Upgrade For 3 Year Old Rig

You can keep the RAM too--it's not out of date in any way. I'd upgrade the GPU now to a $360 7970 (remember to clean your drivers).

On the CPU side, I'd wait a few months for Haswell, which will have a better upgrade path (LGA1155 is a dead end as of this year). Haswell will bring a modest (~15%) boost to IPC over this generation as well as being more power efficient.

 

I agree with the suggestions above, but have a question.

What are you doing with the computer that makes you want to upgrade? Your CPU is about three years old, but the GPU is not. Yes, a 7970 Ghz Edition is close to twice as fast, and it's a good deal right now if you want the game bundle. If you are not happy with your current gaming performance, that's the card to get.

Also, while an Ivy Bridge is a nice upgrade from your CPU (I made basically the same upgrade 6 months ago), it's not a huge boost for gaming, and Haswell is getting closer (June 2nd). It might be worth waiting just to get the newest tech.

By the way, your power supply is a high quality one. I wouldn't worry about it right now, but if you did a whole new build and just wanted something slightly quieter or more efficient, both Corsair and Seasonic have some great options.

 

Ok, for BF3 - the slowdowns you're experiencing are almost entirely due to the GPU. A 560Ti can average about 45fps at 1920x1200 High, but that means it's going to drop way below that for mins. I don't know about 20fps, but definitely low 30s from time to time. And that's pretty low for competitive multiplayer. It's only when you have a lot more GPU power that your OC'd CPU would start being the major limiting factor. With something like an HD7950, you'd be averaging close to 80fps on high and around 60fps at ultra, and your minimums would start to get clipped a bit by your CPU.

On CIV5, I don't have personal experience, but this bench tells me you won't pick up a lot from going with a new system: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/CPU/343

Your OC'd CPU is probably equivalent to the 2500k there. Even with a solid overclock of 4.2-4.4 on a 3770k (or 3570k), you'd only be looking at about 40% faster, assuming near perfect scaling (which you typically get in CPU overclocking). That may very well be worth it to you, but I just wanted to make the choice clear. Clock-for-clock, IVB is 20% faster than your chip, and has a maximum overclock on air that's about 20% higher as well, so that's where you get the 40% increase over your setup.

Here's a thread on Planetside 2: http://forums.videocardz.com/topic/188-planetside-2-performance-test/. I'll let you look over the benchmarks yourself, but suffice it to say, PS2 is a resource hog, and it runs much better on Nvidia (unless that has changed with drivers since the benchmarks were done).

 

I would not get the GTX680, and I do not think you'll be seeing any new nVidia cards in the next three months, unless you count the $1000 Titan. In my opinion, if you really like Nvidia (and there are reasons to like its cards, and EVGA's service), then get the GTX670. But be aware that you could pay the same amount for an HD7970 (not the GHz edition), getting a card that is just as fast (faster once overclocked), and two free games. Nvidia is currently bundling in-game credits for a few free-to-play games, so if that's more to your liking, the pendulum will swing the other way.

Oh, you mean the last time it was behind the AMD eight-ball?

Actually, I'd say the Nehalem series, with its serious OC headroom and excellent multithreaded performance, was also a game-changer. AMD is just now matching the i7-920 with its FX8350, but a 920 or the equivalent was and still is a great CPU, and a HUGE step up from the C2D.

 

If a GTX680 is only 15-20% more than the cheapest GTX670, than yes, get the 680. If its' 15-20% more than a GTX670 FTW or one of the custom 670 models from MSI or Asus, then no, don't get it.

The 680 is typically about 10-12% faster than a 670, but in BF3 in particular, it's usually only 3-5% faster: http://hardocp.com/article/2013/01/21/2012_nvidia_video_card_driver_performance_review/5

Both have similar overclocking headroom, so the delta will remain the same once overclocked.

 

The 7970 is definitely the best choice among those (cheaper than a 670, ovrrclovks to perform like a 680) followed by the EVGA FTW 670. The 680 is the worst value.

 

Absolutely.

The one caveat, however, is that the XFX cooler is not particularly well-loved. Here's a much better choice for just a few more pounds: http://www.scan.co.uk/products/3gb-...8nm-gpu-1000mhz-2048-cores-dvi-i-hdmi-2x-mdp-

By the way, there is nothing that separates the 7970 hardware from the 7970GHz hardware. Any 7970 can hit GHz speeds. Now, there is a slight chance that some vendors are binning their chips and putting the better ones on the GHz models at this point, so while the reviews of the GHz model showed overclocking that was no better than existing 7970s, newly-manufactured 7970s may be getting the chips with less headroom. There's really no way to know that, and unless you really want to hit 1200+ MHz, it's not something to worry about.