ginnz

errr.... i hope yer not talkin' about yer girlfriends weight? ;-)

nolimits882000

U could go with an i5 and it would perform pretty well. Rivaling that of an i7. An E8400 would work in games well for a while but an i5 is even better.

LaDuelo

done some research and might go on i5 side..
i5 = quad core, no sli\crossfire(but wouldn't go sli, i still can upgrade my 9800gt), no hyperthreading(well, it should be fine for me for the next 2 years), future proof
e8400 = dual core, can sli/cf but no need, hyperthreading, not too future proof
both can be oc'd to 4 ghz stable

am i right/wrong?

also, i would be willing to sell my current mobo, cpu, hsf and memory (as i said earlier).. how much do you think i can get out of selling my parts?

meticadpa

There's an appraisal section for how much you think you can get for your parts, you get access to there once you've got 35 rep.

To be honest, I'd get an AM3 setup, and I'm an Intel fanboy.

My reasons being: i7 is out of your reach, i5 can't do multi-GPUs very well, i5 motherboards and CPUs are more expensive, AM3 can do x16/x16 CrossFire natively on many of its motherboards.

For £370, I'd get these following upgrades:

Gigabyte 790XT-UD4P - £69
AMD Phenom II 720 BE - £94
4GB G.Skill RipJaws - £85

All of that comes to a total of, if I've done my maths right, just under £250.

Now, with that £120, you can buy another upgrade. Personally, I'd get a new monitor, since your rig's power is going to be wasted on its small resolution.

Get this Samsung monitor, for the price, it's nothing short of amazing. It only does VGA natively, but for the price, I don't think you can complain.

Honestly, once you go from a small resolution to something quite large, you realise what you've been missing, and why you didn't do it before... Trust me, I went from Big --> Small and now I'm going to big again.

If I may, I would also recommend a PSU or GPU upgrade too. Since the GPU is the most important factor in gaming, I'd get that after you've gotten the upgrades that I said, a 4870 1GB should be ~£100, and would give your rig amazing framerates in comparison to your 8800GT.

That's just what I'd do, everyone has different priorities, so take what I say with a grain of salt.



Edit: You're basically correct about the E8400 being able to overclock to 4GHz+ on a decent motherboard, with a good CPU and fairly good cooling, but not completely right about the i5 thing; it can do CrossFire and SLI, but not at x16/x16.

Edit again: Oh god, I'm so sorry for the wall of text...

__________________

nolimits882000

AM3 is actually a very good solution as well. Just make sure u get a decent motherboard. They are tougher to overclock but they have a nice performance-price ratio.

LaDuelo

No problems at all, I love reading a lot when it comes to deciding which computer parts i am going to buy.
So, AM3 is now leader here.. I think, it is the right choice for me..