Upgrade CPU or GPU?

[tbay1999]

So I'll start off with my current specs:
AMD FX-6300 OC'd to 4.4 Ghz
Radeon HD 7950
M5a97 LE R2.0 Mobo
650W corsairPower Supply

I'm wondering whether I should upgrade to the new i5 6600k 3.5Ghz or if I should invest in a GTX 970? Will upgrading one bottleneck the other? My OC'd 6300 can hold up pretty well compared to the older intel i5 cpu's. I mainly use my rig for gaming, typically newer games like fallout and battlefront, etc. Which would make the best improvement overall for gaming, the new CPU or new GPU? Any other suggestions? Will a new Power supply be necessary for either upgrade?
Thanks for any comments!

 

[Outlander_04]

It will depend , in part, on the resolution of your monitor

but in general a GTX 970 is not bottlenecked by a mildly overclocked FX 6300 .

 

[tbay1999]

I use two 1080p monitors, one is the asus 144hz

 

[Outlander_04]

Thats an interesting set up . Especially if you are gaming on both monitors at the same time .


Maybe your best way ahead is to buy the GTX 970 [ or a Radeon R9 390 which is better at higher resolutions ] and compare the frame rates you are getting with some of the online benchmarks .
If you are falling well behind then you can consider spending all the money on a new cpu/board/RAM .

 

[_Mutant]

To start off I would just like to let you know that upgrading to an i5 6600K would imply that you plan on buying a completely new motherboard because it requires a LGA 1151 socket and as you probably know the AMD FX-6300 runs AM3+.

With that in mind I would like to tell you that the FX-6300 has a pretty good allowance for graphics cards. It wouldn't bottleneck a 960 so the 970 isn't too far off. You should be able to get away with it with little to no bottleneck, so expect near to full performance out of a new 970. The 970 also will be a pretty moderate upgrade from the 7950.

However, since the 7950 isn't too far off of a 960, meaning that it can run newer games, the CPU upgrade is also an option. You're looking at better in-game performance in any CPU heavy game so Minecraft, Civilization 5, City Skylines, Dota 2, and basically anything that doesn't already have the best graphics to start with. The CPU however will be a large improvement in many other categories such as day to day tasks, video and picture editing and rendering, multitasking and definitely better than AMD, single threaded performance for tasks that can only use 1-2 threads.

You're looking at about a 340 dollar card excluding taxes and shipping which will noticeably improve your performance in games that are graphically demanding such as GTA V, Fallout 4, Black Ops 3, Just Cause 3, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Metro: Last Light, Crysis 3 etc. Any game that looks graphically demanding. But no performance gains in most other tasks.

On the CPU side you're looking at a 300 dollar CPU that will moderately improve CPU bound games (listed above) as well as any regular tasks such as multitasking, picture and video editing and rendering, web browsing, etc. With the drawback of having to buy a new motherboard.

I'm not going to make a decision for you, just read the above text and decide which is more of a priority for you and choose accordingly. If you need further clarification or advice or anything else, reply and I will be sure to reply back soon.

-Christian