So I have a good gaming PC, FX-6100 16GB RAM, And a 7870, But its just not doing what it was in the beggining when I got it. Im now looking to upgrade but not too sure what to do. I was thinking of going with a 780 (non Ti) And then getting a 4770k and a Sabertooth z87 or something along the lines of that, preferably from ASUS, but then I saw how much money it was for all the components, then I started to think about AMD. If I went with AMD I was going to get a Sapphire R9 290X Tri-X And again an ASUS motherboard, and an 8350. This is a few hundred dollars cheaper, witch I could buy alot of games with, not to meantion Mantle is coming out and im excited to see what that can do, all and all, im looking to hear if spending that extra money to go with Intel / nvidia, or is it more worth it to go with AMD and spend that extra money on games. By the way im playing games like Modded Skyrim, BF4, Crysis 3, FarCry 4, And the Metro series. I just want to know if the extra money for intel and nvidia is worth it, or am I wasting money??? And I would also like to know what the best GTX 780 and best R9 290X is, not including the Dual GPU models, or something crazy like that. If you could tell me witch side to go and what the best card for that side is that would be amazing, thanks for reading this, and i'm sorry if I sound like a noob, I promise i'm not!!!! Thanks again!
If I were you, I'd just get a faster CPU. The 6100 is quite slow compared to the 6300/8320 and even moreso compared to Haswell i5s. I'd wait to upgrade your GPU until the GTX 800/R300 series come out as the 7870 is still a very good card.
In my opinion you should go with an 8320, it is very cheap and you don't really need more for gaming. For the gpu just go with the 290, the 290x it's not worth the extra money, but I can really agree with morgoth, if can just carry on wait a little. If you fell that your pc is not just snappy enough try an ssd, it's just awsome.
Honestly, I would hold off on upgrading for now. It seems like your rig is pretty well suited to run most modern games at 1080p with high details at very playable FPS. I think it is important for you to really nail down what your gripe is with your current PC so you can calculate what price you're willing to pay for the marginal benefit of upgrading. What specifically are you trying to do, and how much is that worth to you. If your system has been slowing down lately, you could be in the market for a good system cleaning, both for dust and data, rather than an expensive upgrade. Your video card is absolutely phenomenal, so you aren't going to be missing out on much because the "new" AMD cards are mostly renamings of pretty much the exact same cards. I've heard that the FX-6100 overclocks spectacularly, so that's always an option if you want to spring for some relatively cheap cooling solutions.
I'm currently in the same dilemma as you: deciding whether or not to take the very expensive leap over to Intel. It's a tough decision, but I think I'm making the proper decision by holding off on upgrading just because newer stuff with big numbers have been released. With proper maintenance and tweaking, you could probably make your rig last at least another year for when the next generation of silicon comes out. On top of that, for the price, you might not be getting as much of a performance boost as you think. The hardware has changed so much that we can no longer just rely on raw clock speed to gauge the effectiveness of a particular processor.
TLDR: You will be paying a buttload of money for a tiny increase in performance over what you have now. Do a proper system maintenance and see where you get before dropping those big bucks.
What is your current motherboard? You may be able to get the 8350 and an after market cooler. Giving you time to save and get the new and better components later on.
i would recommend to grab a Sapphire 290 Tri X or Vapor X instead of a 290X or 780, the reason is simple the TriX in particular is allot cheaper then both the 780 and 290X. But the 290 performs better then a 780 in most gaming benchmarks that i have seen sofar on the internet. Also the diffrence between the 290 and 290X are some minimal, that in my opinnion its not worth it, to pay an extra $100 for the 290x over the 290, for just 5FPS more in general.
About the CPU+ mobo, this is a bit depending on how much you love skyrim. Intel does a better job in skyrim, then a FX8350. still you have Mantle, to take compromise a bit of the cpu´s lacking of single threaded performance but still... if you wantthe best performance for your modded skyrim, then go intel. for farcry and crysis3 there is not much of a diffrence between amd and intel, But in skyrim there is, and that is someting to keep in mind. if you make a decission.
an i7-4790k is basicly a bit overkill, unless you are an Watchdogs fan aswell. But still you could also get cheaper mobo's then the Asus Z97 sabertooth offcourse, if im right even the ROG maximus 7 hero is cheaper.
Anyway, you need to make you decissions based on which particular game is the most important to you. If Skyrim is your game, then i would say go with intel. i5-4690K or 4790K. But if you could life with a couple fps less, then a FX8350 with a Asus Sabertooth 990FX R2.0 is not a bad choice at all.
CPU Recommendation - i5 4670k/4690k whichever is cheaper they are the same part just different TIM or if you bat for team red then FX - 8320 all the way no point to get 8350 I have had 2 8320's and both could get same OC as the 8350 my brother has with same voltage even(Its gotta be same part lower binned chip).
GPU Recommendation - Like was said previously I would hold off for next round seems like your all good in this area for right now. If you do feel the need for an upgrade then decide what you like, you want to pick up an Nvidia SHIELD product to game stream from the couch? You do any OpenGL or CUDA work? Plan to pick up a 1440p or even 4K monitor? I would go with Asus' new Strix 6gb gtx 780 if you plan on 4k or multi monitor on the Nvidia side, the 290 in any fashion with the 4gb frame buffer should be just fine. The AMD stuff does not have a gamestream option for the moment so if the streaming thing tickles the fancy go Nvidia, if not stay AMD as the prices will drop in september as will most tech already released. It always drops every year in september.
As with any upgrade make sure your components are compatible with rest of system (i.e. CPU upgrades often need MoBo upgrades, GPU upgrades often need PSU upgrades) Be sure to do your research on each prospective component.