Alright, my knowledge when it comes to choosing what to upgrade is pretty low. The only thing I'm comfortable picking and installing on my own is RAM, which I recently did about a week ago.

I'll get this out of the way first, here are my specs:

OS: Windows 7 (64 bit)

Video card: HIS - Radeon HD 6870 1GB (link)

RAM: Ripjaw DDR3, 2 x 2GB and 2 x 4GB (link) (link)

Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-P67A-UD3P-B3 LGA 1155 Intel P67 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard (link)

Power supply: Antec BP550 Plus 550W Continuous Power ATX12V V2.2 80 PLUS Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply (link)

Processor: Intel Core i5-2500K Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz (3.7GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 3000 BX80623I52500K (link)

Screen resolution: 1920 x 1080

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Sorry for all the links, just wanted to provide as much information as possible.

Anyways, from what I've gathered my computer doesn't do the best when it comes to high performance games e.g. The Witcher 2 which I have about 30-45 frames when playing, the frame rate is constantly moving,I and Star Wars: The Old Republic, I'll have a solid frame rate but there's quite a lot of stuttering. I'm leaning towards upgrading my video card first but I'm not completely sure. Whatever the case, I won't be able to buy whatever it is that I need for 1-2 months.

Any recommendations are welcome, thanks!

My suggestion would be more VRAM for your graphics card to cope with the resolution, but to be honest that is a solid gaming PC. The 6870 is a good card. Since you have to wait 1-2 months anyway, the Radeon 7XXX cards should be out, so that might be an option. In the mean time maybe reduce the anti-aliasing and such slightly. Also check the Witcher 2 is not using Ubersampling, that's a real framerate killer.

New generation of video cards are incoming. That means you can either buy the latest and greatest within the next few months or buy better, older tech for less, but you already have some pretty great specs... so I don't know it anything is really necessary at the moment. Looks like the next generation of AMD cards is going to be basically slightly ahead of what we have now but at significantly lower power draw.

@Ewy: Oh, I for sure have ubersampling turned off, I also turned off ssao, motion blur, and depth of field, but it doesn't affect my frame rate in the slightest. Is the rest of my computer equipped to handle any type of the new Radeon graphics cards? All these variables when it comes to upgrading something is nerve racking.

Tested did some benchmarks with the HD 7970 and they used the same motherboard as you have http://www.tested.com/news/tested-amd-radeon-hd-7970-video-card-benchmarks/3328/. The only considerations are really the motherboard slots (PCIe X16 required, which you have as it's the de facto standard for graphics cards) and the power supply. The power requirements don't seem to have changed from the 6XXX series (if anything they tend to be less), so you should be fine there too.

Also note, the 7970 will be damn expensive, so I'm not recommending that out of the gate (depends on how much you want to spend really), but maybe one of the more reasonable 7XXX models, or a higher end NVIDIA card if they drop their prices to react. Here be a handy guide of cards and their rough performance ratings http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html.

@Ewy: Yeah I saw something about that specific card being around $500 USD, which is pretty insane. I was thinking more around the $200 area. I'll check out the guide you linked, thanks! Anything I should be wary of while looking at those cards, or will the majority of them work with my motherboard?

@Ewy: Yeah I saw something about that specific card being around $500 USD, which is pretty insane. I was thinking more around the $200 area. I'll check out the guide you linked, thanks! Anything I should be wary of while looking at those cards, or will the majority of them work with my motherboard?

@spazmaster666:Ah, alright. Better increase the budget for this then.

Your RAM. Its wonky. You have two completely different pairs of modules with two different latencies and speeds. I would pull the 2 gig modules, unless for some reason you need 12 gigs of ram. If that's the case, I'd still pull the 2x2gb modules and replace them with matching pairs of the 4 gig modules you already own.

Your power supply is a little weak. Not that it's the cause of your issues, but if you do upgrade your video card, it may become one.

Really though, the 6870 should be fine for what you're doing. Is 40fps in Witcher 2 not smooth? You mentioned Old Republic was stuttery? I'm on a 5870 @ 1080p and its fine for me. On the highest settings, I'm always sitting @ 80-100fps. I did turn off shadows, they look horrible. A few people have found that turning the graphics to the highest setting, applying, then setting it to low, applying, and back to high resolves their frame rate issues. But, I have never experienced stuttering issues and my set up is close to your's. A 2500k, albeit at 4.7ghz, a Radeon 5870, and 8 gigs of Corsair DDR3.

What kind of hard drive are you gaming off of?

My 6870 performs absolutely fine in the Witcher 2, getting ~50fps most of time. You have a crap PSU that you will have to upgrade before you even think about upgrading anything else. And yeah you really screwed up with that RAM. Always get identical sets. Fixing that may fix your stuttering, but you not finding 40fps smooth is a problem that will cost you a heck of a lot of money.

@Zelyre: I had no idea about the RAM thing, I thought as long as it's DDR3 it would work properly, what would happen if I just left the RAM issue unchecked?

Hard drive: Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive (link)

Wait for the new cards next year and definitely get new RAM. You should always get identical RAM so either toss out the 1066MHz and match the 1600MHz RAM or just get rid of it completely and get 8/12GBs of something of a higher frequency (although 1600MHz should be perfectly fine)

So I would just say get rid of the 2x4GB of 1066MHz RAM that you have and maybe get 2x4GB 1600MHz RAM. Think about getting a new PSU before you upgrade your graphics card and if you want to get Crossfire on then definitely upgrade your PSU. I would say get something above 750W.

You could also get a SSD but that's completely up to you. I would say it's worth the upgrade just to run your OS on it (80GB SSD or something) but just get that new RAM and you should see improvements, and it won't cost you $250-$500 to get a new graphics card either.

@Dustpan: You could leave the ram mismatched, but since you're getting hitchy frame rates and stuttering in games where you shouldn't be getting it, I'd look there first. It'll cost you nothing but a few minutes of your time.

Outside of the power supply being smallish and your memory timing and sizes being a bit weird, it's a very nice computer; you shouldn't have stuttery frame rates.

@Ewy said:

My suggestion would be more VRAM for your graphics card to cope with the resolution, but to be honest that is a solid gaming PC. The 6870 is a good card. Since you have to wait 1-2 months anyway, the Radeon 7XXX cards should be out, so that might be an option. In the mean time maybe reduce the anti-aliasing and such slightly. Also check the Witcher 2 is not using Ubersampling, that's a real framerate killer.

1GB VRAM is fine for 1920x1080, it's 2560x1600 where it gets a bit difference, but even then you can get away with 1GB in most cases.

I think Crysis 2 uses a lot of VRAM but that seems to be the only standout game

It's either your RAM or something else is going on with that system, I think your video card is fine and spending $250-$300 on a new one probably wouldn't get you as big of a performance increase as you're hoping it will.

@Dustpan: I'd pull that 2x2GB pair out ASAP. I wouldn't be surprised if it's the mismatched RAM that's causing the performance issues since your rig is (by most standards) pretty beastly and should be able to run everything out there pretty flawlessly at the higher settings.

Well I just got through removing the two sticks of 2GB RAM, no changes to the games specified in the OP. No idea what else to try.