Upgrade my rig (or fun with performance monitor)

[Lemur]

So, what do you think the best bang for my buck is in replacing my video card?

Doing a little light Googling, sounds like SoD hammers GPUs pretty hard. For example, in this thread, folks with relatively beefy cards such as 690s and 680s are reporting high heat and GPU stress. Could be an optimization thing—probably is. I don't think SoD is the sort of graphically intense game that ought to be maxing out GPUs like that.

FWIW, the threads where people are reporting SoD overheating their cards all involve Nvidia, so you might be well-off sticking with AMD for your GPU upgrade. (Yeah, I know, this is not exactly a scientific sample, but still.)

If you can find a discounted AMD 270, you might be a happy camper. I was hoping the Bitcoin and Litecoin crash would make them cheaper, but no such luck.