Upgrading CPU/Mobo need some help

[JiTz]

I'm looking to upgrade the CPU/Mobo and my budget is around 500-600$ less if possible. I'm mainly playing Secret World, Tera and LoL and currently my fps is terrible in Tera and Secret World and I believe that my Cpu/processor is getting bottlenecked.

My knowledge of good mobos are limited so if anyone can chime in on some good cheap ones please do and I'll check it out. I'm looking at getting the I5-2500k Sandybridge but not sure what mobos are compatible with it and is my current RAM compatible as well or do I need to purchased a new set of RAM? Do i also need to purchase Window 7 as well if I'm buying CPU/Processor?

Current stats are Intel Core Duo E7400 @2.80Ghz, RAM DDR PC2-6400 4GB, GPU: ATI Radeon HD5970, OS : Windows Vista 64bit OEM version

[n0cturnal]

Yes you will need to buy DDR3 ram. Your windows is OEM and most likely locked to the old motherboard. For the i5 2500k I would suggest a z68 or z77 motherboard such as http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813157297

[JiTz]

Will the mobo you recommended fit my video card? My GPU is fairly big so just wanted to make sure. Whats the difference b/t a z77 vs z68? Oh and I"m thinking of getting the i5-2500 instead since its a little cheaper and I don't plan on OC'ing at all so would the mobo be different or still the same?

[n0cturnal]

If you have no plans what so ever to overclock you could go for a H-series motherboard.
The difference between z68 and z77 is that z77 has out of the box support for Ivy Bridge, z77 also has Virtu MVP and some other functions most people never use.
Any modern motherboard with a PCI-E 2.0 or 3.0 x16 has support for your graphics card.