I have around 330.00 for a GPU

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RussianSensation

Elite Member
Sep 5, 2003
19,458
765
126
In all seriousness if your 8350 is running at stock speeds, buy an R9 290 and invest the difference in an after-market cooler like the Thermalright True Spirit 140 for $40.

You will want to overclock that 8350 to 4.7-4.8Ghz.

The amount of performance you are leaving on the table with a stock 3.6Ghz 8350 in modern games is huge. {see GameGPU.ru gaming results over the last 6 months}

Alternatively, you might even want to sell your entire AMD CPU/mobo combo, keep the DDR3 and get an i5+mobo. You might be able to squeeze such a possible upgrade if you get the MSI Gaming R9 290 for $240 and save $80-110 from not buying the GTX970. That would also be a great solution as even a stock i5 without any overclocking would outperform the FX8350 @ 4.7Ghz in games.
 

fleshconsumed

Diamond Member
Feb 21, 2002
6,486
2,363
136
What others have said - buy aftermarket R9 290 for $220-240 and save the rest of the money for future upgrades. R9 290 has the sweetest price/performance ratio right now, anything cheaper is significantly slower, and you'd have to spend $100-300 more to get 10% performance gain.