Is my graphics card the bottleneck

[mednoob]

Hello Toms community!
ALright before i jump in first my specs:
HAf 932
3TB HD @ 72000 rpm
Win 7 64 bit
AMD 980BE
4 GB RAM
Video Card-> And thats where i have a question....say if i were to buy a Radeon HD 6790, would that be the bottleneck or is my cpu the bottleneck?
Basically i wanna game and as soon as XMAS starts well after the 25th i will be playing mostly BF3, MW3, star wars TOR, and i also want to try Skyrim. Oh will also be using the card for watching movies. Oh i usually game @ 1600*1200. I do want to play everything on high settings or close to high setttings (maybe AA off or AF off). IS this a good setup, or should i go for a better gpu? Is my cpu bad? I know amd isnt that amazingly good as intel but i dont really care if intel was coming at first place so long as i can play games at high settings getting descent frames! Please no amd or intel fanboys.
PS my motherboard can support two video cards in sli/xfire so i could go for two cheaper video cards if that would make my system better then say just one video card.
Thanks all for your inputs

 

[vitornob]

- You won't have any problems. Hardly a AMD 980BE will bottleneck a VGA. Maybe it could bottleneck a AMD 6990 or Nvidia GTX 590 (add here all the SLI/Crossfire configurations too).

- Do NOT, I repeat, do NOT, go for SLI/Crossfire with weaker VGAs, you surely will have microstuttering problems, only do this with stronger cards like GTX 560Ti and up, or AMD 6950 and up.
(microstuttering = besides it marks 60 fps in the counter, you will have the feeling that you're playing at lower fps, 20 fps for example <- This is an EXAMPLE)

- 1600x1200 resolution in high or maybe AA off. Yes, that's possible. (I think BF3 will suffer a lot through, skyrim will be ok with some stuff disabled and I think you'll max MW3)

- My recommendation: see how much you can spend and tell us, maybe we could select a better VGA. And don't forget to careful check your PSU and post the model here. Maybe it's a weak one and have to be exchanged.

 

[mednoob]

hmm thanks for the response Vitornob. Well my budget for a videocard is ~$200-$250. SO basically i dont wanna go over $250 unless i have to absolutely, less then $200 i guess wouldnt be good cards eh? I got two psus-one corsair 800W GS, the others a antec 550W.
You said i would experience microstuttering...will i still get them with a 560Ti or even the 448 version? Basically what i wanted to do was put two cards in Sli or even Xfire them and prolly see if i wanted to change once the newer cards from amd/nvidia come out. Most likely if i did change i will do it after june/july. So a card basically that would be good for atleast 6 months, which is why i didnt want to go for a expensive card only to buy a more expensive one later on. I think im just getting poorer every year, computer upgrades look pretty epensive now

 

[amuffin]

560ti would be the better option than the 6950, because of its overclockability.