Windows 7 - 140$ Upgrades Advice.

I have 150$ to spend on a Video Card and 130-150 to spend on a CPU for a Gaming Rig. I want the highest Gaming Framerate I can get on games like Battlefield, Skyrim, GTA IV

http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html

It looks like the Radeon 6870 (154$) and AMD FX 6100 Chip are two most powerful Items you can get for 150$ each.

Are these the best two parts I can get for 150 each? or can anyone recommend anything better that I may have missed.

This setup should be capable of running 60 FPS on Bf3 if I do not absolute Max the settings Right?
I do not mind lowering a bit of graphics for super smooth 60 fps.

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( ( Updated After Suggestions ) )

I have 150$ to spend on a Video Card and 130-150 to spend on a CPU for a Gaming Rig. I want the highest Gaming Framerate I can get on games like Battlefield, Skyrim, GTA IV

PassMark Software - Video Card Benchmarks - High End Video Cards
PassMark Intel vs AMD CPU Benchmarks - High End

It looks like the Radeon 6870 (154$) and AMD FX 6100 Chip are two most powerful Items you can get for 150$ each.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819103962
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814161389

Are these the best two parts I can get for 150 each? or can anyone recommend anything better that I may have missed.

So this Motherboard should work fine correct? I had to get a cheap one.
Newegg.com - GIGABYTE GA-M68MT-S2 AM3+ NVIDIA GeForce 7025/nForce 630a chipset Micro ATX AMD Motherboard
The cheapest AM3+ motherboard shouldnt limit the CPU or GPU in any real ways right?
This motherboard Details shows that it works with DDr3 1600 Ram, so ANY 1600 speed DDr3 Ram should work correct?

As for Ram,
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820220572
1.5v is best? or do I want 1.9v?

Power Supply
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817182199

The only other thing you need to check on is your PSU. If it can't handle the power of the new upgrades you will see some BSOD's. There's nothing in your system specs for us to check and verify. There are some free PSU calculators out there which can give you an idea about the wattage needed.

Newegg.com - Recommended Power Supply Calculator.

I'm partial to AMD, CPU's and GPU's. I prefer an AMD GPU for easy multi-monitor setup in gaming, which you can expand your playing field to all of your monitors whether it be 2 or 3 or even more.

As for your questions; which is better, you would have to do a comparison of bench marks on both cards and see which one does better in what area then take the info and apply it to what your specific needs would be.

I've owned both brands and both have performed well and had no problems with either of them.

What are the warrentees on these things like?
I had an old 6800 Nvidia card for like two years, and they replaced it without a recipie with no hastles at all.
I dont bother with overclocking, I dont want to run my parts hot.

Surely Radeon doesnt offer lifetime refurbishing also do they?

I don't think any manufacturer does the lifetime warranty....but I could be wrong. Really, it's all personal choice and what you are comfortable with.

I'm not sure about AMD, but EVGA (Nvidia) and XFX offer lifetime warranty. At least on some cards.

Does your motherboard support the FX-6100 (Socket AM3+)?

Just curious, as you didn't include your system specs.

Another consideration...if you went with an Intel i3-21xx, you could dave $50 that could be used on a better video card, if gaming is your concern.

So first things first, Fill out your SPECS! We need to know your current hardware before we can answer any of your questions.

Also i would recommend NOT going for any of the FX CPU's due to the construction of those CPU's and a lot of problems. If you wonder why I'm saying that you can find a lot of information on the problems on google (FX = Bulldozer).

I recently made a comment on why you should pick one of the elder versions of the AMD cpu's instead of the bulldozer, You can find that post HERE.

Also for a CPU I would recommend you to go with a CPU with a total of atleast 4 cores since more and more games support more then 2 cores and becous of that preforms beter with more cores.


If we knew what motherboard you had we could give you suggestions of what you could install but since we dont I will go with my recommendations. Which would most likley be a Phenom II x4 in this case. Though these can be quite hard to find now since they are getting quite old. But the prices are very low. That should not be a problem thought if you have a 4 core CPU with atleast 3GHz or more.
You might ask why I'm not mentioning Intel as a suggestion for a CPU and that is becous Intel is far more expensive compared to AMD and would push your already limited budget over the roof.

When it comes to a Graphic card you will need to put out uite a lot to be able to run BF3 on max graphics. But since that is the only base i know. I guess you will be playing quite a lot of BF3. Which in that case my suggestion would be to lay over some of your CPU budget to the GPU since BF3 is very grahpic intense. Even i can drop below 60 FPS when playing that game at Ultra graphics and I'm using 2x 6950's.
So my suggestion would be one of the 6850 or 6870 or the Nvidia equalant. I would really suggest a 6950 but that is far above your budget. Unless you have some extra spare to use or you can wait a month or two extra to get even beter graphics.

Hmm. Very interesting Legaia, but on this recent benchmark list from feburary the FX 6100 is showing up over 20 slots higher than the x4 980. The 980 is running around 4,500 rating the Fx6100 is running around
5,500 rating.

The 6100 is a 6 core processor running at 3.3 ghz each. you mentioned staying with at least 2 cores.
Newegg.com - AMD FX-6100 Zambezi 3.3GHz Socket AM3+ 95W Six-Core Desktop Processor FD6100WMGUSBX

Your chart shows the x4 980 keeping pace with the 8100 series, my chart from feburary shows the 6100 series leaving the 980 well behind.

X_x.
Are you sure the 980 out performs the 6100? my recent charts show the 6100 well ahead.
is it because this chart shows Non gaming based results?
Are you saying that a 980x4 will run games better than the 6100 I guess? because some of its extra cores are sort of wasted potential?

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...x,3043-18.html
This benchmark from October 2011 does show the 980 chip keeping pace with the 8100 series pretty well in a game specifically X_X.