Suggestions for upgrading gaming performance

[Naeco06]

I'm trying to decide what to buy myself this year for xmas and I think it'll have something to do with a small upgrade to my system.

It's by no means a beast, but it's more than enough, above average for my purposes as a casual gamer. For example; it gets me by with Crysis and Far Cry 2 at "High" settings with stable 26-28 FPS and most any game that came before those I can max out.

Right now, I'm running:
AMD 64 3800+
2.4 GHz
2.0 GB RAM
GeForce 8600 GT

so what I'm getting at is this.
Basically, if I were to upgrade just one thing about my PC, which component would give the most noticeable performance gains?

I feel like my processor is getting dated being single core @ only 2.4 GHz. And I also want to make the jump from the 8600 card to the 8800 or maybe 9800. But I want to know what part of my system could be updated first to provide the most impact to my gaming.

thanks to whoever can help! I'm not tech illiterate (I built my computer for instance), but I'm not yet tech saavy enough to know the answer to this question!

 

[wootwoot]

From my experience, anything below 30 FPS is considered screen lag =/. Dunno how you handle it. The GPU could go for an upgrade. 9800GT is definitely a good choice, but as far as performance goes, try ATI Radeon HD 4850. The CPU? Eh...it's either Core Duo or a GPU upgrade.

 

[BongWizard]

grab a Phenom 9950 BE if your board supports it... that'll be a sweet CPU upgrade for gaming performance

plus the Sapphire HD 4850 will give you about 50fps in Crysis on high @ 12x10 with a modest OC

 

[zedman3d]

Assuming your PSU can handle anything better than a 9600....

 

[BongWizard]

if it wont, this one definitely will... cheap but decent quality too

Newegg.com - Rosewill RG530-2 530W 80Plus Bronze Certified, ATX12V v2.3/EPS12V v2.91, SLI Ready, Active-PFC Power Supply, UL,FCC,CE,TUV,ROHS - Power Supplies

 

[zedman3d]

Rosewill is rather good at PSU's arnt they...

 

[Naeco06]

Well I know I've got the power, I bought more than I needed when I upgraded my PSU last.

My question now is, would I see more performance gains from getting a more powerful card or a more powerful processor? The choice between upgrading to a quad-core or getting a much higher capacity card.

The card now, the 8600GT is only 256MB. I'm thinking I'd notice the biggest gains from getting a newer card and one that is say, 512MB.

 

[dario03]

Is your ram ddr or ddr2?

 

[Naeco06]

ddr2 I believe

 

[asusfreak44]

Without any doubt in my mind whatsoever, get a new graphics card before getting a new processor. Youll notice the absolute best gains from doing that.