What to change out?

[sonicrich05]

Ok, so I have a $400 limit for christmas and I've decided to upgrade some parts in my PC. For a little background on what I do, I game a lot. Mostly MMO games like GW2 and FFXIV. I hate not being able to max settings and still maintain 60FPS. So I thought I'd come here and see what you guys opinions are.

Here is what I currently have:

BIOSTAR TPower X79 LGA2011 Motherboard
Intel core-i7 3820
16GB G-Skill DDR3 1600 Ram
EVGA GTX 560ti 448 cores FTW
RAIDMAX RX-850E Modular PSU
RAIDMAX Serien Mid-Tower Case
Crucial M4 128GB SSD
1TB Seagate Baracudda HDD

I was originally thinking about getting a GTX660 or GTX670. I was going to get either a 660 and another SSD so I'd have a little more storage for games, and raid it with the other one I have; or just a 670 for more power. In other words, a 660 and extra money to do stuff with other areas, or just throw all my money at JUST a video card. I also had another question about this area, how much of an improvement would a 660 be over my current 560ti?

My motherboard has some weird issue where randomly my USB ports will die. Sometimes I have to reset, sometimes I unplug them and plug them back in and they work. I dunno if it's something with the OS or the mobo, but if it's the mobo, I was thinking about replacing this and maybe getting something else up to my $500 limit besides the new video card. Maybe a new case with it, my one now doesn't have very good cable management. When researching all this though, I found that a lot of people seem to think the i7-2600K outperforms my current 3820 because it's an unlocked CPU, and you can do more with overclocking. So maybe a new mobo and CPU?

I'm torn as to what combos I want to go with. Mobo/case? Mobo/CPU? GPU/case? Any suggestions would be more than welcome! Also, if that whole USB problem IS my mobo, I'd like to lean more towards that. Then agian, It doesn't do it that much, it's just annoying when it does. I'm a bit of a perfectionist, so those not working, as well as poor cable management bother me.

Thanks guys!

 

[lt_dan_zsu]

Get a 7970, 7950, or 7870.

 

[sonicrich05]

I've never really been a fan of amd cards, I prefer nvidia cards.

 

[lt_dan_zsu]

Well, amd is a far better value this year. So you might want to get past that if you like money.

 

[sonicrich05]

Hm, which one is around $300? Also, how do they compare to the 660/670? If its really a lot better value I might consider it. The two amd cards I had in the past gave me nothing but problems though.

 

[lt_dan_zsu]

When did you have those cards? If it was ati that might of been the problem. The 7950 is $300, and it performs about as well as a 670, ,maybe a little weaker, but you can easily overclock it past a 670. Then there is the 7870, which is decently stronger than a 660, not massively stronger though. The 7870 is $230-250 depending on the day.

 

[sonicrich05]

I had a 5850 when they first came out, then a little after that went to a 5970. I think both were MSI cards? Those two kinda lured me away from those cards. If I can get the same or a little better performance for a little cheaper I might try one again though. Any specific brand you recommend?

 

[lt_dan_zsu]

I have just gotten a sapphire 7950 and my brother had two sapphire 6950's and has a 7970. They haven't failed us yet. But I would just go for the cheapest one with 4+ eggs.