What to upgrade? Need suggestions.

[Nightasy]

Greetings all,

I am possibly going to be upgrading my PC soon and I am a little undecided on what way to go when I do. First let me mention that I use my PC mostly for playing Skyrim and building 3d Models using 3ds Max. I also use my PC for college work but I don’t think that’s really an important consideration since even a laptop could handle that task. So primarily please keep in mind that this is a Skyrim PC.

My current PC specs:

CPU: Intel(R) Core™ i7-2600K CPU (OC @ 4.430 GHz (x43 Multi - 103.0 MHz Bus))
http://ark.intel.com/products/52214/Intel-Core-i7-2600K-Processor-8M-Cache-up-to-3_80-GHz

Mobo: ASUS SABERTOOTH P67 LGA 1155 SATA 6Gbps and USB 3.0 Supported Intel P67 DDR3 1800 ATX Motherboard
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004K330KK/ref=oh_details_o04_s00_i00

PSU: Corsair HX Professional Series 750-Watt 80 Plus Certified Power Supply Compatible with Core i7 and Core i5 - CMPSU-750HX
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0029F21LK/ref=oh_details_o02_s00_i00

CPU Cooler: CORSAIR Hydro H70 CWCH70 120mm High Performance CPU Cooler
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835181013

RAM: CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233144

Note: I have 16 GB of RAM, ergo 4 cards.

Video Card: Galaxy 57NKH3HS4GXK GeForce GTX 570 (Fermi) 1280MB 320-bit DDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814162075

Note: I have 2 of these so I am running SLI.

Memory: OCZ Vertex 3 VTX3-25SAT3-90G 2.5" 90GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227759

Note: I have several other HDD’s that I install random applications to. My Windows 7 and games are installed on this SSD.

Case: Cooler Master HAF 932 Advanced Full Tower Case with SuperSpeed USB 3.0
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001EPUQAE/ref=oh_details_o03_s00_i00

That is my current custom built rig. Now, I know some people are probably thinking, “Why would you want to upgrade that system? What would be the point?” The point to upgrading is that although it would appear to be more than enough to run Skyrim and any other game it actually is not. I tweak the living crap out of my Skyrim game with HD textures, ENB graphic mods, and the works. With all those tweaks I can run at 60 fps but I experience fps drops which I think are attributed to high-def textures loading. In order to avoid those random fps drops I had to lower my AA to x4, disable Occlusion and I had to uninstall the high-def textures.

I don’t want to have to run at AA x4, I want to run at AA x8 and I want my high-def textures as well as my Occlusion. So I decided it was time to upgrade before my current parts held no resale value on the market. Question is, what do I upgrade that would wield the greatest performance boost.

I can afford to go one of two ways. I can either afford to upgrade my GTX 570 SLI config to GTX 680 SLI or I can upgrade my processor and mobo to an Intel Core i7-3960X Extreme on an ASUS Rampage IV Extreme which in turn means I’ll need to replace my CPU coolant system with a CORSAIR H80. Perhaps neither of those choices is the right one and wouldn’t serve to get the results I am looking for. This is why I came here. I don’t really know what route to take.

What do y’all think I should do?

Best Regards

 

[computernoob29]

for the problems you have with the system, i would get some gtx 680s

 

[Nightasy]

Aye. I was informed that my issue was that I was hitting a VRAM limit on my other cards. Need me a GTX 680 4GB model card and I'll double my current VRAM limitations.

Thanks

 

[Nightasy]

Best answer selected by Nightasy.