If I could go for one upgrade, what should I do?

K, so my birthday is coming up, and since there isn't really much of anything being released on the horizon until BF3, I am looking to upgrade something on my computer...my specs are listed in my sig

What is one upgrade that I can do that will give me the best increase for gaming? I can't get too carried away with it (i.e. new mobo for sandy bridge, etc.)

current mobo does not support SLI...BTW if you are curious the PSU came as a package deal with my case, hence why its such a big PSU

New CPU/Mobo combo. But since you don't want to do that, there's nothing really left. Maybe some more ram?

how about a gaming mouse or headset if you don't already have one of those? gaming mouse really improved my accuracy in my games so I gotta recommend it, its awesome.

An SSD can improve boot times and load times on any application put on it significantly. You've got a really good computer, not much you can do outside of getting a new CPU/Mobo, which isn't necessary at all.

I think liquid cooling would definitely be something special to add your PC... either that or a really nice CPU cooler like $50 up so that you can get a little extra kick out of your system, thats always a nice feeling....

You can get a new bigger HDD, SSD is not worth it in my opinion.

You can get 4GB more Ram to make it 8GB.

Btw have you considered how much it would cost you to upgrade to sandy bridge? You already have DDR3 Ram, you can sell your CPU and mobo for $150-200 and then spend $100-150 more for a MSI P67 board and 2500k.

Go with liquid cooling ($150+) and overclock that Q9550 to 4 GHz or so.. Then remove the fan/shroud from your videocard heatsink, put heatsinks on the VRM's ($9.99), and put 2x Vantec 119cfm 92mm fans ($12.99) on the heatsink.. Then overclock the GPU and you'll be good for Battlefield 3...-GeordiLaForge-

i totally agree with this post make the jump you won't regret it :twisted:

You can get a new bigger HDD, SSD is not worth it in my opinion.

You can get 4GB more Ram to make it 8GB.

Btw have you considered how much it would cost you to upgrade to sandy bridge? You already have DDR3 Ram, you can sell your CPU and mobo for $150-200 and then spend $100-150 more for a MSI P67 board and 2500k.

Gambler_3

his cpu and mobo are still good, let alone the gtx 480 he has sitting in there, But i do see where you are coming from.

[QUOTE="Gambler_3"]

You can get a new bigger HDD, SSD is not worth it in my opinion.

You can get 4GB more Ram to make it 8GB.

Btw have you considered how much it would cost you to upgrade to sandy bridge? You already have DDR3 Ram, you can sell your CPU and mobo for $150-200 and then spend $100-150 more for a MSI P67 board and 2500k.

Nethemis

his cpu and mobo are still good, let alone the gtx 480 he has sitting in there, But i do see where you are coming from.

I am not saying that he needs to upgrade but if he really wants to then upgrading from core 2 quad to sandy bridge isnt entirely unjustified.