RAM or GFX?

[Recoil.]

At Christmas, I will be upgrading one part of my computer, but I have no idea which at the moment.

Currently, my specs are:
Intel C2D E6600 (3.1 Ghz)
2 GB RAM, (260 Mhz)
nVidia 7950 GT 512mb
& Good ol' Vista

I'm hoping to either get 4GB of much, much faster ram (as discussed in a previous post), or a DX10 card. If I was to opt for the Graphics Card, it is likely to be a 8800GTS as opposed to a GTX. Which one would be the most sensible one to buy at Christmas for someone who plays Battlefield, Quake Wars and Crysis?

Cheers.

[aidanjt]

If you want to play Crysis a DX10 card is a must, an 8800GTS 320Mb would be fine, and for a few bob you could get 4GB of PC2-6400 for around the £160-170 mark (at this end quantity is preferred over Mhurtz). You could have your cake and eat it at the same time.

[mrt9888]

I would get the RAM first, there was an interview with the Crytek CEO/whatever and he said it requires lots of memory and lots of shader power but since it will with 6800s your graphics card will be fine but I would upgrade it early next year, probably a 9 series.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Ram is cheap at the moment and there will be much better DX10 cards hopefully coming in the next few months.

However most of the games should run fine with 2gb IMHO.

[LuckyNV]

I'd probably get extra RAM since you use Vista, the 7950GT should be fine till Nvidia release the 9 series, I'm waiting to see what Nvidia offer, 8800GTS doesn't have a big enough jump and the 8800GTX is too expensive, I'm hoping for something in the middle

[DataMatrix]

I'd probably get extra RAM since you use Vista, the 7950GT should be fine till Nvidia release the 9 series, I'm waiting to see what Nvidia offer, 8800GTS doesn't have a big enough jump and the 8800GTX is too expensive, I'm hoping for something in the middle

8800GTS doesn't have that much of a jump? Are you mad? I used to have 2 7950GT 512MB in SLi and the 8800GTS rips it to shreds.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

8800GTS doesn't have that much of a jump? Are you mad? I used to have 2 7950GT 512MB in SLi and the 8800GTS rips it to shreds.

Is it that good in DX10 though?? I am sure that the cards in the next few months may not only be more powerful but also single slot and consume less power. The latter two are the major disadvantages of any of the modern decent performance DX10 cards IMHO.

[EarlGrey]

You will notice the biggest difference in gaming by upgrading the graphics card, the 8800GTS 320Mb is definitely the way to go.

more RAM will help, but if running the game in question doesn't use all 2GB then you will get no benefit from having more... as for lower latency memory, this always helps but take a close look at some benchmarks. Lower latency memory tends to give you an increase in frame rate of 1-2%. you can get much bigger gains with other hardware for less money...

[DataMatrix]

Is it that good in DX10 though?? I am sure that the cards in the next few months may not only be more powerful but also single slot and consume less power. The latter two are the major disadvantages of any of the modern decent performance DX10 cards IMHO.

How do you know they will consume less power? The trend has currently been an increase of power in the GPU sector.