T 970T... but will overclock much better and is a little faster with most everyday apps and older games.