Upgrading gaming rig

[Kallan]

Hey there, my current system is

AMD Phenom 2 x4 965 Black Edition
Asus M5A97 Motherboard
16gb G.Skill Ripjaws DDR3-1600
2x HIS HD 6870 ICE Q 1gb
XFX PRO850W PSU
NZXT Phantom Full Tower Case
Samsung 1tb 7200rpm HDD

Would this run on my current build?
A Gigabyte Radeon HD7970 OC Windforce 3X HDMI Dual-DisplayPort 3GB for Roughly $600NZ or a Gigabyte Radeon HD7950 Windforce 3X HDMI Dual-DisplayPort 3GB for Roughly $500NZ, also is it worth it to get the 7970 for another $100?
Or should I look at NVidia cards?


Also thinking of getting a Samsung SSD 120gb or a Seagate Barracuda ST500DM002 16MB 500GB to do a fresh install of Win7 as one of the updates from ATI for my 6870's have caused blue screens and made it impossible to fix.
Then use my old 1tb after a clean wipe for storing everything else.

 

[mclovits]

If I were you, I'd also upgrade your CPU. Sure, a 7970 will run just fine, but I can promise you will see a CPU bottleneck. I would recommend upgrading to an i5 3570k or waiting for an equivalent Haswell CPU. Also, it's rumored that new GPU's are about to release from Nvidia, so if you wanted more performance than a 7970 for roughly the same price, it might be worth your while you do some research on the 700 series and maybe wait a month or two. That's what I would do, but if you can only afford to purchase a 7970 (BTW yes a 7970 is much better than a 7950 for the price), go for it.

 

[Kallan]

Yeah was looking at upgrading CPU later this year to a i5 3570k, would need a new mobo for an i5 so a z77. So basically I would be upgrading everything haha. Might just wait out until the new cards come out, hopefully they will be around the same price here in NZ.

 

[mclovits]

That sounds like a smart plan, and Haswell will likely be out soon as well so that's always an option. Best of luck!