Upgrading from a GTX 550 Ti: Which card should I get?

[DarkLordGiggles]

Hey all,
My current video card, a GTX 550 Ti, is a few years old and seems to be struggling with more demanding things like Assassin's Creed 4 and Skyrim with an ENB mod. I'm looking for a good budget upgrade that will tide me over for at least a few more years, but the video card market seems a lot more complicated than when I last upgraded. Is going to a GTX 660 a significant upgrade? Would I be better off with a Raedon?
Here's what I want to do: (a) play pretty much any new game at 1080p at 30+ FPS (45 would be nice), and (b) not spend much more than $200.
I get about 30 FPS in the aforementioned games at 1366x768, but I'm getting a 1080p monitor soon and want to make sure my GPU can keep up.

Here's a couple $200 cards I'm looking at. Which one's the better deal?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131532
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130967

Current PC specs, just in case:
AMD Phenom II X4 3.4 GHz
8 GB RAM
GTX 550 Ti 1024 MB
700 W PSU
Windows 7 x64

[Stymie]

I think you should go with the r9 270x. The gtx 660 is great but I think the 192-bit bus is a bit limited compare to 270x 256-bit bus memory.

[Rumpelcrutchskin]

I would say put a little more money into it and go for GTX 760.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107-7.html

[DarkLordGiggles]

Thanks for the link, that chart's pretty handy. With switching to Radeon, is there much difficulty with replacing all the nvidia drivers? At this point I'm leaning towards the 760.

[[☥] - CJ -]

Going to a higher up GPU may cause problems on the CPU side of things causing a bottleneck.

While that GPU isnt the best it should be decent enough.. imo a better CPU would be something to look at.

[PowerHaus930]

I have a Phenom II x4 @ 4GHz and an overclocked 7950 and I am not experiencing any bottlenecking. There's nothing wrong with your CPU.

[[☥] - CJ -]

Yours is Overclocked his isnt, theres a difference.
But it should be adequate i suppose..

At the resolution hes using he shouldnt be having too many problems, but a better GPU should help all around i suppose.

[PowerHaus930]

I agree. Even if he gets a 760 or 270x the bottlenecking will be minimal. He wouldn't gain enough fps by upgrading the CPU to warrant the added cost. That's my opinion anyway.

[chicken jambalaya]

GTX 760 is pretty decent and can run games on maxed out settings with decent fps... It's also a bang for the buck. Highly recommend it >.<

[banzaigtv]

I add a vote for the GTX 760. But I would suggest that you wait until the GTX 860 is released. The next-gen GPUs are not too far away and rumor has it that they will start hitting the streets in March.

[Charlie]

Get something like a GTX 760 - GTX 780

[DarkLordGiggles]

Whoa, lots of advice. There's no way I'm getting a new CPU, I just got this one last spring. To get a new one I'd need a new motherboard too, which I'm definitely not doing for a while. I'm getting the 760.