upgrade mobo+cpu+ram or upgrade gfx card?

[shnull]

i currently own a pc with

CPU Intel core2duo clocked at about 4ghz
Asus P5K-SE EPU mobo
4GB DDR2 800 ram
ASUS EAH 4890 DDR5 1gb

the systems heavy use is games (most demanding games atm : TDU2, BFBC2, CIV5, like to expand this with Skyrim and BF3)

i was thinking of upgrading with these :
Intel core I5 2500k (clockable, I7 performance diff is negligible for gaming)
MSI P67A-GD55 B3 (got great reviews, the z68 model i dont need)
4GB Kingston hyperx blu 1600 cl9 (8gb does not seem to be necessary for games so far, can upgrade later)

this costs about 400 euros, which is my budget atm

My question : would i gain most performance by buying and installing the parts mentioned above, or would i gain more performance by buying a new gfx card for about the same price ?

thanks for helping out if you please

[Khalil]

You have a pretty good system already, for gaming I woulld not waste money on a CPU, yours works great. I would definately use the money to get a newer video card like the 6970, there you will see huge improvement.

[jdeb]

In my opinion, a couple of those games recommend a quad core CPU and your GPU is better than the recommended. So I would say CPU, motherboard, and Ram.

If you select those components (Z68) and CPU, go with the Corsair Vengeance 1.5V ram.

[pilgrim]

double check your current mobo to see if compatible with video card that you want to buy and also your power supply recommendation from the video card.

[David M]

Your bottleneck is clearly with your graphics card. I would replace that first with what Khalil recommends.

Which core two duo do you have?...an E8500? If so or close to it, get the graphics card upgrade. A number of games now can utilize more than 2 cores but this does not mean they will run slow or even noticeably slower if they don't have more than two cores. They might run the physics or whatever else in the third core.

A high quality 650 watt PSU will run a 6970 just fine. For a little more money I would get a 750 watt PSU so you have a little more headroom, but that's just what I like to do and is not absolutely necessary.

[shnull]

i have the top-end core2duo, E8600, its clocked at max 4ghz so with the i5 i could still get about 0,5 ghz more and two extra cores, if you say games like Battlefield 3 and Skyrim wouldn't use it then it would be a waste of money indeed.
Cpu-hogging stuff like video conversion i tend to do while watching movies or afk so that doesnt really matter.
My psu is an Antec Earthwatts 650 Watt unit, any more suggestions please? money is tight so i have to make the right choice for the next 6-12 months here

[David M]

If your video conversion software can utilize more than two cores and maximizing the speed at which you can do video conversion is important then I would get a 4 core Sandy Bridge.

If having a fast gamer is most important to you then all I would do is upgrade the graphics card. An E8600, although two cores is still a very fast processor.

How much work a CPU does per cycle is the more relevant measure of its speed and less so its clock speed.

Your 650 watt Antec should be fine for powering a faster single GPU card.

[rwest]

For longetivity purposes, I would say a graphics slot (pci-e) will be around a lot longer than a cpu socket.

For possible future ugrades.

[shnull]

the mobo is pci 1.1 and the 6790 or gtx 580 both support pcie 2.0 , i just found out my current card does as well so i guess that settles the question about what to buy first then, am i correct in assuming that i will get better performance from my current card on a new mobo since the bandwidth of a pcie 2.0 bus is higher ?

[glc]

Money is tight, and you are mostly concerned about gaming performance?

Get a Radeon 6970 or GTX 570. No other upgrades necessary at this time. Your next upgrade would be a mobo, cpu, and ram. Your PSU is sufficient for any single video card made except the top end dual GPU units (6990, 590).

am i correct in assuming that i will get better performance from my current card on a new mobo since the bandwidth of a pcie 2.0 bus is higher ?

No. The difference would be 2% at best.

[shnull]

thanks a lot, this has all been very enlightening so far, as to jdebs suggestion to get the corsair vengeance : i forgot to mention i have a cooler master v10 cooler which probably won't allow the 52mm tall ram modules to be installed ?
i suppose the difference in performance / quality between corsair and kingston is pretty much negligible otherwise or not ?

[glc]

*IF* you upgrade the motherboard (and I think you would be wasting your LIMITED funds doing so) you can get low profile Vengeance.

[Khalil]

Kingston is pretty much the best quality memory on the market with Crucial, Corsair and ADATA following behind.

[shnull]

clear,
gfx card it is then, prices for cpu will probably drop when the next batch is released
this has been very helpful, you lot are great, thanks for the clear advice
now all that's left is to bust my head over wether i get nvidia or ati

[glc]

By the time you are ready for another upgrade, Sandy Bridge will be old technology.

[shnull]

probably, i try not to spend more than 500 euros a year on my habit ...
been doing some more poking around and i'll probably go with the gtx 570, the 580 is a bit too expensive, the ati 6970 is nowhere to be found in local stores and i don't like to mail order expensive hardware from foreign webshops ... i have no faith in the gentle of the mailman lol
from what i read, the 6970 comes out on top only at very high resolutions, since i game either on 1440x900 on my 21" little screen or 1920x1080 on my 50"plasma there should be no need for it then.
If all else fails i can always sell off my xbox and kinect ... lately they're mainly gathering dust anyway.
Cool spot you have here with cool people, i'll make sure to spread the word if anyone needs advice, thanks again !