what should I upgrade on this rig

[Sajuuk]

Switch to a quad core CPU, then see if any further upgrades are necessary. Do not start swapping out half the system at once unless you have cash to burn.



Still works fine. WoW is damn old, and most things that can actually benefit from four cores need parallelism more than brute per-core power. Really, modern CPUs are overpowered for most things that end up being done with them even more generally.

Exactly. When I stopped actively multiboxing for a while I had the VAST potential of my CPU just sitting and wasting away from lack of use. (So I started folding)

The dual core is your bottle neck. You may have trouble finding a Q6600. I suggest a Q8200 or Q8400, $150 and $160 respectively at newegg.com
Save your bucks on w7 and video card for a new system at a later time.

Indeed. While W7 is snappier and altogether better, it doesn't mean you have to rush to get it (Unless of course you're a student and can get it for twenty dollars. )

[d0z3rr]

Still works fine. WoW is damn old, and most things that can actually benefit from four cores need parallelism more than brute per-core power. Really, modern CPUs are overpowered for most things that end up being done with them even more generally.

Umm, not really. Look at some benchmarks for the Q6600 vs the i7 and the i7 blows it completely out of the water, even for single threaded games.

[Sajuuk]

Umm, not really. Look at some benchmarks for the Q6600 vs the i7 and the i7 blows it completely out of the water, even for single threaded games.

Also take into account the Q6600 is called a Core 2 Quad for a reason: It's two Core 2 Duo dies on a single chip, whereas the i7 is a ''''''''''true'''''''''' quad core.

But, unless you have around 900 dollars to spend on an upgrade (assuming you want 12GB of ram), and use your computer for more CPU intensive things than WoW/Gaming, might as well get a good Core 2 Quad.

[yaki]

Umm, not really. Look at some benchmarks for the Q6600 vs the i7 and the i7 blows it completely out of the water, even for single threaded games.

Yeah, because I totally want to build a computer to multibox SuperPi.

[thedreameater]

Thanks for the advice all. My Q9400 arrived today from Newegg and I install it tonight. Down the line I will upgrade my GPU and HD to an SSD.

Here's what I got
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...819115131#spec

Here's what I had
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819115037

[crowdx]

I have the same CPU in my system and it runs cool at 3ghz. The next biggest upgrade that helped me for 5 boxing was upgrading the memory from 4 gig to 8 gig. I may at a later point upgrade the video card but I do not believe it is a bottleneck right now, running an Nvidia 9800gtx.

[Gramzngunz]

Kinda coming in late, but my opinion would be a mobo and proc upgrade. It's obvious that you don't have unlimited cash to burn, so I would stick w/ the 8800 for now. The other guy was right that 250's are basically the same card and not worth putting dollars into upgrading. If you're Vista is running fine I wouldn't put money into W7 either. Not a cost effective upgrade in terms of gaming performance. My hard drive died so I'm upgrading to W7, but honestly it wasn't too high on my list as my system has been running great w/ Vista on it. I donno what your interest in hard drives is, but you might want to at least check out the new SSD's on the market, they are SEXY and going down in price...kinda.

Just my two cents.

Good luck w/ the upgrade and happy gaming!

[Gramzngunz]

Thanks for the advice all. My Q9400 arrived today from Newegg and I install it tonight. Down the line I will upgrade my GPU and HD to an SSD.

Here's what I got
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...819115131#spec

Here's what I had
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819115037

lol looks like I missed this post when I wrote mine!
Looks good man enjoy!