A better CPU or another 8800 for better FPS

[Forge]

Tiger Direct has a good deal on an FX-60 so I was wondering whether my money would be better spent on an FX-60 S939 or spend the money on another Geforce 8800 GTS for SLI.

I'm looking for the most FPS in COD2 never mind that could start an FPS discussion...I want more FPS

[Babrbarossa]

Those very fast 8800 series gpu's are bottlenecked by processors unless they're also very fast. I would suggest getting a faster cpu-- however, for the same price,(509?), you could switch over to a core 2 duo, and a kick ass mobo, overclock it, and then sell your old stuff, and you be WAY farther ahead. You would be over 10,000 on 3dmark06 easy. This is just what I would do personally, which may be miles from what you think is the best idea.

[Forge]

Thanks for the input and it did cross my mind to go for the Conroe/MB/memory Then I got to wonder about the 6300 or the new 4300 on sale at NCIX this week.

I'm open to suggestions and have about $600 to spend.

[Babrbarossa]

well that would depend on when you were going to do it-- there is a new 4mb cache version of the e6300 coming soon, and the e4300 is supposed to go down in price, but noone wants to play the waiting game. with the e4300 and an evga 680i you could use cheap memory and get speeds of 3.4 to 4.0 GHz with any of those low end conroes (you have a water setup?). If you wanted to go for a second 8800 instead, you would have to upgrade your power supply, which would put you out another 150 or so on top, so the cpu option is the way to go. I have an e6400 running at 3.4Ghz (cheap air) and an 8800gts and I get over 10k on 3dmark06- the e6300's and e4300's will clock that fast and faster if you get a better stepping than I did.

Here's a very good overclocking board for the money:
Gigabyte GA-965O-DS3 (P965 775) - 200 bucks
e4300- 210 bucks (direct Canada)
then sell your stuff and buy some decent ram with the remainder

I would definitely consider an upgrade to 2GB of memory. 60FPS without hitching and slow-downs is better than 100FPS with hard drive accesses every once in a while.

[Supergrover]

Originally Posted by Babrbarossa

well that would depend on when you were going to do it-- there is a new 4mb cache version of the e6300 coming soon, and the e4300 is supposed to go down in price, but noone wants to play the waiting game. with the e4300 and an evga 680i you could use cheap memory and get speeds of 3.4 to 4.0 GHz with any of those low end conroes (you have a water setup?). If you wanted to go for a second 8800 instead, you would have to upgrade your power supply, which would put you out another 150 or so on top, so the cpu option is the way to go. I have an e6400 running at 3.4Ghz (cheap air) and an 8800gts and I get over 10k on 3dmark06- the e6300's and e4300's will clock that fast and faster if you get a better stepping than I did.

Here's a very good overclocking board for the money:
Gigabyte GA-965O-DS3 (P965 775) - 200 bucks
e4300- 210 bucks (direct Canada)
then sell your stuff and buy some decent ram with the remainder

QFT
I wouldnt spend the cash on a 939 right now. If you can afford it go Intel $600 should do you and you can part out the 939 to top up your cash if you need to.

Edit: yeah 2x1g would help him out but if your going to upgrade to ddr2 any time soon then it's a waste.
Plus you already got 4x5121 so the amout of ram wont go up just the speed.

[Forge]

Thanks again guys, I've decided to go with the Conroe not sure which exact CPU but in any case the motherboard is gonna be The EVGA Nforce 680I SLI LGA775 not sure about which RAM to get yet. Depends on the next Wednesday sale at NCIX:)

[Babrbarossa]

I'm not sure how tech-savvy you are, but I would recommend reseating the north and southbridge of that board before you install it if you feel up to it-- don't get me wrong- great board, but there is often too much cheap thermal goop under them, and replacing it with a nice thin layer of arctic silver 5 can lower your chipset temps by ten degrees and make it more stable. I'll post a link to instructions on how to do it if you want.

[Forge]

I'm pretty tech savvy in that I can dismantle and rebuild just about anything it's just that I haven't studied up all that much on Conroes and overclocking...but I will and thanks for the info on the re-seating it never occured to me but makes a lot of sense now that you mention it.

[sswilson]

I'd have never thought of it either, but since purchasing this DFI board, That's going to be the first thing I do with any board before I install it into the case.

My vote goes with the pack on this one.

If you've already got $600 to start with, your best bet is to part out the cpu/mobo/ram (with the current market for ddr mem you should easily be able to get $35-$40 / stick for the mem alone) and buy some pretty kick ass ddr2 with the coin you pick up from that.

I'm not quite so lucky, so I'm stuck with my S939 for a little while as I can't really afford to upgrade cpu/mobo/mem all at once.........

I do however see an opti in my future...... :)

Edit.......

I just had a quick look at your sig, and you've probably heard it before, but with a high end vid card you should probably be looking to upgrade that PSU as well............ :)