Would this be a big bottleneck?

[TowerShield]

I'm planning on spending ~$250 upgrading my brother's PC for Christmas, and another ~$250 in July for his birthday.

This is his current system:
Athlon64 3500+
2GB DDR
GeForce 7800GT
------------------
I'm thinking of getting a 8800GT, but would the 3500+ be a big enough bottleneck with today's games that it wouldn't really do much?

Should I rather spend that ~$250 on an Intel C2D E4500, 2GB DDR2, + MB that can OC, instead of getting the 8800GT and waiting for Penryn?

 

[jkresh]

the 3500+ will be a bottleneck in some cases but the 8800gt should still help. If you could get a cheap dual core for his system along with the 8800gt that would be better (maybe a 3850 + an x2 would be closer to your budget), though if its a 939 system it might be difficult to find achip.

 

[potato28]

Is the 3500+ OCed at all?

 

[j0j081]

I would say it is because my 3400+ which I had ocd a bit bottlenecked my 7800gs at times.

 

[imported_LoKe]

I'd just keep the 7800GT for now...

Up until yesterday, I had a Q6600, 3GB of ram and a 7900GS. :laugh: