Mid 2013 sounds good actually. I would have time to prepare and dream about the specs (I'm sure you understand what I mean) and hopefully by then we've gotten a good taste of next gen graphically. I really want that future GPU to be able to run next gen titles smoothly.

If you ever do, for the sake of your sanity, don't choose an ATI GPU!. Recent ATI GPU's hate Oblivion like it was the spawn of satan .

I bought my most expensive PC to date in April 2006, only a few weeks after the release of Oblivion, and I remember so well how that $600 Radeon X1900XT GPU could only run the game at 1280x1024 resolution at a frustrating 20-25 fps.

Even my 6770M runs Oblivion fully modded at only 30 FPS.....which is the same FPS that runs Skyrim with ENB setting and all the bajillion mods that I have .

I don't know. GPUs don't drop in price very much. They're replaced by refreshed versions instead. And the 690 is a dual GPU right? I'm worried about micro-stuttering. Plus I'm an AMD guy.

What, for real? Oblivion specifically? I don't believe that. And I'm an AMD lover so it really doesn't matter.

How many mods do u have on Skyrim and do you still play the game? What is ENB setting?

lestat and the rest of you, do you still play Diablo 3? And how about Heroes 5 and Heroes 6, are you into those games and if so, what's your opinion?

I'm also planning to invest in Civ 4 or Civ 5 if I get into PC gaming again in the coming year. And Rome Total War 2 and the new Mount & Blade.

I played D3 until June, got all my characters into Act III Inferno but decided that I didn't want to spend a bajillion gold in the AU just to be able to afford gear for Act IV Inferno. 

Also, as CGI said, some games just perform rather poorly on ATI cards, due to poor optimization, especially on the more recent GPUs. Oblivion and Morrowind are just some examples. 

I have almost 100 mods for Skyrim, though at the moment i'm using about 40. ENB are a series of enhanced shaders and effects that have been released for some games, like Skyrim, GTA IV and ME3. They add a lot of amazing effects, like Bokeh Depth of Field, SSAO + SSIL, ambient lightning and so on, and are very easy to customize. On page 5 (if you have the 50 posts per page option) of this thread you can see how Skyrim is currently looking with my setup.

Wow, absolutely amazing! I love the effects, and the lighting. It's like a different game, a next gen game.

What specs on your machine and what framerates do you achieve in outdoors scenes with these mods?

It's a laptop actually, i7 2,9 ghz, ATI radeon 6770m 2 GB (overclocked shaders) and 8 gb ram. I usually get 30 - 40 FPS outdoors (even on large battles) and only drop down into the 20 fps mark on cities with large architectures like Markarth or Solitude.