I suppose you wouldn't be able to add a little bit more info would you? For example, the type of MOBO you have, the Power Supply Unit, and most importantly, how much are you willing to spend upgrading your PC.

Your preference cost is the most important in factoring what kind of GPU would be an appropriate upgrade. Additionally, your memory may need to be upgraded, but knowing the MHz on the ram would be nice as well.

Looking at that, I would say that you might be better off playing the Xbox version of The Witcher 2. But that's kind of just a preliminary judgement; your bottleneck here will be your processor.

More importantly, though, we need to know what your power supply and motherboard are like. If your power supply isn't all that great then you may just have to buy a new one and a graphics card.

Anyway, if I am going to suggest to you anything it will be the HD 7850. I don't think that putting anything higher in there will be a wise idea unless you plan on building pretty soon, just because the card will be bottlenecked anyway.

@believer258 said:

Looking at that, I would say that you might be better off playing the Xbox version of The Witcher 2. But that's kind of just a preliminary judgement; your bottleneck here will be your processor.

I will go a step further and say that the main problem with his PC is the motherboard itself. That's a LGA775 socket and there's not much room to improve over a Q6600. If he wants a better CPU, he's better off getting a new mobo* altogether. An i5 2500K is relatively cheap nowadays and will be leaps and bounds better than that Q6600.

But if you're set on upgrading something, TC, get a new GPU. A good mid-range GPU, like a GTX 660 Ti (or even a 560 Ti, if you're short on money), will probably get bottlenecked by your CPU, but at least you will be able to use it when you upgrade your mobo/CPU. IIRC, The Witcher 2 is a pretty GPU-intensive game, so no harm in upgrading that part.

*Not MOBA. That's for LoL or Dota :P

@WasabiCurry said:

For example, the type of MOBA you have,

I swear I have seen you post this like 3 times now and it always makes me chuckle.

@JoeyRavn: Hurr Durr, I should have recognized that. X3 I meant to say MOBO

@AlexW00d: I am happy that someone actually pointed that out to me. I would have gone this entire time putting MOBA. Xp Can't say that I am perfect!

@JoeyRavn said:

@believer258 said:

Looking at that, I would say that you might be better off playing the Xbox version of The Witcher 2. But that's kind of just a preliminary judgement; your bottleneck here will be your processor.

I will go a step further and say that the main problem with his PC is the motherboard itself. That's a LGA775 socket and there's not much room to improve over a Q6600. If he wants a better CPU, he's better off getting a new mobo* altogether. An i5 2500K is relatively cheap nowadays and will be leaps and bounds better than that Q6600.

But if you're set on upgrading something, TC, get a new GPU. A good mid-range GPU, like a GTX 660 Ti (or even a 560 Ti, if you're short on money), will probably get bottlenecked by your CPU, but at least you will be able to use it when you upgrade your mobo/CPU. IIRC, The Witcher 2 is a pretty GPU-intensive game, so no harm in upgrading that part.

*Not MOBA. That's for LoL or Dota :P

If your going to get a mid range Nvidia card like a 660ti you may as well get a top end AMD card like a 7970 same price pretty much

@Bourbon_Warrior said:

@JoeyRavn said:

@believer258 said:

Looking at that, I would say that you might be better off playing the Xbox version of The Witcher 2. But that's kind of just a preliminary judgement; your bottleneck here will be your processor.

I will go a step further and say that the main problem with his PC is the motherboard itself. That's a LGA775 socket and there's not much room to improve over a Q6600. If he wants a better CPU, he's better off getting a new mobo* altogether. An i5 2500K is relatively cheap nowadays and will be leaps and bounds better than that Q6600.

But if you're set on upgrading something, TC, get a new GPU. A good mid-range GPU, like a GTX 660 Ti (or even a 560 Ti, if you're short on money), will probably get bottlenecked by your CPU, but at least you will be able to use it when you upgrade your mobo/CPU. IIRC, The Witcher 2 is a pretty GPU-intensive game, so no harm in upgrading that part.

