How future proof is a system built around...?

Depends on your screen resolution. The CPU should be fine for several years, but the GPU may struggle at higher resolutions.

That said, MMOs tend to not be too demanding... the exception was Age of Conan that really stressed systems and lost many customers as a result.

1920x1080 on a 23" lcd

my gut feeling tells me old republic is going to fail, yet like the rest of us generational star wars fans, i'll buy it anyway.

my guess is with a game like that a oc'ed 2500k + 6870 is going to be about the best performance you will see. unless they are going to utilize gpu more than normal...like you said aoc did this, i never played that game, so dont know much on it.

also for d3. both of these games should be out by jan 2012 right? not seeing much in the cpu/gpu that i should wait for..right?

My personal comfort level is just a bit higher than that at that res. My 5870 is just a bit stronger than the 6870... I know confusing numbers.

I think the 6950 2GB is the best buy currently, and the 560ti is almost as good a buy:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

In any case you are paying about what it's worth, so get what you can... it all changes every 4 months or so anyway.

did you buy the 6870? if not then as proximon said the 6950 is the best buy out right now and it will last you a few years.

interesting. i know just from browsing around the web, that i've read a lot of people complaining about their 6950. cant say i've ever seen anyone complain about the 6870. as far as the 560ti, it seems over-priced to me. what is the difference between a 560ti and a 560 anyway? last time i checked 560ti was like $240.

This review compares all three cards, so you can choose from there.
http://www.guru3d.com/article/geforce-gtx-560-ti-review...

The processor will be good for a long time +5 years, it is pretty solid and will not need an upgrade.

You can't future proof a GPU, and unlike processors GPU costs don't fall off a lot, a 590 in 3 years time will cost the same as it does now, and will be rather mediocre to cards down the line. I cut costs on this front, the 560 is cheaper than the 6950 and does a more than excellent job.

There is no reason to overclock your cpu unless your running 2 or more high end video cards.

Your just making heat and using more power, it's not going to make your game play better.

online games tend to be lower specification games to appeal to a broad audience, if that combo fits your budget, you will be fine for 4-5 years - possibly longer
if not, just upgrade video card later.

So what was the hot new CPU five years ago? Q8300 or something? Do CPUs really last 5 years? I'm interested b/c I just bought a 5k too.

Im finding a 6870 is playing everything with good detail on a 24 inch 1080p screen .

I doubt theres any point in buying a 2500k and over clocking . The cpu at stock speed wont be limiting fps

The hot CPU in 2006 would have been the Q6600. It was a quad core that matched the very fastest dual cores and surpassed them in apps that could use 4 cores.... plus it ran much cooler and could be easily overclocked.

It's not considered much these days, but can still work well if overclocked. It was every bit as popular then as the 2500K is now.

before my pc died this summer my Q6600 could run sc2 with a 8800gts on medium to low settings and allowed me to play the games I liked ie oblivion, fallout3, masseffect 1, starcraft 2. So the processors can last a while and that was on stock speeds. But if the bulldozer comes out and actually challenges intel then we may see a spike in cpu performance because of competition.

ya, a q6600 was a "champion" cpu of 5 years ago, 'relatively cheap', overclocked well and is a quad core,, if anything it sort of got better with age because games 5 years ago didn't use multiple cores too well, now they do, the only bottleneck toward the end i think would be the old GPUs that were hooked up them (8800 series) but even those cards were pretty good and could be SLI'd for more power. the 2500K is alot like the the 6600 in regards to overclocking and price, I have no doubts it will last 5 years -- same goes for your GPU,, just add another one later or upgrade it when the higher end stuff is cheaper.