Upgrade options - Advice Needed

[KilluminatiStyle]

Title says it. I'm looking to upgrade my current gaming PC but I'm not sure of the best route to take. Should I get a faster CPU or better Video card? My current setup is listed below. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. As far as price limit goes... I'm sitting on about 200 bucks right now. This may be all I can scrape up with the holidays right around the corner but if necessary I could just bring back some of the kids presents Just kidding...

Core2Duo E6600 2.4 Ghz OC'd to 3.0Ghz (9x333)
ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 7 Pro 92mm CPU Cooler
Gigabyte 965P-DS3 Rev. 2.0
EVGA 8800GTS 640MB
4GB (4x1GB) XMS2 PC6400 (Running @ 1:1 Ratio Currently)
OCZ GameXtreme 600W PSU
HD
DVDRW

Now, technically my motherboard only supports 1066 FSB. HOWEVER, Gigabyte supports several 1333 FSB CPU's with their latest BIOS and overclocking. I was looking at the E8400 or E8500 processors. I'm just unsure of how much improvement this would actually be over my OC'd E6600.

As far as video cards go, I'm really lost. I kicked around the idea of getting a new motherboard, bigger PSU, and a second 8800GTS and running SLI but that's a lot of purchasing and hassle. Not to mention that I would then have a nice PSU and Motherboard sitting here that I would OBVIOUSLY have to get up and running which means even more spending.

Anyway... there it is. I'm not sure what to do and I need some help making a decision. I guess the biggest question is would any single upgrade really give me THAT much of a performance increase?

[shadowpr]

Depends on what your current setup is lacking.

A video card upgrade would help with gaming more than anything else, so that's where I would start. If you're getting good fps on games, then a cpu upgrade would be good. The e8400 or e8500 is a step up. They use less power, and produce less heat. They can also be overclocked higher than what you currently have now.

[KilluminatiStyle]

Power consumption and heat are "perks" but not the deal maker for me. As far as overclocking goes... this board does well but has trouble getting over 375 FSB, at least that's the issues I'm having. I can run my E6600 100% prime stable at 375 and just under 1.4v and temps hit 52-55c MAX under load.

After looking around again tonight for video cards... unless I jump up to a PCI-E 2.0 card I'm stuck with a 9 series nVidia card which I don't think would yield much of a performance boost. A PCI-E 2.0 card will work fine in a PCI-E 1.1 slot though right?

[Doom]

I can't say that I've run a PCI 2.0 in a 1.0 slot... but I did some checking and found two independant threads that state 2.0 can run in a 1.0 slot. They're backwards compatible, but you simply limit yourself to the slower 1.0 bus rate speeds.

I'd also suggest moving up your graphics card...but don't do the SLI thing. You're much better off putting that dough into a groovy card than getting the SLI board and extra card. I did SLI on my first rig and didn't notice enough improvement for the money. If you're using a 26" or larger moniter the SLI is a good thing, but for any regular desktop monitor I'd recommend going to a single card.

[KilluminatiStyle]

I thought the bus speed was the same in PCI-E 1.0 (1.1) and 2.0 with the differences being only that 2.0 has more power to give and when in an SLI configuration both cards can run at the full 16x. Anyway, that was pretty much my assessment of SLI too that it's just not enough of a performance boost when one considers the cash needed to get it running.

If I were to get a new video card... which one would show the best performance increase over my current one when running 1680x1050 (22" Samsung 226BW) on a $200.00 budget? I've been using nVidia cards in every gaming pc I've ever built and would prefer to keep it that way unless ATI has something available that suits my needs.

[shadowpr]

The old 260's by nvidia will fit that budget, but the newer ones are better. The 4870's by ati come just a bit above $200. That might be your best bet.

I'm not sure if it happened already, or will happen in the next few weeks, but the prices are supposed to drop a bit.

[KilluminatiStyle]

WOOHOOO

My budget just went up by 200 bucks. Now I have about $400.00 on hand. I've been looking through everything that I find, reading reviews for both CPU's and GPU's, and I've still not really seen anything that would be worth upgrading too. I'm trying to get a substantial performance increase for gaming but it looks like it's going to be hard to do without buying a new motherboard.

[shadowpr]

The new 260 is a substantial increase over your current card. So is the 4870.

[KilluminatiStyle]

Both of which would require a new motherboard. Probably not a terrible idea anyway though considering mine is showing it's age now that I'm trying to upgrade.

[shadowpr]

Why would you need a new mb?

[KilluminatiStyle]

I did a little research and PCI-E 2.0 does indeed have higher bandwidth than PCI-E 1.1 (which is what my current motherboard has).

That means that in order for me to get the "full potential" from the video card... I need a new motherboard. Or... am I sadly mistaken?

[shadowpr]

I don't believe you will see too much of a difference between them right now. Last I heard, and it could be wrong, but the current 1.1 doesn't use the full bandwidth anyway.

I would keep your current mb, and just upgrade the videocard.

[KilluminatiStyle]

hmm... Well I suppose I could do that initially and if it doesn't seem right then purchase the MB.