Graphics Card with an AMD Phenom II X4 965

[climbatized]

Hi, I'm looking for some advice regarding upgrading my GPU which is currently a Sapphire HD6850, it has served me well as I'm not too fussy about achieving the highest quality, but recent games such as SOM I have had to scale the settings back a fair amount to point which others may find down right offensive.

I would like to point out that I have been doing a fair amount of research trying to make an informed opinion, but i am starting to feel a little lost.

I was considering something from the R9 series or mayb a 760? however I was concerned about possible bottleneck issues with my AMD Phenom II X4 965?
My monitor can only support up to 1650 x 1050, I was wondering if there's any benefit, for instance, going for a 280x over a 270 because of display resolution.

Also is this a good time to buy? are there plans for new releases, I realize Nvidia recently released the 980 and 970 which may impact the prices of lower tier cards?

Thanks in advance

AMD Phenom II X4 965
Sapphire HD6850
OCZ 500W ModXStream Pro Power Supply
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium
8GB Corsair CMX8GX3M2A1600C9 DDR3 XMS3
Asus M5A97 Motherboard (Socket AM3+, 4800MT/s, DDR3, ATX, True USB 3.0 and SATA 6Gb/s Support)

 

[MeteorsRaining]

Your CPU still has some juice left, and cards on the lines of GTX 760 or 280 should not be have much of a bottleneck to drop the idea of upgrading completely. Better GPUs will give you better performance, no matter how big the bottleneck is, for instance, 280X would be better than 270 with any GPU, as, even if 270 is 100% utilized while 280X is only 70% utilized, that 70% or 280X is still better than 100% of 270. Is it worth to give away the money for that, certainly no.

Concerning the specs, R9 280 would be a great upgrade, fine for the CPU and PSU, while giving great performnce on newer titles, much better than 6850.

 

[climbatized]

Thanks for clarifying the bottle neck issue this great!

 

[MeteorsRaining]

Glad to help

 

[MrPeek]

Be careful using some AMDs R7 cards on certain Asus motherboards... seems they lack of "support"
Take a look at this thread, if interested: http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2320776/unable-load-drivers-250.html