Assistance requested!

[Stardar1]

This is going to be a long post, and I apologize in advance.

 

Background:

 

About 4 months ago, a friend of mine (who will remain unnamed) had an older computer (Core 2 Quad, DDR2, the works). Then 2 GTX 760s appeared on craigslist for $200, which he bought.

My machine at this time was using:

AMD FX-8320

MSI 970A-G43

SAPPHIRE R9 270X 4GB

I was not happy with my performance and had long been contemplating upgrading to an I5, the highest requirement games I play are:

PlanetSide 2 (a lot, I'm addicted to this)

GTA V (have not launched yet)

Planetary Annihilation (uses a lot of RAM, this isn't an issue and I never notice lag in this game.)

I traded my CPU, MoBo, GPU and heatsink for his dual 760s, figuring I could either use or sell them. (I am aware that this was not a good deal on my part, and was aware of this at the time).

Then a 4 GB GTX 770 appeared on Ebay and I snapped that up for $200. I then sold the 760s to another friend (@Random32) for $250, which I used with $100 in gift cards to buy:

I5 4690k

Gigabyte Z97-HD3

CoolerMaster Hyper 212 EVO

 

With my new hardware my performance in PlanetSide 2 jumped, but still drops below 60 in medium-large battles (~70 per side), dropping below 40 in large fights.

 

About 4 days ago, Random32 ran some tests on the cards and discovered that they had been heavily modded by Alienware (they were taken out of a prebuilt). Each card had 1.5 GB, and was running at 800 MHz (these were using reference coolers). We assume this was done to save on wattage.

He and I both agree that nobody involved is to blame and that I should buy them back, here are my questions:

 

How much could I sell the "760s" for?

Is me giving him my 4 GB 770 (it's EVGA) a good form of compensation? (he is ok with this)

 

Also, I have yet to OC my I5, will overclocking increase my performance in PlanetSide 2? (CPU is currently my bottleneck)

 

And finally, if I do give him my 770, what is the best card I can get for $200 and, depending on the card, will it bottleneck me in PlanetSide 2?

 

Note that I have 3 1080p screens, with the game running on one while smaller apps such as Chrome or TeamSpeak run on the others, this has been the case since before this entire thing started. Planetside 2 is running off a SSD separate from my OS or other programs.

 

 

I apologize for the length of the post, but I am in need of advice and trust this forum more than any other.

 

[seabass9990]

I can tell you for sure that overclocking will increase your performance in PS2

[Stardar1]

I can tell you for sure that overclocking will increase your performance in PS2

I am currently running at 3.5 (turbo 3.9), how far should i OC?

[WoodenMarker]

I am currently running at 3.5 (turbo 3.9), how far should i OC?

As far as you can with comfortable temps and voltages.

[Mohenjo]

I think 200 for 2 760s is a fair price, sell them on craigslist because there you have the factor of people not knowing much about tech.