Which do I need to upgrade first?

[ChezDispenser]

I'm going to list my setup, here, and ask what it is standing between me and better framerates on my games (primarily stuff like Battlefield, Skyrim, the usual stuff.) Eventually, everything's going to be upgraded, but I'd like to get the biggest performance boost out of the way first.

MSI 760GM-P34 motherboard (I'm absolutely aware this needs to be changed out)
AMD FX-6300 (I'm probably going to go Intel, since I keep seeing benchmarks placing Intel processors as markedly better--am I reading these wrong?)
8GB DDR3 RAM (not sure what brand)
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 2GB (EVGA)

My temps are running average, though I know for a fact the board has a habit of throttling everything if it gets remotely hot. I can provide any other information needed; I'm sorry, I'm new to PC building and I'm not sure what folks will need to help me out. My framerates in Battlefield in particular are irritating me; running at high settings on 64 player servers means I'm hitting a lot of areas where the game dips into the low 40s and the unsteady framerate's giving me a headache.

My friend is saying that a 970 4GB card would do wonders for my framerates, but I'm not sure if my FX-6300 will bottleneck it and there's not much in the way of a definitive answer (at least that I could find with a cursory Google search.) Right now, it's between the video card and the motherboard/processor, and I'm not sure which way to go with it; whichever one I pick up this month, I'm going to pick up the other next month (I really shouldn't be PC gaming in the first place, given my small paychecks, but the better selection of genres + keyboard and mouse controls + better graphics drew me in.)

Thanks in advance for any help!

 

[IntelTurtleFan]

Both parts could use work. I would start with the PSU if you have a low quality one such as a Corsair C series or something. Then I would move to the GPU as it could be upgraded to a 970 or 980. If you sell your current one you may be able to get a 980 but I see a 970 as more realistic anyway.

Once that is done new Intel CPUs are suppose to come out in September-December.

 

[scaniatruckfan]

Changing your CPU to an i5 will give you a big performance boost. Change the mobo aswell so you can use the i5 but I would wait because Skylake comes out later this year.
Changing the graphics card to a GTX 970 is a good idea too if you want to turn on higher graphics settings.

 

[ChezDispenser]

My concern is that the low VRAM on the 960 seems to be the biggest issue in running stuff like Grand Theft Auto 5 at smooth framerates. To be clear, it's kind of a necessity that I play at steady, if not smooth, frames; when the framerate varies greatly, I suffer the symptoms of motion sickness. [Like, it's bad enough I couldn't finish Dragon's Dogma on my Xbox 360 because the framerate got so choppy.)

I don't require that I run everything on ultra, but medium-high would be nice, and I'm getting information elsewhere that basically amounts to "you need more VRAM for that."

 

[scaniatruckfan]

What resolution are you trying to run at?

 

[ChezDispenser]

1080p, though 1600x900 might be an option if it has to be. I'm using one of those 23'' Sony 3D TVs they released specifically for Playstations.

 

[Sapphire Thunder]

For Battlefield, your biggest bottleneck is the cpu. They are made to work better on Intel cpus, basically.

For GTA V, it is indeed the amount of VRAM. You would do well with just 960 4Gb.

 

[ChezDispenser]

Ah, hell, I was worried it was going to be one or the other. Oh, well, they'll both get upgraded eventually. It sounds like the motherboard and processor are the needed things first.

 

[Sapphire Thunder]

Ah, hell, I was worried it was going to be one or the other. Oh, well, they'll both get upgraded eventually. It sounds like the motherboard and processor are the needed things first.

Yeah, GTX960 can play Battlefield 4 at 720p on max graphics and stay at above 50fps most of the time.
So at 1080p, by using high to very high graphics, you will be getting stable 60fps. Just you need either FX-83x0 or Intel i5.


And as said, for GTA V the only limiting factor is VRAM.