Reddit mentions of MSI GAMING GeForce GTX 1060 3GB GDRR5 192-bit HDCP Support DirectX 12 Dual TORX 2.0 Fan VR Ready Graphics Card (GTX 1060 GAMING X 3G)

We need more specs for your system, but I'm gonna make a few assumptions and make a few reasonably cheap suggestions. INB4 some dude comes in and like "oh you need dual GTX 1080 and 3-4k monitors and blah blah blah". I'm giving advice assuming he's not a Saudi Prince with millions of dollars to spare.

The 6870 isn't a TERRIBLE card. You could make it run OKAY with medium settings and you're probably going to run into a bottleneck with that CPU if you upgrade GPU first anyways.

You honestly should start saving for new Motherboard + CPU combo. the BEST processor you can possibly get for your motherboard is Core 2 Extreme QX9650. This motherboard socket is so old, I would go as far to say that it would be very difficult to even find this CPU. The BEST CPU for your socket came out November 14, 2007. So basically, you need to start from the ground up.

Please note that all of my "is more powerful than" numbers come from passmark CPU benchmark scores, and that I'm using Intel Core2 Duo E8400 @ 3.00GHz Score: 2,172 for your CPU

If you wanna go cheap as possible, but still an upgrade, and upgradable in the future , this is about your best bet. This CPU is only about 1.4X stronger (passmark score 2,976), and I highly reccomend you upgrade it to something better than this, but this is the CHEAPEST upgrade option that would allow you to upgrade better in the future.

http://pcpartpicker.com/list/Q9f223

CPU

Intel Celeron G1840 2.8GHz Dual-Core Processor $38.99 SuperBiiz

Motherboard

MSI H81M-E34 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard $50.88 OutletPC



A little bit better CPU option on that same motherboard would be Intel Core i3-4170, which has roughly 2.5x the power of your current one (passmark CPU score of 5,129)
Intel Core i3-4170 cost about $120 at outletpc


Stepping it up a bit, http://pcpartpicker.com/list/LJQLr7

Gigabyte GA-H110M-A Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard - $50

Core i5-6500 ~$200

Rosewill HIVE 550W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply - $30-50

This CPU is quite powerful, approx 3.5X more powerful than your current CPU, and probably one of the more popular gaming CPUs. People may say you need more, but for like 98% of people, this is way plenty for power. With this CPU, you pretty much won't have a bottleneck for at least the next 3-4 years-ish (guessing obviously, I'm not psychic), but it might last longer. Also in that link is a PSU, which is often overlooked, but you will probably definitely need. If you want a more powerful computer, it's going to require more power (duh).

Then you're going to want to think about GPUs. GPUs always cost the most out of anything in your system, and there's a lot of fanboying going on between Nvidia and AMD. Basically, it's like this. AMD has older hardware, but it's still pretty decent and they sell it for much cheaper. NVidia has newer hardware, but you pay the premium of having the best. Some games run better on AMD, some run better on Nvidia.

My Picks -

AMD =

• RX 460 ~$120-$140 4GB GDDR5
  
• RX 480 ~$200-$250, 4-8GB GDDR5 (you can get ones with more fans and ram for more, but honestly, that's up to you)
  
  Nvidia =
  
  
• GTX 750 Ti for ~$130-140
  
• GeForce GTX 1060 ~$200-230, 3-6GB
  
  

I have MSI GTX 1060 GAMING X 3G. Purchased from Amazon in May. It's been used to play Overwatch then upgraded to 1080. It's sitting in my office rig right now. No mining, no overclocking.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01KIJ7XQG/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Payment via paypal. $215 shipped.

Buying a GPU. This 3gb GTX 1060? or This 4gb RX 480? Am I going to need 4gb of vram for any modern gaming?

MSI GAMING GeForce GTX 1060 3GB GDDR5 DirectX 12 VR Ready (GeForce GTX 1060 GAMING X 3G) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01KIJ7XQG/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_id5nyb65KZHRK

might as well just buy a [1060] (https://www.amazon.com/MSI-GAMING-GTX-1060-3G/dp/B01KIJ7XQG/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1480212530&sr=8-3&keywords=msi+1060)

could someone lay out the differences between the card sold above and this one:

https://www.amazon.com/MSI-GAMING-GTX-1060-3G/dp/B01KIJ7XQG/ref=sr_1_12?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1477539448&sr=1-12&keywords=gtx+1060

I do not know much of the differences and would like to purchase one or the other. (note: I don't use AmEx so the prices would be about the same)

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01KIJ7XQG/?tag=pcpapi-20 so is this one of the best options/price?

> MSI 660 Ti

$230 USD

https://www.amazon.ca/MSI-GTX-1060-GAMING-3G/dp/B01KIJ7XQG/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1494971371&sr=8-2&keywords=MSI+GTX+1060