Going i5 - Whiskey Tango Foxtrot do I do ?!

[amorak]

Hey guys,

I currently have a Core2Quad Q6600 OC'd to 3.2GHz, along with 4GB in temperamental OCZ Reaper HPC RAM running on a Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L rev 2.0 motherboard.

I am considering upgrading my processor, mobo and RAM to an i5 chip, along with a good mobo for OC'ing an i5 chip and some decent DDR3 RAM. It's been well over a year (maybe 2?!) since I upgraded, so I am appealing to my fellow Canucks for some guidance:

1. Based on my current system, is it even worth upgrading? I play a lot of games, usually new releases, and do the usual desktop stuff - No video editing or the like.
2. I have a Radeon 4890 1GB video card that, thus far, has played everything I want with a high level of eye candy @ my monitors resolution of 1680x1050 - I am assuming the card is not my current bottleneck and plan to keep it for the foreseeable future. Am I wrong here?
3. I want to OC (funfunfun) the chip, are there certain i5 chips I should look for?
4. I have a Scythe Ninja 2 CPU cooler, will this be a decent cooler for OC'ing an i5 chip? Does it use the same mount bracket that's holding it to my P35 mobo (because I don't think I have anything left from the Scythe box...ffffckkkkkk)

Thanks guys, appreciate any advice that you can give!

[headsh0t]

Your rig seems fine to me for right now. I would wait til summer to upgrade if you want to.

[SugarJ]

Unless you notice choppiness or low frame rates in new games, there's nothing wrong with your current system. Yes, an OC'd i5 will probably gain a few FPS, but likely not enough for you to notice without using FRAPS.

As for the Scythe, you would need a new mount bracket unless you get a board with LGA775 mounting holes. It's still a good cooler, I've got a Ninja 2 Copper in my wife's system.

[Soultribunal]

I'm gonna have to agree atm. Sure new Tech is nice but if you wait long till the whole chipset matures than by all means do that and save yourself some coin.

ST

[MarkOne]

I have a 5870 with me e8400 oc at 4,0ghz and also one with my i5-750 oc at 4,2 ghz, my stalker game are in both of them , and I see no difference at all when I play.

[Raserei408]

The way I see it, if your rig is currently playing all the new releases at a high level of eye candy, there's no reason to rush out and upgrade. When your PC seems to be aging e.g. you need to really cut back on AA to run your games, that's when you need to think about an upgrade.

[CroSsFiRe2009]

Don't think you should upgrade since you won't get any noticeable increase in fps. As for that Ninja 2, still a good heatsink, if you ever do upgrade the adapter for 1156/1366 is only $5 at DirectCanada