Want to upgrade my computer for this game, need some advice.

[Krindor]

It's powerful enough to run it on 30-40fps. I ran this game on a GTX660, 8gb ram and a i7 3770k till february and it ran fine. Not like this game gives you benefits playing on 60fps. also if you consider his budget being 300-500, then it's the obvious choice to not touch the gpu till later when he has more money to spend. I can pretty much vouch for saying that the gtx 960 would be able to run this game on 60fps constantly. Though, if he's going for a gpu in the 200-400 range, it's gonnabe either the 380 or the 390, because those blow it out of the park. I own a 390 myself atm, and it's maybe 61 degrees in a crowded area or in void ark, lower when there isnt as much to render.

When changing systems, you actually want to work on the full system, instead of just the gpu, since those tend to cost more than most components combined. Also a 300+ costing gpu will bottleneck with the fx6300. So it's cpu/mobo > ram (if you can't reuse) > gpu. SSD is a luxery item in a gaming build. It's not a must have.

Personally I have noticed a big difference between running it at 40 FPS and 60 FPS, also running the HW benchmark i average at 35 FPS, this with a 3770k OCd to 4.5 ghz. The CPU isn't going to make that big of a difference except for in areas like Idyll and around hunts. Any content where a FPS drop is affecting the content itself is during raid where the GPU is the one doing most work as there aren't that many players to rend. Also just to add in, in idyll I drop to around 20 FPS. Therefore a GPU is going to be a better choice than a CPU. Also based on the 3dmark physics score the difference is about 20% between the 3770 and fx 6300. Also the difference between the 4950 and 6300 is around 3-5%. So buying a new CPU/mobo is going to cost the same as a new GPU and give him around a 20% increase in performance while a GPU is going to give around 100%-150% increase in performance.

[NoahArks]

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You really should learn the definition of bottleneck. His gpu can be replaced last, also I said 60 fps doesnt give you more benefits over 30-40 in THIS game. Also, 4590 vs 6300 can't even be compared. It's comparing a apple to a pear. The 4590 has 42% better single core, 52% faster quad core, 11% faster multicore, So where did you get your 3-5%? the i5 4690 is 15% faster than the i7 3770k. Him buying either the GTX970 or the R9 390 will bottle neck his PC. Even with a 960 or 380 there is a chance of bottleneck. His FPS will spike from high to low and in some cases it will give him a lower performance than he would've had with his gtx 660. This is the reason I've said he should focus on everything but the gpu.

[Krindor]

You really should learn the definition of bottleneck. His gpu can be replaced last, also I said 60 fps doesnt give you more benefits over 30-40 in THIS game. Also, 4590 vs 6300 can't even be compared. It's comparing a apple to a pear. The 4590 has 42% better single core, 52% faster quad core, 11% faster multicore, So where did you get your 3-5%? the i5 4690 is 15% faster than the i7 3770k. Him buying either the GTX970 or the R9 390 will bottle neck his PC. Even with a 960 or 380 there is a chance of bottleneck. His FPS will spike from high to low and in some cases it will give him a lower performance than he would've had with his gtx 660. This is the reason I've said he should focus on everything but the gpu.

I'm basing my numbers on the benchmarks done on 3D mark and I am talking about this game, being at 30-40 FPS is quite noticeable in the game compared to 60 FPS. http://www.futuremark.com/hardware/cpu look at the practical difference between the 4950 and 6300, you'll see that the actual difference isn't big, of course this is more favorable for the multi-core 6300. But the average performance is going to be better with a stronger GPU than with a stronger CPU. I would love to see your sources proving the difference a CPU is going to make, I have yet to see a benchmark showing the 15% between the 4690 and 3770, the average difference is about 5%. If anything going from a 6300 to 8350 and getting the 970 would still be within his budget and get him a lot better performance. This is due to it using the same socket as the 6300 yet being an upgrade that will limit the bottleneck.

[NoahArks]

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Shouldnt use futuremark, there's also a bigger difference between them, lol. Use userbenchmarks, cpubenchmark and cinebench. Also you suggested a 970, but it costs more than a 390, it runs slower and has less than half of it's vram. To get more performance than a 390, it needs to be fully OC'd. He should change his whole system, but he doesn't have to change his gpu right away. If he has 300-500 to spend now, he might have another 300-400 a few months later. Also, you still think I said that you don't notice the difference between 30-40fps and 60fps. I said it gives no benefits OVER it in THIS game. How the topic creator appears to me he wants a system just for gaming. I just can't suggest amd for that, mostly because they excel at multicore performance, while gaming still makes the most use out of single cores. Intel dominates on the gaming market. In the long term he's better with a i5 than a fx 8350.

[Krindor]

I said it gives no benefits OVER it in THIS game

First of all that is the average FPS and it does to a lesser extent affect the performance the biggest problem is the drop of FPS during graphics intensive moments where the GPU isn't able to render everything, one really noticeable moment is the plumes in titan extreme, with shadows at max they are going to drop the FPS to a level where it actually becomes really hard dodging them. Also the OP wants to run it at max meaning he cares about how the game looks, playing at a lower frame rate is going to affect the enjoyment of the game, at least in my opinion. Also limiting the FPS to 60 will make most spike less noticeable and the only area where the spikes are noticeable are when there are a lot of player characters to render. It all depends on what the OP is going to do in the game. For people who hunt the CPU upgrade might be useful while for people who raid the GPU might be more useful considering that the amount of stuff the CPU renders is less when there is only a few characters and mobs to render.

[NoahArks]

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Are you really using a example of titan? Cause the first two sentences isn't exactly how it would work. It's not going to effect the enjoyment of the game, pc gamers just want to tell that to themselfs to feel better (yes I'm a PC gamer to). Next up you're going to come up with the myth that 30fps occurs headaches and is bad to the eyes? In this game 30fps or 60fps doesn't really matter. Both work fine, both are smooth, with 60fps being able to render things smoother. The way you're trying to explain to get a gpu over anything else will only hurt the guy in the longterm, including me three people have already said that the system will be bottlenecked if you upgrade the gpu on the current cpu or on a 8350. You can defend your point more and more, but you're still coming with the same argument.

[Krindor]

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If you provide me with a benchmark showing the bottleneck of the CPU in this game and that the CPU upgrade would be better I'll agree to your statement but as long as the only thing you say is that it isn't enough I'm still going to say that the GPU is going to be the better upgrade. I'm not saying that the bottleneck is non existant only that it isn't as extreme.

And to the enjoyment part it is definitely going to affect it if the FPS is too low, for me the game just feels sluggish.

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My experience on lagging plumes in titan was from a laptop with 750m, with shadows at medium or max the plumes would cause the game to lag really badly.

If you tried it on the FX 8350 would you still say that the overall perfromance of the game wouldn't be better with a better GPU? Also the OP asked for the computer to be able to run it on max. The 660 isn't going to make it with max settings.