8320 & 390 or i5 4690 & 290

[mattymcd]

I have a fx 8320 and a sapphire r9 290 currently but i could upgrade at christmas but only really the cpu and mobo or the gpu. What upgrade would be best for me for gaming.

 

[Tradesman1]

290 to 390 isn't much of change the 390 is a rebranded 290 with some extra DRAM added - unless you need the extra DRAM for multiple high end monitors it's a bit of a waste - if you could go to a 980 that's good, else I would go the Intel route with the 4690 and mobo

 

[rohitbaran]

@above
The GTX 980 is way more expensive than the R9 390.
@OP
I think that the i5 4690 + 290 is the best option provided by you. I will however recommend buying a Skylake CPU and getting DDR4 RAM, if you really want to upgrade. Otherwise, I will say that you sit this one out and wait for the next generation of GPUs.

 

[mattymcd]

Yeah the i5 would probably be the smart option. Couldnt afford the 980 at the minute but maybe in the future

 

[rohitbaran]

Well, I think this is the better option than the i5 Haswell, but it is upto you.
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/q77LmG

 

[mattymcd]

Is there much difference upgrading to skylake?

 

[rohitbaran]

Well, you get DDR4 RAM, which is going to be the de facto standard after a while, while DDR3 will be obsolete and be more expensive to find. Skylake is a newer processor and uses lesser power, has slightly improved gaming performance.