Upgrading, looking for advice

[comer653]

After landing a job out of school, I finally have the money to upgrade my PC. Here's my current setup:

CPU: Phenom II x4 955 (not overclocked + using stock cooler)
GPU: Radeon HD 4770
RAM: 2GB DDR3 1333
Motherboard: M4A77TD
Case: Antec 300
PSU: Corsair 650W
Monitor resolution: 1440x900 (will most likely end up upgrading to a 1920x1080 monitor at some point)

I'm not looking to spend $700 just so that I can max out Crysis 3. All I want is a system that will let me comfortably play any new games on medium to high settings for the next 3 years or so. As long as I can maintain around 60 FPS without the picture quality going down the toilet, I'll be happy.

Would a 6850 be a good card to get (along with some more RAM) to accomplish this goal? If I instead decided to spend $250-$350, would I be able to join the "can max out anything" club?

Thanks.

 

[Au_equus]

close to it. get a 6950 1gb (~$240) and 4-8gb of ram (~$50-100). <$350

 

[jjb8675309]

I'd say go for a gtx 570, they are on par with a hd 6970 and can be had for around 300 AR, I have been nothing but impressed by it gaming at 1080p and it will be worlds faster than the 4770, you also need to get 2 gigs more of ram hopefully dual channel, (not sure what your current config is) and you should definatley OC your CPU, I have mine running with stock voltage at 3.9 by just increasing the multiplier and I use a CoolerMaster Hyper 212+ for a cpu cooler and it works very well. But in your situation, even with a stock cooler you should easily be able to bring your cpu to 3.6ghz if you have decent case cooling, of course you will want to test it and monitor temps a bit.. but a CM hyper 212+ can be had for around $30 these days...

 

[jjb8675309]

also you do not need 8 gigs (for gaming) of ram.. 4 will be just fine, personally Ive never exceeded 3 gigs while gaming and running all normal background apps such as antivirus, etc in win 7 ultimate x64.. the game that has brought my memory usage almost over 3 gigs was StarCraft 2 which apparently uses a good amount of RAM