Issue resolved. Thanks.

If you want to get a PC and have $800 you could get a much better computer and one more tailored towards gaming. Even if you are completely scared of building yourself sites like Newegg offer to build for you.

Also what do you want it to be better at? I'm assuming gaming, but I don't know for sure.

@Downside said:

Also what do you want it to be better at? I'm assuming gaming, but I don't know for sure.

Gaming, general rendering of HD videos that I edit etc... But like I said, I prefer not to build. In fact searching on Canada Computers the processor that is in that computer costs $300 alone. Now to get a decent motherboard, RAM, a 2TB HDD, and a better or equivalent graphics card is going to cost more then $800.

@LiquidPrince: Why not build one?

Also, a 6670? not worth it.

Well the thing is that CPU is an a locked i7 2600, meaning it cannot be overclocked. Though from the vibe I am getting overclocking is not something you would want to be doing anyways. However the only real benefit that CPU would provide you over the cheaper i5 2500 or 2500k is hyper-threading which is not used in games, but it is used in rendering. If rendering video is something you feel an desire to be as fast as possible then the hyper threading in the 2600 would be worth it, but if you are rendering on you Q6600 right now, I have a hard time feeling like rendering is something that you are gonna need blazing fast speeds for. A 2500k or 2500 will render things very fast anyways just no quite as fast, while performing completely equally in games. If you want a gaming PC you should be more worried about your GPU than your CPU anyways. You would see much better gaming performance with an amd 6870 and a i5 2500, than you would with a amd 6670 and a i7 2600. You have to also keep in mind why things are priced the way they are. Bundled packages are often made with very bottom level brands. If you are knowledgeable about what are good components, or if you are willing to do the research I would suggest using a custom build site like cyberpowerpc, ibuypower, or newegg with their build it for you options.

Anything you get will perform much better than what you have right now, your system is very dated, especially for games.

Are there particular games you want to play on PC that you could name? Cause a 6670 is a very low end card, and I wouldn't want you to think the GPU you are getting is something you are gonna be playing BF3, Witcher 2, Batman Arkham City, or what not. It's a card you are gonna be playing a lot of early to mid release current gen games at mid and low setting especially if you have a 1080p monitor.

@LiquidPrince: Personally, if I were you I'd get this one, and swap out the PSU and GPU. Probably your cheapest option. That'd be $500 for the prebuilt, $80 or so for a decent 600-650W PSU, and you're left with over $200 for a GPU (which opens up some great options like a GTX 560 Ti or even an HD 7850 if you're willing to expand your budget by another $20 or so).

Seems to be the most efficient way to get the most out of your $800 where it matters, at least IMO. Only two downsides here; you'd be getting an i5 2400 instead of an i7 2600 (which in gaming is irrelevant, but for video rendering the i7 definitely helps), and it's a 1TB drive instead of the 2TB one you get with the other build (but this can be easily remedied).

Good luck with whatever you go with!

@LiquidPrince: Bestbuy.ca actually has some decent gaming pcs available if you don't want to build; i5 2500k with a 6850 is about as good as it gets for $799 and you be hard pressed to build one yourself for that price.

www.buyxg.com is a great website that will build your computer for you. You just pick from a list of parts and then they'll put it all together. I've used them a couple of times and they've been great both times.

@LiquidPrince said:

@Downside: Well right now on my current rig I can play Witcher 2 at 1280x720 with ultra shadow detail, medium shadowed lights, light shafts, medium LOD, ultra decals, wet floor option (whatever that was called) and ultra texture detail and get around 30 frames. Everything else is disabled. How much worse could the 6670 be?

Also I'm surprised that people are recommending the i5 when I can get the i7 and then later just upgrade the GPU when I get some spare cash. However that is my main problem. I want to ensure that swapping GPU's won't be an issue on that rig in the future.

A 6670 just barely qualifies as a gamer card, it's on par with your current 4 year old 9800, absolutely not an upgrade for you other than DX11 capability; which will be terrible because it is underpowered. http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107-7.htmlAlso that pc you are looking at only has a 300 watt power supply, when it comes time to upgrade that video card, you will also need to upgrade the power supply.

There is nothing wrong with the i5 2500k, it will last you for at least 2-4 more years, and at that point you could just dump an i7 in it for cheap.

@LiquidPrince: It's not worse, it's about the same performance-wise as your current card.

In any case, there should be no problem switching that GPU out. It is indeed a discrete graphics card, and definitely not an IGP. You'll also notice in the computer's detailed specs that the motherboard has one PCI-E x16 slot, which is marked as occupied, and it will be occupied with none other than the 6670.

If you're intent on getting the i7 build, go ahead. But know that you'd probably need to switch out the PSU before you upgrade the GPU (which you can totally do, no problems there if that was your question all along). The only thing that remains to be considered would be the size of the case, and whether it would fit some of the bigger cards. I'm still sticking by my earlier post which you should at least consider since that would probably be the best way to spend those $800 and get the most out of them.

@SlasherMan said:

@LiquidPrince: It's not worse, it's about the same performance-wise as your current card.

In any case, there should be no problem switching that GPU out. It is indeed a discrete graphics card, and definitely not an IGP. You'll also notice in the computer's detailed specs that the motherboard has one PCI-E x16 slot, which is marked as occupied, and it will be occupied with none other than the 6670.

If you're intent on getting the i7 build, go ahead. But know that you'd probably need to switch out the PSU before you upgrade the GPU (which you can totally do, no problems there if that was your question all along). The only thing that remains to be considered would be the size of the case, and whether it would fit some of the bigger cards. I'm still sticking by my earlier post which you should at least consider since that would probably be the best way to spend those $800 and get the most out of them.

I'll definitely look into it.

It's because the i5 and the i7 are literally exactly the same except for one feature, hyper threading. Which basically makes your 4 core processor act like it is 8 cores, by creating 8 threads instead of just 4, however as I said no games take advantage of hyperthreading. You will literally see absolutely 0 difference in games with the 2500 v the 2600. The only difference you will encounter is in rendering video, streaming(broadcasting not watching), and things like photoshop when you are using tons of layers. The 2600 is really more of a work station processor than a gaming processor. You will see the benefit of the i7 very rarely unless you are doing things like the examples I gave often. If you want to play games and your budget is $800ish the extra $100 difference between a 2500 and 2600 could be used in a way that would help your gaming performance a lot. Don't get sucked into the feeling the i7 > i5 so I want i7. Think about it like this, if you had $100 to spend towards increasing your render time of videos/pictures/etc. or $100 that would allow you to play more games at higher graphical settings which would you rather invest in?

Also to answer your question about upgrading your GPU down the road, yes there is no reason you would not be able to upgrade your GPU. Even the GTX 680 that just came out could be thrown into that gateway(assuming it would fit).