Ugrading my build

well cpu and graphics card so whats your budget

its best sli your card you wont get much of a performance boost

graphics, then upgrade mb and cpu when haswell comes out

Any recommendations for the graphics cards?

i5-3570k and 7970/670 best option should be about another $620

If you upgrade your Mobo you will want to do a fresh install of windows. The reason being is that your current OS has conformed itself to the "environment" of your Motherboard and if you install a new MB your OS won't know that to do with itself.


If "I" were to upgrade something first, it would be my processor. If was was gaming and not doing any type of rendering I would jump straight to one of the "i5's" they offer solid performance and won't bottleneck your Graphics card like your current CPU may.
I would then get myself a "Solid" video card. I say solid because it does not have to be the very best in the world for a good gaming experience.
I would then consider an SSD for a boot drive or for any of the more essential programs, and an SSD will just make things much smoother.

well the weakest parts are
IO (get an SSD), grpahics (current cpu max card is like the 650ti/7850), mb (due to poor overclocking but if that is not used then it is fine) and cpu (dual core only so in MMORPG will falter)

Getting things in that order look good to me, upgrading your HD to an SSD will probably make the biggest difference in both speed and performance. Secondly upgrading your graphics card will insure that you can keep up with games for the time being, or the CPU can go and you can get a better performer that is more modern and will last you longer. I would personly go with a better graphics card, but if you are sure that the games you play will be better with a quad core or something like that, then by all means grab your self a new CPU.