Upgrade Q6600 or Buy New i7 920?

[madar1985]

I find myself in a crappy situation. I am currently using the follwing PC for home use: (mostly for video games with a lot of internet browsing and some music listening thrown in)

CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad 2.4GHz Q6600 (no overclocking)
Mobo: Intel DP35DP
RAM: 2x2GB OCZ Platinum DDR2 800
HDD's: 1x WD Caviar Blue 500GB (for OS) and 2x WD Caviar Black 500GB (Raid 0, for applications/storage)
PSU: NSpire PSH650V
Video Card: EVGA 8800GT
Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS
OS: Windows Vista x64 (eventually I want to dual boot with XP)
Case: Antec P182


Not a terrible system, except for the PSU, which I plan to replace with a Corsair 850TX as soon as I have the $$$. The RAM, HDD's, and the case are all new. (I upgraded a few months ago)

I was planning to overclock it to bring out it's inner beast, and to keep me happy until i7's dropped in price, or until they released something better... but then I made a frustrating discovery. My motherboard isn't capable of overclocking... (sigh)

So now I have a choice to make, I can either purchase a new motherboard and a CPU cooler (the stock cooler probably won't be enough after I overclock it) for my current setup, or I can upgrade to an i7 920.


I'd already picked out the parts for this new PC below:

CPU: Intel Core i7 920 2.66GHz
Mobo: ASUS P6T Deluxe V2 X58
RAM: 3x2GB Corsair XMS3 DDR3 1333


Basically, I want to know what you think. Is it worth getting a new motherboard/CPU cooler for my current setup, or should I just count my losses and spring for the i7 gear?

PS: Please forgive me if I should have posted this in another forum. I didn't really know where it should go; seeing as how it mostly has to do with CPU's, I chose here.

[Ranana_fush]

Imho if your running an old chipset theres no point in upgrading, you may as well just wait and go for a full rebuild, as if its an old chipset youll need new ram cpu and gfx if you upgrade motherboard and other combinations....if your mobo isnt PCI-EX i wouldnt upgrade your GFX cos youll kick yourself when they scrap AGP and they will eventuallyif you have an old chipset i know how you feel - im running a 478 p4 and the only thing i can really do as a performance benefit is overclock it like mad.....as buying 1 upgrade would mean id have to buy all the rest another quick note 2 gig of ram is WELL worth getting over 1 gig providing theyre bang on bits of RAM - corsair TwinX used to be FANTASTIC.....helps a massive amount with loading times on games such as BF2