Change CPU or Change GPU?

[hackedmarine]

I currently have an A8-5600K processor with a F2-A85-V PRO asus motherboard, and an asus geforce gtx 660. I am planning on returning either the mobo/APU or the GPU. Would you reccomend spending 70 dollars and upgrading my processor to a decent i5, or spending it on upgrading to a radeon 7950? I want to play games like battlefield, Arkham Origins, skyrim, far cry 3, guild wars, (basically very hard to run games) on at least high settings 1080p. Which would be the optimal setup? Please help.

 

[IAMEXTREME]

The GTX 660 is a very capable card. If you plan to upgrade your cpu, you have to change the mother board too, which obviously is a expensive deal. I will advise you to upgrade the Graphic card to 7950 or the 7870XT (which costs less and performs similar to the 7950).

 

[hackedmarine]

I was wondering if I did upgrade to the 7950, if my cpu would bottleneck. Currently I am able to almost max out most current games (arkham origins, guild wars 2) on 720p, when i upgrade to 1080p, will my cpu not cut it anymore? would you still advice upgrading to 7950?

 

[IAMEXTREME]

As it is not bottle necking with the GTX 660, I'm confident it will not bottle neck with 7950 at 1080p.
However, if there is a bottle neck, it will not be noticeable. It's best you upgrade to the 7950.

 

[Lessthannil]

You are good with the GTX 660. Its about as much you should ever invest with a dGPU paired with an APU.

 

[IAMEXTREME]

You are good with the GTX 660. Its about as much you should ever invest with a dGPU paired with an APU.

This only implies to the weaker cards e.g 7750, 7770 which should not be paired with the APU. However a much powerful card can be paired with the APU anytime.

 

[hackedmarine]

okay, last question. If i did upgrade to an i5, would it run most games okay on high-ultra 1080p with the 660/7870? If not, I can upgrade my vid card during christmas, I just dont want to upgrade gpu now and have to replace cpu later.

 

[IAMEXTREME]

okay, last question. If i did upgrade to an i5, would it run most games okay on high-ultra 1080p with the 660/7870? If not, I can upgrade my vid card during christmas, I just dont want to upgrade gpu now and have to replace cpu later.

Yes it will run all the games fine. But with that you have to change your motherboard too.

 

[hackedmarine]

Currently, I am getting well past 60fps on most games 720p. I'm going to try my friends 1080p tomorrow to test. If i get very low framerates, then I should upgrade to 7950, and if i get high-ish then switch to an i5?

 

[IAMEXTREME]

Currently, I am getting well past 60fps on most games 720p. I'm going to try my friends 1080p tomorrow to test. If i get very low framerates, then I should upgrade to 7950, and if i get high-ish then switch to an i5?

Absolutely You may want to close the thread