Upgrade advice please

[WiGgLr]

My spec:
Athlon64 X2 4400+
2GB Dual Channel DDR400
2 x 6800GT 256MB (SLI)
MSI K8N SLI Motherboard
4 x 250GB SATA Hard disks
Soundblaster X-Fi Music Extreme
Running XP Pro (x86)

Basically I'm not happy with performace in ArmA or STALKER. What's my bottleneck here?

I'm planning on getting Vista64 Ultimate in about 6-12months time, I'll want to play Crysis. Please bare that in mind for any advice as I'm happy to struggle along for that period of time if the wait is going to be worth it.

[CharlieM]

My spec:
Athlon64 X2 4400+
2GB Dual Channel DDR400
2 x 6800GT 256MB (SLI)
MSI K8N SLI Motherboard
4 x 250GB SATA Hard disks
Soundblaster X-Fi Music Extreme
Running XP Pro (x86)

Basically I'm not happy with performace in ArmA or STALKER. What's my bottleneck here?

I'm planning on getting Vista64 Ultimate in about 6-12months time, I'll want to play Crysis. Please bare that in mind for any advice as I'm happy to struggle along for that period of time if the wait is going to be worth it.

Video cards are the bottleneck.
If you want to play crysis however, I would hold off on spending too much cash for an upgrade, just get something to tie you over until you go for the massive complete system overhaul (which I would describe as an intel 2nd generation quad core cpu (45nm process), a 2nd generation DX10 card (8900 series or the card following the R600 from ATI), and some decent speed ram, around 800mhz or so (PC 6400 DDR2)).

Something like a 7950gtx, doesnt cost that much and is an assload better than those 2 peices of shit you have in your current system. Its also shader model 3.0, so you should see some shiny new stuff in stalker and arma.

The reason I say intel and not AMD, is intel is the best CPU on the market at the moment, period. AMD are a great company, and they try and keep things competative, but their CPU's at the moment are coming nowhere near the intel on benchmarks for performance per watt, performance per dollar, and performance per temperature, intel is dominating the CPU sector atm, and I dont see any reason for that to let up until at least 3rd generation quad core CPU's (30nm).

[Ist]

Agree with Charlie, wait for crysis to come out then build a new system with Intel Core (Quad core if you have the budget)
Also the Intel Core overclocks really well.

[Damascus]

That's what I'm doing :>

[BLACK]

Stupid rich people <.<

[Archaos]

Stupid rich people <.<

fuck you richy rich.

:P

[BLACK]

I MYSELF am not rich or else I would have a computer that isn't water damaged.

[mono]

just carve some gold from your parents bumpers...

[Talorth]

I'm afraid k10 will pwn intel quad core.

Id agree with everyone else... a new video card...

the x1950 pro is a bit faster but if you dislike ati and are an nvidia lover than the 7950gt would do fine. (IMO as far as video cards are concerned x1950 pro is the best deal right now, at least in canada.)