Upgrade

[turncoat]

I was planning an upgrade in the near future here, mainly with Skyrim in mind. I'd like to be able to play it on maxed settings or nearly there.

My current rig is as follows:

Coolermaster CM-690 tower with a 700W power supply (don't think any upgrading is necessary here)
Gigabyte EP45-UD3P Mobo
Core 2 Duo E8400 at stock clocks
Asus Radeon 4870 1GB
4GB DDR2 RAM



As far as upgrades, I was thinking something along these lines:

Z68 Mobo (I've read good reviews on some ASRock and Gigabyte models)
Core i5 2500k
8GB DDR3 RAM
GTX570 (MSI's Twin Frozr III model?), possibly a similar ATI card (6970?)


I don't necessarily want a dual-card setup right away, though the option to add another card in the future would be nice.

My budget is around $800, and I may do the upgrade in two stages. If I do, which should I upgrade first: CPU/mobo or GPU? I'm not sure what the biggest bottleneck on my system is currently. I plan on getting a SSD for windows, along with Windows 7 64bit at some point as well, but not until next year sometime.

Any thoughts or opinions are greatly appreciated, thanks in advance.

 

[Outlander_04]

GPU first

 

[aznshinobi]

Which 700w is it?

But if your budget is $800 you could basically upgrade all of those things.
Asrock Extreme3 Gen3 Z68 $125
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157271&Tpk=asrock%20extreme3%20gen3
G.Skill Sniper 8GB DDR3 1600 $47
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231416
MSI 560 Ti TFII OC (Basically 570 performance) $240 ($20 MIR)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127565
i5 2500K $215
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115072
Total: $627 before rebates

 

[turncoat]

Which 700w is it?

But if your budget is $800 you could basically upgrade all of those things.
Asrock Extreme3 Gen3 Z68 $125
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157271&Tpk=asrock%20extreme3%20gen3
G.Skill Sniper 8GB DDR3 1600 $47
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231416
MSI 560 Ti TFII OC (Basically 570 performance) $240 ($20 MIR)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127565
i5 2500K $215
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115072
Total: $627 before rebates

Thanks for the reply.

Power supply is a Coolermaster UCP 700w (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817171032)

Would 2x560 Ti OC be a viable option in the future? I'm not opposed to spending slightly more or a gpu if it's worth the extra money in framerates. Something with more than 1GB of memory possibly?

I was leaning towards that exact mobo actually, it's a little cheaper than others I looked at (ASUS P8Z68, etc.), and it seems to have what I need it to.

 

[FinneousPJ]

6950 2GB would be better for dual GPU so you don't run out of VRAM - games are getting more and more hungry for it.

 

[aznshinobi]

^ Lies.

BF3 doesn't even use up that much VRAM, 1GB is good enough for any game for a while to come. Also, VRAM doesn't really matter A WHOLE bunch, since with 8GB of physical ram, once a game uses up the 1GB (Or however much) it'll just use your physical ram. And even then I'm sure it won't even need that much. So 1GB is enough.

Yeah that PSU should be good enough for 2x560 ti OC'd. 1GB is good enough as stated.

Yeah the motherboard I suggested is a great one cheap too!

 

[FinneousPJ]

Check your facts before calling me liar
http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.aspx?m=1093015&mpage=1

Use google to find more

 

[Outlander_04]

Check your facts before calling me liar
http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.aspx?m=1093015&mpage=1

Use google to find more

I would be far more impressed if you had supplied a link to some benchmarks indicating the advantages of more vRAM

 

[aznshinobi]

^+1

What the heck did that even prove Finneous? He didn't even provide for a control variable. He tested them on 2 different resolutions.