Advice Needed: Upgrade CPU or GPU?

[White Widow]

I'm currently running with the following:

Q6600 CPU OC'd to 3.2GHz
Radeon 6970 2GB
8GB RAM
240GB SSD

Gaming is about the only hardware-intensive activity I do with this system, and now that I have some extra $$$, I'd like to upgrade. My inclination is to focus on the CPU - get something like an i5 "K" series (probably the i5 3570K) and a Z77 MB and try to overclock it up around 4.2-4.5GHz. However, I'm not really sure how much I am limited by the Q6600 and whether this would be a poor investment compared with getting a new GPU like a R9-280x or 760GTX.

Which route would likely give me better results?

~Aaron

 

[RaistlinZ]

Hm, kind of a tough spot. No matter which you upgrage the other part will then be the bottleneck. I guess it depends if the games you play are more CPU intensive or GPU intensive. Personally, I would upgrade that CPU and see how much your framerates improve. Then you could better judge how much more powerful of a GPU you really need.

 

[escrow4]

That Core 2 will heavily bottleneck you in any recent AAA game, Intel's new i5's are streets ahead with the clock speed + IPC + architecture improvements. Personally I'd wait for Broadwell and Z97/H97 and do a full rebuild.

 

[NewYorksFinest]

Upgrade the CPU and Mobo first, then the GPU.

 

[White Widow]

Thanks for the input - as much as the Q6600 has bee good to me, I think it's time to retire it. I really don't want to wait for Broadwell, especially since I'm not sure the performance delta will justify the price premium when it comes to gaming.

 

[nsafreak]

Thanks for the input - as much as the Q6600 has bee good to me, I think it's time to retire it. I really don't want to wait for Broadwell, especially since I'm not sure the performance delta will justify the price premium when it comes to gaming.

Agreed, that being said I wouldn't recommend you go with IvyBridge either. While it will be a large upgrade from your Core 2 based platform you won't be able to upgrade to Broadwell should you so choose. I'd go with an i5 4570K and work from there.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Agreed, that being said I wouldn't recommend you go with IvyBridge either. While it will be a large upgrade from your Core 2 based platform you won't be able to upgrade to Broadwell should you so choose. I'd go with an i5 4570K and work from there.

That won't allow him to upgrade to Broadwell either. Broadwell-K requires 1150-2 and 9-series chipsets.

 

[escrow4]

Thanks for the input - as much as the Q6600 has bee good to me, I think it's time to retire it. I really don't want to wait for Broadwell, especially since I'm not sure the performance delta will justify the price premium when it comes to gaming.

It certainly will. The difference between gaming on a Q6600 now vs a 4770 is night and day.

 

[crashtech]

The video card is less outdated than the platform. The platform should be upgraded first.

The 4670K list similarly to the 3570K, so no reason to utilize the previous platform.