Time for CPU Upgrad or just GPU?

[VampLena]

I'd really like some expert opinions, I realize now is a bad time for PC being its between cycles, AMD is having problems and Intel is rolling out Haswells soon and retiring the mainstream 1155 socket, so Im wondering what would be the best move for me at this time. Considering to upgrade, I need to go the whole 9 yards and build a whole new PC I'd like advice before I invest in anything. If a new GPU with more VRAM would work best for now, thats fine.

Right now my system specs are

AMD Phenom II X4 940 @3.00 Ghz
Asus M3N72-D Mobo (which at Max supports AM2+ not 3)
8 gigs
EVGA Geforce GTX 570 Superclocked
Windows 8 Pro 64 bit


Mostly, this is a Steam Workstation, and I use it right now to just play Mostly Skyrim, but also at times Sleeping Dogs and Far Cry 3. My short term goal in a upgrade would be to be able to play Skyrim on Ultra with the beautiful 2k HD Texture Packs, which right now is not possible. My long term goal however is to be able to handle the next console generation of games coming.

I do however like to use the Virtualization technologies to run Windows XP and 98 via VMWare so I have access to my classic games that wont work on Modern Windows.

Now Im not interested in Fanboy wars which I know pops up when anyone wants advice, really Im just looking for "Real World" functionality, All the benchmarks in the world wont do me any good. I mean I only have a 60 hz LCD monitor, and a 30hz HD TV I also use to game on, so if my FPS is only going to be 70 with AMD as opposed to 100+ fps with Intel, Its not going to affect me at all.

Thanks for any help

 

[Brett928S2]

Graphics card...

 

[pauls3743]

Graphics card.

Also, if your motherboard is revision 1.01G then it will support AM3 processors as well.

 

[VampLena]

Thanks for the replys. Any reasoning for going for GPU upgrade only? Just curious. I wont have any bottleneck issues with a gpu upgrade will I?

These are the GPU's Im looking at, any opinions?

EVGA GeForce GTX670 FTW+ 4096MB
EVGA GeForce GTX 660Ti SUPERCLOCKED+ 3072MB

I am thinking the more VRAM I can get, the better Skyrim runs with 2k Texture packs, right?

 

[simon12]

Skyrim is fairly CPU intensive I don't think its performance will increase without a CPU upgrade. To check I suggest you run GPUz and check if your graphics card is running at 100% or close when you try to run those settings and then check task manager to see if the CPU is running close to 100%. Whichever is running nearest to 100% needs upgrading 1st and if they are both close to 100% you really need both to increase performance.