![[H]ard|Forum](/styles/hardforum/xenforo/logo_dark.png){kind=logo}
Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving... 
I'm looking to upgrade my PC, and I'm not sure if I go for the graphics card or CPU first. At some point, what I don't get now I'll upgrade later... but I'll get into that below.
First, my system:
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 @ 4.2 GHz
RAM: 2x2GB Corsair Dominator DD2-1066
GPU: ATI 4870 (1GB)
PSU: Corsair HX1000 (1000W)
Resolution that I use/game with: 1920x1200
Like I said, I want to upgrade both my CPU (to a quad) and GPU at some point, but I'm stuck as to which to go with first.
CPU: I want to get a quad core, but I'd honestly rather go with an i7 then get a Core 2 Quad and then get an i7 later. However, if I got an i7, I would have to get a new mobo and most likely new DDR3 RAM to go with it. I understand that not all games are optimized for quad cores at the moment anyways...so I'm somewhat inclined to wait. I did want input from [H] though.
GPU: I want to upgrade to the ATI 5870. It'd be a great step up from the 4870, no doubt. But I'm wondering if holding back on upgrading my OCed E8500 will hinder the performance of the 5870. Yes? No? If I got this card and waited until sometime in 2010 to get a new mobo/cpu/ram (see previous paragraph) then would I not get a big performance gain until I got those other parts? I game at 1920x1200, so I'm *somewhat* sure that most games would burden the GPU more than the CPU.
Thanks for the help! I hope I was clear.
I'm looking to upgrade my PC, and I'm not sure if I go for the graphics card or CPU first. At some point, what I don't get now I'll upgrade later... but I'll get into that below.
First, my system:
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 @ 4.2 GHz
RAM: 2x2GB Corsair Dominator DD2-1066
GPU: ATI 4870 (1GB)
PSU: Corsair HX1000 (1000W)
Resolution that I use/game with: 1920x1200
Like I said, I want to upgrade both my CPU (to a quad) and GPU at some point, but I'm stuck as to which to go with first.
CPU: I want to get a quad core, but I'd honestly rather go with an i7 then get a Core 2 Quad and then get an i7 later. However, if I got an i7, I would have to get a new mobo and most likely new DDR3 RAM to go with it. I understand that not all games are optimized for quad cores at the moment anyways...so I'm somewhat inclined to wait. I did want input from [H] though.
GPU: I want to upgrade to the ATI 5870. It'd be a great step up from the 4870, no doubt. But I'm wondering if holding back on upgrading my OCed E8500 will hinder the performance of the 5870. Yes? No? If I got this card and waited until sometime in 2010 to get a new mobo/cpu/ram (see previous paragraph) then would I not get a big performance gain until I got those other parts? I game at 1920x1200, so I'm *somewhat* sure that most games would burden the GPU more than the CPU.
Thanks for the help! I hope I was clear.
