What to upgrade: video card or cpu?

Hi,



I'd like to upgrade my PC, but my budget is limited. So I am wondering what should I get first:

GTX560Ti Video card

or

i5 2500k CPU?



I like to play games, so which part would improve the performance better?



I realize, that cpu upgrade is more costly, but I am going to upgrade both anyway, so it is just a matter of time.



My current setup:

Intel E8400 @ 3.6 GHz

6GB RAM

MSI HD5770 Hawk video card.



I suppose, that the question could be rephrased like this:

What part in my current setup is limiting the performance in games?



Looking forward for your answers and arguments.|||That's sort of a tough one for me. Your video card that you have right now is decent, and certain games may not benefit that much from a multi-core processor (the E8400 is a dual-core and the Core i5 is a quad-core).



I say you should get the video card first because your processor is still pretty good as it is, and when the time comes, you can upgrade to the Core i5 and have the best of both worlds. It's to my understanding that a better video card with a better GPU will give you better performance when you're playing games. And many games, including newer ones don't really demand an extremely powerful processor, so it's all about the video card pretty much.|||going from the MSI HD5770 to the GTX560Ti won't make a huge difference, actually the MSI has a faster memory bandwidth and clock speed.



If you want to get the i5, you would need to change the motherboard and the RAM too. the i5 has a different socket than the E8400, and requires DDR3 RAM.



So apart from buying a completely new system, the biggest speed boost you can give your PC is installing an SSD. It will speed up gaming a bit by making them load faster and go from level to another quicker. It won't increase your FPS though.|||The part that is MOST responsible for good gaming performance is the video card. Having said that, for the video card to be able to perform at its best, you need to have a CPU that can keep up with it.

The weak point in your system is the CPU. The 5770 is a decent video card. Not great but capable of good gaming on medium settings.



Like already mentioned, you cannot upgrade your CPU to an i5 2500K without getting a new socket 1155 motherboard and some DDR3 RAM. Your current motherboard cannot fit the i5 and your DDR2 RAM needs to be DDR3 to work with the i5.



Getting a better video card would be a waste of money if paired with your current E8400.



You have some options, you could get a Core 2 Quad CPU and put that in your current motherboard. That will work, even if you have to flash your BIOS for it to work. But it will significantly slower than the i5 2500K. I'm actually running a fairly quick Core 2 Quad with a 6970 and my gaming performance is very respectable. So while the i5 2500K is blisteringly fast, a good Core 2 Quad really can perform quite well in games. At the same time though, if you buy a Core 2 Quad, you're buying a CPU that is two generations old already.

Your other option is to wait, save up and get the i5 2500K, a socket 1155 motherboard plus some DDR3 RAM. But to be honest, by the time you do that, you may as well buy a whole new system.