http://www.techspot....970/page10.html

at 1920x1200 resolution: the average fps from 6870 is 50. the average fps from 6950 was 54 only 4 more fps for ~ 60 bucks more.
how well you run skyrim will depend on the power of your cpu as based on the charts, the game is ridiculously cpu bound.

I personally play skyrim at 1080p (i have no idea why benchmarks never use this resolution) all settings on ultra/max, shadowdistancedraw 2000, loads of texture mods and i have 60 fps everywhere except on the world map where i get 40-55. lowest fps is 35 in cpu bound areas like whiterun and markath. im using 2500k at 4.3 ghz.

It really comes down to your tolerance of 'tidbit' upgrade. Like if I were in your shoes I'd do the following: Ensure that new monitor is a good one, first and foremost, anything less then 1080P just really isn't useful and if you gotta borrow some money from one purchase to cover the difference on the other then so be it, its worth it. As per the CPU well yah you're kind of stuck with AMD and going to a newer AMD isn't going to do anything useful for Skyrim...but overclocking it to say 4Ghz certainly will and the most that'd cost you is likely an aftermarket heatsink (about 40-80$ depending on what you want). To upgrade from that GTX460 in any significant way would really mean either going with a GTX570 (out of your price range) or switching to an AMD design that's got about the same horsepower but twice the amount of vram and yah to find that combo you're probably looking more at 300$ vs 250$.

Aye and I agree, I don't think 250$ would offer a significant improvement over either of his components either.

For an aftermarket heat-sink, I would personally recommend grabbing a Noctua.

However, this all depends on which route you choose.

well again im stuck with adm cpu's atm. its a phenom 2 955 BE 3.2ghz quad core. not sure if amd has anything out atm that would provide a big enough leap in power. tout a 2500k at 4.3 ghz all you want, wont change that im amd bound cpuwise for the forseeable future.

if i can OC safely a aftermarket heatsink with buying a new vid card (and later possibly sli/crossfiring it) would suffice till hopefully i either can replace my amd mobo or amd comes out with some good cpus.

the monitor is good but its 900p (1600x900). what difference happens if i upgrade to 23/24 (1080p)?

Your link is broken (at least for me) but I can already predict what it'd lead to: Skyrim at stock values without any attention paid to taking advantage of the real power of the GPUs through settings and mods (which is fair for a benchmark article but not realistic for genuine skyrim player experience). Believe me the big video cards mean you can pile on far more detail then vanilla Skyrim and it'll keep chuggin along where a midrange card will start to stumble. Which is exactly what OP is experiencing and inquiring about.

Extend your forefinger and thumb as far as you can apart, see the distance between the tips? That's how much cooler(roughly) a 24" monitor is over a 20". Frankly you're getting a 25% increase in the amount of picture and the higher pixel count vs the 1600x900 is just well, one of the benefits of going to full 1080p. You can still run things at 1600x900 on those monitors, just they're able to bring out the big-time detail of standard 1080p content if you want to as well.

What is "gaming grade" ram?

This is probably contributing to your issues. Drop it back to 5 and save yourself some money.

Part of what I've been saying...

Better yet, just reset the INI to the default.

i see so a 24 inch monitor is taking full detail. ok, seems obnoxiously large but i may look into it.

@poster above, i tweaked the game and added a bunch of mods and get anywhere from 16-35fps, id like to try to increase that number, at least minimumwise. also im upgrading now to give hand me downs to my girlfriend for her rig. so im looking for biggest bang for my buck type deal.

from what ive gathered so far, the general consensus is. aftermarket cooler for my processor as i cant switch to a intel yet, stuck with amd.

get a radeon vid card as it favors skyrim more and can be cheaper.

possibly switch that 20 inch monitor to a 23/24 inch for full 1080p experience.

vid card wise...im looking at this atm. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=14-150-517&SortField=0&SummaryType=0&Pagesize=10&PurchaseMark=&SelectedRating=-1&VideoOnlyMark=False&VendorMark=&IsFeedbackTab=true&Page=4

again a little higher then projected, but i could later crossfire it.

"Lets ramp up the graphics! ZOMG why is it lagging now! must upgrade!"

No... no... just turn down the graphics a bit.

why would i do that? i did those tweaks cuz i liked the adjustment, i like the increased view distance and such. why take it back to 5?

With your budget, your best bet is to drop the load on your hardware. That means drop the tweaks and drop the textures. With your budget, you're not going to get much better in terms of performance without doing that.

Because they're killing your FPS

again not the point, i could easily take off the mods and turn down the graphics, but im doing this so i dont have to, or at least dont have to as much.

higher resolutions are much more demanding on your system. you will gain significant fps by going down on resolution.

O.o...which is why im upgrading so it doesnt kill it as bad.

this isnt me trying to get good fps, if i wanted that id just drop everything to a low setting, this is my trying to get decent fps, if all said and done i have to downgrade some elements fine, not a huge deal.

That video card would be a worthy upgrade over the GTX460, I definitely would approve of that one for sure.

Seriously? You can get a new motherboard and CPU for that price.

Drop the monitor and you can get even more.

I thought your budget was 300?What you are looking at is going to cost upwards to 500.

With your budget, you won't gain much, if you gain anything at all. That's the point I'm making here.

no no, my budget for my VID CARD is 300, not the whole shebang

So you want to spend over 300 for a car that will gain you almost nothing in performance, then cripple it slightly with a larger monitor. I see the logic in this...

:| If you really think going from a GTX460 to an ATI6970 would not improve the situation...just stop, like just stop posting in a PC tech support forum. Really.

For $300, you could get a new MB and a new CPU. Which would be the best thing for you, anyways.

I have to say that he will see a fairly large improvement upgrading to the 6970. When I had it, I could max the game at a 5760x1080 resolution and still use HD texture mods and rarely drop below 30FPS. It is a great card.