Considering upgrades for rF2 - advice needed

[Kyle Puttifer]

Currently, my rig is as follows:
CPU: AMD Athlon II X2 255
RAM: 4GB (DDR3 I think)
GPU: ATi Radeon HD 5450 1GB DDR2
PSU: 450W
No overclocking
OS: Windows Vista Business SP2 32bit @ 1440x900 resolution (currently stretched slightly lengthways which is far from ideal, hopefully with a new card I can change that)
Motherboard: ASUS M4A78LT-M

At the moment, performance on rF2 is crap and rF1 is decent (medium settings) but inconsistent, the game will often freeze for minutes at a time then carry on as if nothing has happened, big problem in the racing club.
I'm thinking of upgrading my GPU to a Radeon HD 5770 or a 5870 (1 or 2GB GDDR5), as those cards looks pretty beefy for their price. With this I'll upgrade the PSU to 650W.
As a BTB user I'm not sure if upgrading my CPU to a multi-core (>2) would be the best idea in the world, but I can live with a slower BTB if it means good performance on rF2 and possibly the resource-heavy Codemasters F1 games.

Based on my current specs, what components would you guys advise? I'm not looking for a crazy PC that could run 6 screens and Crysis 2 at max settings, but something that could run rF1/2 at high settings with reasonable performance (avg framerate about 70-80 is what I'm used to).
Thanks.

 

[James Chant]

Kyle my specs are similar to yours x2 225 , 4gb, but with hd5770 1gb, I'm not getting great results either. I built I based in the rf2 recommended, not minimum in the summer, runs rf1 great up to 160 fps, even with a heavy mod like the 207s. I m
Only seeing 35-50 fps in rf2 normally, but was running at 19 last night in the megane server.

 

[Kyle Puttifer]

I heard there may be a problem for ATi cards, where FPS is rubbish whether you use high or low settings.

 

[UMC 22]

You heard wrong. Nothing wrong with the game on my system, and my card is older than yours.

My advice would be to wait for the final release before upgrading, if you are doing it specifically for this sim. That way everything will be finalised and the game will be optimised, giving you a far better idea of what will be needed for optimum performance. Looking at the recommended specs is all very well and good, but how can ISI be sure when the game isn't even finished?

 

[Kyle Puttifer]

It's for rF1 as well, troubleshooting you could say, to make sure the freezing isn't down to the card. I'm hoping to run F1 2012 on the PC as well so I can use my G27.
No RDFSC for me this year then, not with these framerates, unless they choose to use rF1.

 

[Jason Kinchington]

if your updating just for RF2 i would hang on a little bit remember its a beta once it goes gold you will find it prob will run like a dream on your machine