Help me select my next upgrade

[moshel]

Well frnds i have this system currently.

P5N32 E SLI mobo
C2D E4400 (not overclocked) on stock cooling
400w PSU
1 Gb 667 mhz transcend ram
8500 GT graphics card
Western Digital 250 gb HDD
Viewsonic E72F+ monitor (17" CRT)
Altec Lansing 621 speakers (running on onboard sound)
Iball Multimedia keyboard and laser mouse.
LG CD writer
Sony DVD writer

I want suggestion from you guys as to what wud be the next ideal upgrade. firstly im confused whtr i shud go for one more 8500GT card and run the 2 in SLI (this wud help if one of the card goes Kaput one fine day) or i shud install 1 gb more ram.

or i shud go for a faster processor probably a C2D extreme or C2Q.
or i shud go for a nice 19" or 22" LCD monitor (if this pls mention wat to look for in a lcd monitor eg. response time, etc..)

budget not yet decided, date of buying depends on wat u ppl suggest. if suppose its for 1 gb ram or 8500 card then probably next month.

if its processor or monitor then i will wait (which i will).

or if u think of anything else then let me know.

suggest me the best within Price-performance-value for money ratio.


P.S. pls dont suggest 5.1 speakers, as i dont have place in my room to place it. actually im quite satisfied with this speaker set got it for 7K 3 yrs back and now this model has been discontinued.

[Pathik]

Increase your RAM and get a new GPU..

[Cool G5]

First post ur budget.How can anyone recommend without a budget.Also what will u use this rig for gaming,image editing?

[Phalanx]

First of all, your proccy at stock is a very good performer.So u shouldnt worry about upgrading right now. Wait till penryn comes and get one of those later. Moreover,a C2Ds life is incomplete without an overclock. Sice u have a killer mobo and one of the most overclockable CPU, this is the first obvious thing you should do...Although if you do not have a branded power supply, you wont be able to reach very high levels... So i would suggest you to go for a branded PSU like CoolerMaster Extremepower 600W....That costs about 3K...With that you should be able to overclock like hell...And an overclocked 4400 will perform almost as well as a top of the line C2D, like X6800...

But if u are a gamer, what you should immediately upgrade is your GPU... 2 8500 in SLI is a waste of money; it will still fail pathetically in the latest games @ high res and settings... Don't do that... What I would suggest you is to sell this card and get an XFX8600GT...This is much better than one 8500GT and probably even 2 of them... This upgrade along with one more gig of ram will be a good enough upgrade for this year...

As far as TFTs are concerned, well their prices have reduced drastically over the past few months... i am talking about 19 inchers... They are the best value at the moment... The specs to llook for are Contrast Ratio of 700:1 or greater, response time of 5ms or less, viewing angles of 160 both horizontal and vertical...And yes DVI input!!! Do make sure your LCD has this...

[assasin]

Originally Posted by moshel

Iball Multimedia keyboard and laser mouse.

hows the iball laser mouse?is it good for gaming?

as for ur upgradation,i'll suggest u to upgrade only the ram to 2GB.later on change ur proccy when Penryn is available and the gfx card when the nVidia 9xxx series releases.the 8500GT will last till the 9xxx series cards come.

[shady_inc]

Nothing can be said without knowing the budget.Your CRT unless you want to game at high resolutions or watch movies on your PC,in which case consider buying an 19'" LCD.Running two 8500 GT in SLI is not a good idea since it will kill your chances of future graphics upgrade.

[Choto Cheeta]

may be you have missed this thread.... http://www.thinkdigit.com/forum/showthread.php?t=66140

[moshel]

@Choto Cheeta i havent missed that thread. i keep reading it every now and then. but the reason for posting a new thread regarding this was that im confused what shud i upgrade first: ram, processor and graphics card being the most important of all. thats why i asked every1 for suggestions.

@assasin
the iball laser mouse is frankly ok. got it for 400 bucks, still felt expensive. some times it acts funny. but for a casual gamer/user its ok. not happy with the resolution though. its difficult if u want to make very minute alterations in word or somewhere, it goes out of control.

as for budget, i have written that its not decided. i mean an 8800 wud be good but thats just 2 much. if its a C2E or C2Q processor then i need to shell out abt 15k. or if u say that most imp is ram, then i will do it this month.cos thats just 2k.

so very frankly the thing is that right now i just want ur suggestions and based on whatever u guys suggest i will save money to upgrade to that.(max by diwali).

answering other questions. im a gamer. mostly play sports, RPGs, racing, strategy, simulation.............FPS and Third person games are rare.
and i dont watch movies on my comp.

atleast for a start 2 8500s in SLI is out of the list.

@Phalanx although i knw my mobo is meant for overclocking, i wont be doing it, nomatter what proccy i have or anything. reasons being that im not very confident abt my ram. secondly the cooling thing (not comfortable).....most important i dont get time to sit and OC.

Originally Posted by Choto Cheeta

may be you have missed this thread.... http://www.thinkdigit.com/forum/showthread.php?t=66140

the LCD link for the guide posted by vivek is not working plz check it out.