Q6600, 4GB RAM, HD4870...what upgrade?

As per subject.

My GPU has been on the blink a bit (crashes when I play games for too long), I even tried removing the cooler and cleaning it all out, but that only fixed it for a couple of months ago. It hasn't played up lately but I think it's passed it and could possibly do with an upgrade. I know that AMD is releasing their HD 7XXX series at the end of this month so I'm wondering whether it's worth waiting for that.

My budget will probably be above £200 or so. However I also partake in photography and Lightroom seems to chug along these days quite slowly, so I'm wondering if it's worth pocketing the money I get for Christmas and save for a new motherboard/cpu/ram combo instead of getting a new GPU. I was looking at the i7 2700k I think it was as it's hyperthreaded and will get me the best performance with Lightroom.

My birthday's in May and I intend to have both the GPU and mobo/cpu/ram upgraded by soon after then.

If TL : DR - would it be better for me to upgrade my CPU and all the rest of it in a couple of months, my GPU now, or my GPU in a month's time when the next generation of AMD GPUs come out?

Thanks! :)

It's worth waiting to see how the 7XXX series pans out or how it affects AMD 6XXX & Nvidia 5XX series cards. No point deliberating about the rest until April.

As above, gpu first then rest of your system later.

don't buy any newest GPU unless you are craze on it. Since the price of the newest GPU normally drops fast

an intel 2500 or a amd x6 would be a good start ..and for the gpu .. well a 6870.. my bro just traded out his 4850 .. and loves it ..if and when just crossfire 2 and your fine for about 3-4 yrs again ..
just stick mid range with boards £60-80 8gig of ram works wonders just remember your psu will need an upgrade as well .. buy somthing decent corsair do good psu's as do ocz and enermax..

Pretty similar to my old rig, I ended up binning the Q6600 and getting an i7 860 setup, then a few months ago got a new GPU.

If you use lightroom and play with photo's then I would say board/ram/cpu before GPU but would depend on the specific apps you use and if they support GPU acceleration or would gain more from extra CPU ummph..

Thanks for all the help everyone :) I've got £210 spending money which I might top up with savings a little if I see something I really like. I think I'll wait until mid February if I can hold out for AMD to release the HD 7xxx series and buy my new GPU then and then upgrade CPU/RAM/Motherboard in May.

I already have a Corsair TX 650 running quite happily so I shouldn't imagine I need to ugprade that, but thanks for pointing it out all the same flearider.

At the moment with it being Winter I tend to spend more time gaming than taking photos so the CPU upgrade can wait for a bit as I imagine a new GPU will give more of an oomph to my gaming experience compared to the CPU upgrade.

Are you still running it at stock speeds or have you overclocked your q6600? a bit of overclocking would probably keep it running better for a bit longer.

a 6870 or gtx560 (non-ti) are currently very good value for money both are under £140 with similar performance http://www.scan.co.uk/products/1gb-x...i-hdmi-2x-mini http://www.scan.co.uk/products/1gb-e...i-plusfree-bat which is above that of your current 4870