How bad in comparison to some of the newer CPUs e.g 4770 is the Core 2 Quad Q9400? That is what I am running right now with a 770 and it seems to be a large bottleneck.
What are some options for CPU, Memory and Motherboard? I would like to keep it as cheap as possible. i7 or something of its equivalency.
Thanks!
Your Q9400 is a very large bottleneck. But you can tell for yourself. Open up task manager. If your CPU is maxing out on load but the GPU isn't than you are bottlenecking.
According to Passmark (Benchmark) an i7-4790k (Devils Canyon update of the 4770k) has almost double the single core performance and over 3,3 times better performance overall.
That being said you don't need an i7. Especially if you are just gaming. An i5, low cost Xeon or even an AMD FX CPU will be more than enough.
What are you going to be doing with this rig and how much do you want to spend?
Wow... I meant 4790k aha.
Well I'd like to keep as cheap as possible has to be an i7. I will be using it for gaming and content creation, so 3D, Photoshop, ect. So basically I'm after some decently price memory with a motherboard that supports m.2, sata express, SLI Support and has blue accents.