Graphics Cards and Video Cards

geforce 6800 gs

AMD athlon ii x4 520 bottlenecking the GTS 250?

I just upgraded my "Geforce 6800 gs" to a "GTS 250", and now I plan to do the same with my cpu, a pentium 4 3.20GHz.

Am I better off with a Core2 Quad? or the AMD? And will it bottleneck the GPU?

Please consider that I do not overclock, and the price range is around 100 (if you suggest anything else, but I'm mainly concerned with the Althon ii x4 620)

detail detail detail. please don't blurt out "OMG INTEL FTW".. as that doesn't help at all

thanks in advance. Best answer goes to the cpu I buy, and the most detailed info.
eh, sorry that I didn't mention this before, my mobo supports pentiums, no higher. I do plan on buying a new mobo.

If your motherboard supports a CPU upgrade (you'd need a LGA 775 socket for that to work), upgrading to a fast dual core processor would be the cheapest solution. Very few current games know what to do with more than 2 cores, and 5+ total GHz of cpu power will avoid a cpu bottleneck on most games.

Assuming your motherboard can handle it (your board would have to support 1066 FSB speeds) the $85 Intel Pentium E6300 Wolfdale 2.8GHz 2MB L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor would be a good, inexpensive choice
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116091

You can certainly upgrade to an AMD, but that WILL require a new motherboard, which you'll have to factor into the cost equation. I do like your choice of cpu - but you'll have to buy a new socket AM3 motherboard to go along with that cpu.

	Geforce 6800GS 256MB Pcie
	EVGA (256-P2-N386-AX) GeForce 6800GS 256MB PCIE

XFX Geforce 6800GS 256MB TV/DVI 485MHz PCIe

The GeForce 6800 GPU delivers powerful, elegant graphics to drench your senses, immersing you in unparalleled worlds of visual effects for the ultimate PC experience. The groundbreaking new NVIDIA GeForce 6800 graphics processing unit and revolutionary technologies power the worlds where reality and fantasy meet--worlds in which new standards are set for visual realism and quality, performance, and video functionality...