Time to upgrade from q6600 and nforce? halp!

howdy, i have two year oldish system thats done me well when i'm home (3-4 days a week) which is where i do most my gaming, on the road i have a decent asus g50 notebook i use. i'm looking to update my PC since its about on par with my laptop and i do spend most my time gaming at home, but not all. System specs are as follows:

One thing to note, i dont want to spend a ton on new cards since DX 11 is out soon, but total war and some of my other games are running porky now, and heck ARMA2 is out soon.

Q6600
8800GTS 640MB
4GB
EVGA 122-CK-NF68-AR LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 680i

I'd like to move to a crossfire 4770 set up since its so cheap, but since i have a SLI board i can not go that route, id have to buy a high end nvidia card or get a new mobo/cards. So i'm wondering if i should build out a entirely new system with an I7 + dual ATI cards, or should i keep q6600 and buy a nvidiacard or what?

Thanks!

You could always just go with a 4850x2. It would be cheaper than two 4770's and give you better performance, plus you can use it on your current board and should be a lot better than your GTS

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102809

ahh, not a bad idea....wounder how well it would do with a q6600

No a 4850x2 is 2 cards put together in 1 so it will work on your SLI mobo no problem

Sound as if you want a new card but if you wanna try SLI with the card you have.. I have a 640MB 8800GTS I may let go of. I pulled one of mine out a week or so ago because I havent gamed on my system in forever. I wanted to cut back on heat a little bit. My main exhaust is in the bottom of my case. Just got a new desk and my tower is currently sitting on the floor preventing it from exhausting very well. So I pulled one card.. It has a Thermalright HR-03+ and fan on it as well. PM me if interested.

steadfast9661 said:

ahh, not a bad idea....wounder how well it would do with a q6600

Click to expand...

Im sure it will work just fine, especially if you have that q6600 OCed even a moderate amount.

i have got a q6600 to 4.0 on water, on air u should be able to hit 3.4.. which is fast enough

ok, so are you sure it will work on a nforce board? i read on another forum that only one core will work...IE you need cross fire still.

Personally, if you just get a 4870/4890 you don't even need to waste all the money on SLI.
Or just get a faster GTX or something.

I swapped out my 8800gt for a 4870 in my gamer, and it plays L4D/TF2, etc on high @ 1920x1600.

I still want to upgrade though, who don't?

steadfast9661 said:

ok, so are you sure it will work on a nforce board? i read on another forum that only one core will work...IE you need cross fire still.

Click to expand...

AFAIK it will work just fine as the crossfire is done on the single card.

well, i decided to just get a GTX 275 for 189.00. make my life easier.

hank123 said:

No a 4850x2 is 2 cards put together in 1 so it will work on your SLI mobo no problem

Click to expand...

Isn't it 2 cards smushed into 1 and running Crossfire between them?