That said, I'm not sure if I really need to be worrying about upgrading them just yet. I have started to see the FPS in a few games take a hit if I really ramp up the settings. I definitely want to be able to do that, of course, without taking much or any hit at my resolution.
What do you all think?
If your performance is more or less sufficient for your needs right now, save your $ and upgrade later. The longer you wait, the more value you'll get for your dollar. For example, in the last 6 months HD7950 has fallen from $450 reference/ $480-500 after market versions to
$310-325. In the same period of time, HD7970 has fallen from $550/580-600 for after market versions to
$420-430 for 1000-1100mhz versions. In other words, if the games don't run terrible on your system, you can skip this generation. GTX460 SLI ~ GTX580 and that's still pretty fast for 1080P for most folks. At 850mhz+ on each GTX460, it should come very close to a GTX670.
Actually in the meantime you can just overclock those GTX460 cards. They have
tremendous overclocking headroom (850-900mhz). Just get MSI Afterburner. That's another 20% or so free performance that should hold you over until 2013. GPU voltage of 1.087V is safe for air cooled GTX460 cards. 825mhz should be a walk in the park.
I am glad I found this post.
I too have 2 GTX 460's in SLI with an I2500K and I was wondering what an upgrade path would be. One thing I found it is that a lot of times the PSU is not adequate for a SLI setup.
Same suggestion as I made to ElNiNoSt0rM. Overclock those GTX460s. They generally overclock very well. 600W PSU is more than enough for GTX460 SLI + i5 2500K. It's not the power but the quality of the PSU that sometimes matters more than the total wattage. If you get an Antec, Seasonic, PC Power & Cooling, XFX, Fortron, LEPA, Enermax, Corsair power supply, you are usually good. If you have a 600W power supply from some budget brand, it might have poor voltage ripple and power delivery/stability and not be able to supply the full 600W either.