I didn't say it wouldn't improve the situation, I said the benefit would be minimal

I have a GTX260 and almost never fall under 30.

This.

cant bring myself to do that honestly, back when i got my amd cpu amd was a decent alternative. i made a mistake when i upgraded mobos 2 months ago to the 990fx with intention of later upgrading the cpu, only to find amd in a slump with rediculous 8 core cpus that dont game nearly as well as some i5 and i7's

itd be me basically wasting 189 bucks (the mobo)...and i cant bring myself to do that.

That doesn't make much sense, to be honest. That would be the best use of this. It'd fix the past mistakes. It is the best option. You'll get more out of a CPU and MB change than a GPU change on a $300 budget with your baseline being a GTX 460. As I said, it's still a damn good card.

Aye and while the others seem to fail to recognize that situation I do, I think you can get quite a bit of life out of that AMD with even minor overclock though, we know that motherboard is good for it and well even with the stock heatsink you could probably go to say 3.6ghz and remain within comfy temperatures, and yah even getting an aftermarket heatsink (and yah that Noctua D14 is a beast, best air based one on the market) you could strive for much higher. It won't OC as good as a sandybridge but you'll still reach the point where Skyrim's primary thread is no longer saturating its core.

what do i do with the 990 fx mobo i spent 189 dollars on? door stop? its hard for me to just not use it honestly.

You said you were giving the old parts to your GF for her computer... unless i misread that...

aye, its svcky but really, id rather get the gpu/monitor now, and replace the mobo later. get some use out of it you know?

possibly, like i said, not a fan of spending the 189 bucks on it then turning around and turning it into a hand me down.

and I totally get that, I think that's the better move anyways. In your position I'd much rather get a 6970 mixed with an AMD 3.2 that can still be OC'ed, vs a sandybridge 2500K with some cheap motherboard and still stuck with a midrange gaming card from two years ago.

ED: I think Starforce's post a few up from here referencing how he was using a 6970 to drive his triple screen setup is sheer proof of ability enough of that card's abilities. That's 5760x1080 of pixels and it was cool with that, compared to how your GTX460 is struggling to pull off 1600x900. Dooo it Oh and remember that with the 2GB of faster vram means texture packs are a non-issue for you. Iike as an example I tried unloading the two dozen or so HD packs I'm using and no joke the FPS didn't change a single point, nothing, they just don't bother modern cards with those sorts of abilities.

Then I am done here. You cam asking for advice, I gave mine. And you don't want it. So peace and good luck.





The GTX460 is still a very good card...

i appreciate your perspective. but i need to replace the card as otherwise we wouldnt have a card for my gf. even if it was just replaced with another 460. thats another reason im doing it in this order.

i have the tower, mobo, and peripherals for her, need a cpu, graphics card and she should be good. but shes amd bound too (old amd mobo).

i COULD forgo the monitor (really want a hd monitor tho, right now i have a old non hd monitor 1440x900) and try for a intel i5 and a mobo...but i dont like cheap mobos if you cant tell heh

Do you plan on overclocking to an extreme clock speed? If not there really is no need for ultra high end motherboards. Sure, some have some nice small features, but if all you do is plan on throwing in the CPU/RAM/GPU and never messing with any BIOS features, a $120 mobo will do fine.

Oh it is, but not nearly as good as an ATI6970, especially in terms of what Skyrim's biggest wants are (its 2GB of vram means skyrim will likely never saturate that puppy on a single monitor even 1080P with as many texture mods as you want).

i usually do small safe overclocking on the cpu, usually dont put it beyond 3.4 or 3.6. tho with a proper heatsink i could try for more sure, only reason i havent was fear for burning the thing out.

If you're really adamant about not replacing the MB and CPU, then all I can say is grab a GTX 560 and combine that with a Noctua aftermarket heat-sink for your CPU.

i think im gonna try for the radeon 6970 cuz if i get a second one, radeons crossfire is a bit better integraded then nvidias sli.

Don't get the 6970. Surprised no one mentioned: you can flash a 6950 into a 6970.

ok ill be honest ive been putting comps together since 2005, but...how in the hell do you flash a card into a different card? o.0

and what are the risks of doing so

Here http://www.tomshardware.com/news/radeon-hd-bios-hack-6950,11852.html

Also, there really is no reason to get dual 6970s, even at 1920x1080. I went Crossfire with 4890s a few years ago, and that was more of a pain than anything. At 1920x1080, a single 6970 should max any game out there right now.

heheh that's still something the ATI line is doing eh? oh man, will they ever learn.

After reading the article that link you'd posted above references I think this is a solid idea as well.

AMD and yep.

ATI was retired

oh dear god, do not crossfire skyrim. if your system doesnt implode right away youll either get LESS performance than a single card or marginal gains. this was one realm where nvidia soundly beat ati.


as for amd cpus in generally, avoid at all costs.

kind of a broken record, weve been over that. and ya i forgot skyrim doesnt like crossfire, other games its not such a big deal tho.

NVM.