Looking for some hardware advice on getting back into PC gaming

[Mr. Adventure]

I got a decent PC (at the time) for playing games but never really got around to actually playing much. I have a renewed interest but my PC which is older now and I don't know how well it's holding up nor have I been following the the latest gear.

So I ask you for playing recent games how is this?

Intel Core2 Quad CPU Q6600@2.40GHz
NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT
4GB Ram

And if you were to recommend a fairly cheap upgrade what would you do? Two vid cards? Or a different model?

Do I have a decent base to work with or am I at the stage where I have to look into having to replace the works?

 

[FordSVT]

You've got the same hardware as I do. Well, one of mine. You've got a decent base to work with.

What kind of games do you want to play?

You'll be able to play most modern games at 45-60 or more fps with most effects turned on, which is more than playable. MW2, WoW, StarCraft2, L4Dead2, Mass Effect 2, they'll all run very well. That computer is about 2 years old, but gaming requirements haven't really come that far in the last couple of years. It's not like the 90s and early 2000s at all, where you could barely play a new game if you didn't have the latest card every two years. It's starting to plateau because there are very few games coming out that really demand state of the art hardware. It's not profitable because only a few people in an already small gaming market can exploit it and such games are expensive to produce in the first place. As well, most games are being developed as console/ PC ports, and the Ps3 and 360 hardware is several years old now.

The only thing about the 9800GT is that it is a DX10 card. DX11 is not a requirement for new games, but they do take advantage of it. Eventually it will become more important that you have a DX11 card but by then I'm sure you'd be looking at all new hardware anyway and not just an upgrade to tide you over.

Will you be able to play Crisis 2 at 100fps? No, but do you care?

Cheapest upgrade would be to SLI your 9800 with another, they are dirt cheap. You can also get a really nice new card in the $150 range these days.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

That's good to hear. I wouldn't mind trying some of the recent shooters so I prob could use some muscle. I'd consider putting $100-200 into a vid card at this point, I just wasn't sure if my proc would be a bottleneck but it doesn't seem that's a huge issue. Any recommendations or ones to avoid?

 

[JarodRussell]

What's the fastest CPU around nowadays? 6 cores? 8 cores?