*Not MOBA. That's for LoL or Dota :P

If your going to get a mid range Nvidia card like a 660ti you may as well get a top end AMD card like a 7970 same price pretty much

Uh... no. Not the same price at all.

Looks like you're due for a new pc. Theres not one upgrade you can make to get the performance you want. You can build something that'll play most everything on med-high depending on your resolution for less than 800.

You kinda have to upgrade everything. If you got just a new graphics card it'd be bottlenecked by your cpu. I say, get a new CPU and mobo in april when the new intel boards are out. If none of the new ones suit your price range, the older ones will be cheaper. Of course you'd still need a new GPU to run the game but you might as well start out right and get a new Cpu/mobo

Wait for haswell processors to come out. Upgrade everything then. Save your money. Short sentences.

@thabigred said:

Wait for haswell processors to come out. Upgrade everything then. Save your money. Short sentences.

@believer258 said:

@Bourbon_Warrior said:

@JoeyRavn said:

@believer258 said:

Looking at that, I would say that you might be better off playing the Xbox version of The Witcher 2. But that's kind of just a preliminary judgement; your bottleneck here will be your processor.

I will go a step further and say that the main problem with his PC is the motherboard itself. That's a LGA775 socket and there's not much room to improve over a Q6600. If he wants a better CPU, he's better off getting a new mobo* altogether. An i5 2500K is relatively cheap nowadays and will be leaps and bounds better than that Q6600.

But if you're set on upgrading something, TC, get a new GPU. A good mid-range GPU, like a GTX 660 Ti (or even a 560 Ti, if you're short on money), will probably get bottlenecked by your CPU, but at least you will be able to use it when you upgrade your mobo/CPU. IIRC, The Witcher 2 is a pretty GPU-intensive game, so no harm in upgrading that part.

*Not MOBA. That's for LoL or Dota :P

If your going to get a mid range Nvidia card like a 660ti you may as well get a top end AMD card like a 7970 same price pretty much

Uh... no. Not the same price at all.

7950 I meant, but for the extra 60 you can get a much better card

@Bourbon_Warrior said:

7950 I meant, but for the extra 60 you can get a much better card

I'm not a fan of getting a beast GPU when the rest of your PC is not up to the task just because you *may* upgrade in the future. There's no reason to get a high-end card if it's going to be severely bottlenecked by the CPU. You might as well get a cheaper card now and invest the difference in upgrading your mobo later on. And then buy a better card, probably when the new AMD and GeForce series are out.

That being said, I don't have any experience with AMD hardware, so I won't recommend it or say anything against it. I know first-hand that the mid-range Ti cards (560 Ti, 660 Ti) are a pretty good bang for your buck, but I've never had an AMD GPU.

I have the same CPU as you do, and 4 gigs of Ram too, and I've been pretty happy with the performance I've gotten out of my modest 550ti graphics card (1gb version). It's not a power-house by any means, but I can run most new games at 1920x1080 with medium to high settings. A recent example I can give you is Sleeping Dogs - I tried the demo at 1080p with medium settings on my PC and it looked way better than the Xbox 360 demo I tried moments later. The same can be said for Arkham City (an older game but still relevant I think). I'd say just get a new-generation $150+ graphics card and you'll be good to go with most stuff at medium (which again looks way better than my 360), because I've come to the conclusion that my only other upgrade path is to build a new one - mobo, cpu, ram, etc. - since the CPU socket is so old now, as is the Ram type. Your mileage may vary, but I hope this helps!

@Bourbon_Warrior: Why was I quoted? Are you agreeing with me or what?

Bigger rims.

Everyone saying the Q6600 will be a huge bottleneck is exaggerating. Yes, it will bottleneck a decent video card but if he doesn't want a brand new PC it will still do the job.

Throw in a 650ti and you'll do ok; although, overclocking your CPU would be advised at this point (at least to 3.0GHz).

I would build a new one.

I would build a new machine, you can build a new PC that will out perform this for just a few hundred $$. You can always watch for the tiger direct/New Egg barebone kit deals, those can be nice and easy on the wallet.