looking for upgrade suggestions

Looking to upgrade for the first time in a few years (had kids, gaming on hold, more time now).  I mostly play FPS's, sports games and racing games and can live with bumping down the resolution or some quality options.  I figure anything I get will blow away my Athlon 3000+ and dual 6600GT's but still want to try and keep the cost down.

Option 1:

XFX nForce 750a mobo, Athlon X2 5000,  XFX 9800 GT, 2 Gig Kingston DDR2 ram

I don't think my 380W Antec PS would be enough power so I may need to upgrade that as well.  The plan would be to upgrade to a 2nd 9800GT and then a Phenom X4 9980 down the road.  The setup above is about $450 CDN or so.

Option 2:

Intel DG35EC mobo, Core 2 Duo E-8400, XFX 9800GT, 2 gig Corsar dual channel DDR.

Not a great mobo in comparison but from the reviews I've read the E-8400 overclocks great and is pretty cheap now.  same plan, add another 9800GT down the road and upgrade the processor.  This setup is about $530 CDN or so. 

I will be getting Dead Space and Far Cry 2 so something that can play them both reasonably well would be perfect.

A few problems with this. Firstly, go the Intel route, the C2Ds are far better chips than current AMDs. However, if you are planning on SLIing at some stage (which I see very little point in to be honest, it scales horribly and, for the same price as a 9800 in a few months you can get a new, better card) you will need an SLI mobo, which that one is not. Also, you will need to get a decent PSU along with that upgrade, which will cost you another $100 or more. Additionally, while the 8400 does clock well, it won't do so if paired with a cheap, tacky motherboard like that one. Finally, the 9800 is a poor card for the money. Either get the 8800GT (the 9800 is effectively a rebadged, more expensive one of these!) if you need to stay cheap, or a 4850 if you want the bets current "bang for buck" card available.

This is what I would do. The E5200 should be able to clock easily to 3Ghz plus in that board (hopefully push 3.5ghz). The 4850 is a considerably quicker card than the 9800, and you get a nice PSU and mobo with it. If you're happy to spend a little more, get an E7200 or an E8400, but to be honest the 5200 will serve you well if you're happy clocking! You don't need the speeds that the 8400 can clock to though-most games are GPU limited (particularly if you only get the 9800GT), and in general anything over 3.4Ghz or so is unnecessary.

Prices are from Infonec Computers-I had a look at Tiger Direct, and they seemed to have a pretty poor selection of mobos and PSUs, and were expensive. Then again, I'm not Canadian, so if you know somewhere better then go with that!

OCZ OCZ2G8004GQ EL DDR2 PC2-6400 / 800MHz / Gold Edition / Quad Kit (4x1GB)
Price: $89.00
Availability: Usually Ships Within 1 to 3 business days
$89.00


Sapphire HD Radeon 4850 Video Card PCI Express x16 2.0 512MB DDR3 Video Card 100-242L Retail Box
Price: $199.00
Availability: Usually Ships Within 1 to 3 business days
$199.00


Enermax EMD525AWT MODU82+ 525W ATX12V V2.3 24PIN Power Supply
Price: $115.00
Availability: Usually Ships Within 1 to 3 business days
$115.00


ASUS P5Q S.775 INT P45/ICH10R ATX 1PCIE X16,4D.DDR2-1200MHZ 1600 /1333FSB,SATA RAID0 1394 GBLAN
Price: $134.99
Availability: Usually Ships Within 1 to 3 business days
$134.99


Intel BX80571E5200 PENTIUM E5200/ 2.5Ghz/ 2MB CACHE/ 800FSB/ LGA775
Price: $96.50
Availability: In Stock
$96.50


. sub total $634.49

EDIT: Just noticed that that RAM is 4x1GB. I would strongly recommend going for 2x2GB (shouldn't cost much more) as it ought to require lower northbridge volts to run.

on neweg 820 = 120$ : E8400 = 155$ in sales and E8400 = Epic power compare to Those cpu think twice Before buy a cheap cpu ;)
harvest the money and then buy it :P
marcthpro

Er...what? The CPU is nowhere near as important a component as the graphics card in terms of gaming power, and arguably less important than the motherboard-if you have a bad mobo, you can't clock the CPU, and therefore lose out.

Having an E8400 at 4Ghz will only gain you a few FPS over an E5200 at 3.4Ghz; hardly anything out there requires a 4Ghz CPU. Having a 4850 over a 9800 will gain you far far more, even if it's "only" coupled with a well clocked E5200. Yes, ideally you could afford the 4850 and the E8400, but if this guy is on a budget he is far better off going the route of the 4850 and E5200 than your way.

Where are you getting this 30FPS stat from? The E5200 isn't in that benchmark you just posted, so it's pretty irrelevant to this argument. I agree that 15FPS will make a huge difference, but none of those reviews show that there is that difference between the E5200 and the E8400. In fact, they show that there is less than 10FPS between the E4500 and the E8400 at stock, and at those speeds the CPU speed will make a big difference. As the CPU speed goes over 3.4Ghz, anything higher than that makes a minimal difference to FPS; it is overkill. However, you will get a higher FPS in Crysis with an E5200 @ 3.4Ghz and a 4850 than with an E8400 @ 4Ghz and a 9800.

Look at the first table here: http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17929621

The E5200 @ 3.6Ghz doesn't lose out by too much to the E8500 @ 4.2ghz.

I can't find any benchies of the 4850 vs the 9800gt, but if you google it, the vast majority of people on forums say that the 4850 is noticeably quicker. In real world use, there will be barely any noticeable difference between the 8400 and 5200.

http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies-archive.cfm/1084957.html

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid=31&threadid=2237958

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/253370-15-hd4850-9800gt-8800gts

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080830023530AAjb4Ez

Good point, I forgot to check to see if that Intel mobo was SLI....I based those components on prices from Tigerdirect.ca  They have some pretty good motherboard/CPU combos that will all smoke my current setup.  I should post my 3DMark scores for a good laugh...

Based on the benchmarks I'm seeing, AMD is out for sure. I've owned nothing but AMD since my K6-2 350 since they were better price vs performance, Intel seems to smoke them now, high end and bang for the buck.  The E-7300 is only $50 cheaper than the E-8400.

Asus 4850: $214 w/$30 mail in rebate ( http://www.pccanada.com/viewitem.asp?id=8262 )  The Sapphire card is $30 more, I can't see a difference between the two other than cosmetic?

EC-7300 $149 (tiger direct) - should be good enough for now, I'll upgrade in 6 months

Motherboard - Intel DG45ID $160 ( http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4008499&CatId=1533 )  That'll work for now, I can upgrade to a crossfire ready board later.

Will definitely upgrade the PS but probably keep my Antec Sonata II case. 

Looks fine, although bear in mind that you'll need some DDR2 RAM - I assume that your current RAM is just DDR. Also, I would still go for a different motherboard, that Intel one won't clock well. What's wrong with the one that I suggested? It's cheaper and a better board!!manic111

doh, couldn't find it on Tiger Direct... this one? http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3940037&CatId=3790

nope this one
http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=31839&vpn=P5QL%20Pro&manufacture=ASUS
121$ (canadian vs 184$+TAX canadian for tigerdirect.ca ? conclusion TIGERDIRECT ARE EVIL lol j/k
the Lite Is having less sata and maybe not much raid but the pro here as all of it
http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=30418&vpn=P5Q%20Pro&manufacture=ASUSmarcthpro

Beauty clark.  I come from Canada so I'm a little slooow eh?  I see they have an E-5200 for $106 as well, might go that route.  Thanks for the help everybody, appreciate it!