Budget Comp Upgrade..advice pls

[twitchyzero]

I posted this on other forums

So my computer is long overdue for an upgrade..it's almost 4 years old.

The current specs are underwhelming:
C2D E6300 1.86Ghz
Asus P5W DH Deluxe
Asus X1950 Pro
Corsair XMS2 DDR2 800Mhz 4GB
Kingwin Mach 1 600W P/S
OS is Win 7 Pro x64

Unfortunately I have very limited funds. My budget is $300

I'm leaning towards getting a HD6870 this boxing day so hopefully they can be had for around $200 (currently $250). I do not plan to ever crossfire, but may consider overclocking it down the road. It's also important for the card to run quite and cool. I have had very bad experience with AMD/ATi drivers for my current video card on Win 7 x64 so I'm a little uncertain here. How's the current support for this card with this OS?

More importantly, how would a new card perform with my other specs? I'm likely going to buy an aftermarket cooler to OC the measly entry-level C2D to around 2.7-3.0Ghz. I was originally planning to stick another 4GB worth of RAM but my goodness, DDR2 is way over my budget now so I really don't think it is feasible. How much would having DDR2 800Mhz 4GB limit my CPU overclock and the new card (latency is 5-5-5-18 @ 1.8v)? Let's say I spend another $70 getting 4 more GB of the same RAM..would that make a substantial amount of difference for the OC or new card? Which CPU cooler should I get for $30-50? I know Arctic Cooler 7 was a good budget one but maybe there are better for the bang buck these days.

My plan is to have this upgrade hold out for another 3 years..maybe 4 if I'm lucky. I want it to be able to run current and near-future games all max settings w/o AA @ 1680x1050 single monitor display (BFBC2, SC2, and even Crysis 2, Diablo 3 and BF3)

This computer will be used only for websurfing, streaming TV/movies to PS3 and gaming.

The possible overclock plans were based on this 4 year-old guide (2.94Ghz with same CPU/mobo/ram): http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu...o-e6300_8.html

Input please..hope my plans are realistic with what I have suggested, TIA.

[Razor Ramon HG]

I'd grab a cheap 64GB Kingston SSD for around $100 as an OS drive, and get something like the HD5770 as a video card upgrade.

That should instantly give you a boost in performance. And as for the E6300 OC, I believe it can hit up to 3GHz IIRC with the right cooling and settings.

Since you have 4GB of RAM already, I wouldn't worry too much on that part.

[twitchyzero]

would ssd help me substantial if i just need the performance for gaming? I mean i would stream files to my ps3 too..but i wont be putting those media files on the ssd anyways..which is why i'm priortizing majority of the cash towards a newer, faster graphics card. yeah with E6300 it will hit around 2.9Ghz with my set-up. I'm just wondering how much off that performance would be comparable to an entry-level core i5 ..or even the newer sandy bridge @ entry-lvl.

[Razor Ramon HG]

It'll help you with loading and in games where there's constant loading like WoW or Oblivion, but other than that, FPS won't really go up. It's more of a makes your computer feel snappier upgrade.

And even if your E6300 hits 2.9GHz, an entry level i5 will still kill it.

[Purely]

I think 4GB is enough, and you shouldn't worry about the ram. A new graphics card will be great.

My plan is to have this upgrade hold out for another 3 years..maybe 4 if I'm lucky. I want it to be able to run current and near-future games all max settings w/o AA @ 1680x1050 single monitor display (BFBC2, SC2, and even Crysis 2, Diablo 3 and BF3)

I think you would need a better CPU for some of the games. For example, correct me if I am wrong, but I heard games like BFBC2 requires 4 cores to run it well.

[twitchyzero]

recommended CPU for BC2 is Quad core 2GHz