Need advise - Buying a video card and concerned with bottlenecking and compatibility

[SG]

I really am a noob. I am looking for a video card in the 150 - 300$ range. I am playing on one monitor at 1680 x 1050 res. If I buy a 7950 or a 660 Ti or even a 650 TI Boost will my performance be bottle-necked by my CPU. It is worth getting a 300$ card, performance wise? I want to upgrade my build in 2 years. Which card should I buy in term of bottle-necking and compatibility. Thank you.


This is my build:
-Intel Core i7 950 3.06GHz 8MB LGA1366

- WD Caviar Black WD1002FAEX 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive

- motherboard: GIGABYTE SKT.1366 Intel X58 DDR3 ATX (MB-GA-X58A-UD3R)

- StealthXStream 2 700W Power Supply

- Mushkin Silverline DDR3 1600Mhz 6GB Triple Channel Kit

 

[iam2thecrowe]

your cpu will be a slight bottleneck, but its still a pretty good cpu. if you can oc it to 3.5ghz that should remove any real bottleneck.

 

[ikaz]

Dude your fine with any video card in the $300 price range would work. If you want to go "cheap" i would start with the Boost then either get the 660ti or the 7950 I lean towards the 7950 only because of the game value. Though I have seen some 670 in the $310 (after rebate). That being said there will be a rebranding on the nvida cards probably in the two months so prices will probably drop.

 

[17seconds]

No problems with your high-end CPU bottlenecking any video cards in the $300 range.