[help] Upgrading my gaming rig.

[greengamer]

Hi, I've been saving for a while now, and finally have a decent £500.00 to upgrade my rig with. I've currently got a gigabyte GA-P35C-DS3R mobo, core 2 due e8200, xfx 8800 gs 350mb, 4gb ocz (1066), 500 gb hd, 1 tb external hd, and a cheap but cheerful case.

I initially bought this setup with the intention to overclock everything, but after going through the oc instructions for my set up in pc gamer magazine, I just kept getting bsod, then it would crash on boot so I had to reset the mobo batteries and every time I've attempted to oc the cpu or gpu I just get the same results :S So I've just left it at stock speeds, but with the emergence of crysis warhead its really showing its age, even gettin ctd on nearly all my games with anything over medium. (tested with empire total war, crysis warhead, cod wow & fallout 3.)

I also returned a tablet of mine so I have £130.00 on top of that for any other components, but I would have to get em at pc world.

The main goal here is to be able to play game like crysis warhead on enthusast with aa and get decent fps, 20-30.

Any advice would be totally welcome as I'm really unshure about alotta things - if certain graphic cards will fit in my case, will my psu have enough 6 pin connectors, will the processors fit onto my mobo, should I buy proper conductor paste for the processor, will I have to also upgrade my ddr2 4gb ocz ram?

 

[daisymtc]

What PSU have you got at the moment?
RAM: Don't feel it is necessary to upgrade.
Thermal compound is cheap, worth buying. Arctic cooling MX2 is the one I am using right now
Video card: definately yes. It depends how much you want to spend on it. May be GTX 275/ 4890??
CPU: Not sure about that. Get the video card first to see if you are happy with just video card upgrade.

 

[greengamer]

Current psu: casecom atx 500w

Well I've put £500.00 aside for the upgrade, so if im not upgrading my mobo, cpu or psu, then I'll spend £500.00 on the card. Really want to get an all round performance/stability boost tho, as I'm getting alotta ctd latly which I feel is linked to either my mobo being dodgey or damage to my system from my well intentioned oc attempts. I've also had my eye on that 4890 1gb for a few days now, I can get it for 188 quid aswell. Arctic cooling MX2; would I need to buy a new mobo+cpu to use the paste? Im aslo tempted to get the antec 900 - good idea?

 

[greengamer]

Im also thinking about upgrading my hd, I hear the raptors are good, looking for a 1tb, fast hd. Will get the 4890 1tb, but still unshure as to which cpu, psu and hd to get.