Hardware noob looking to upgrade

Hi friends, my computer has trouble playing newer games (2014 and up). The graphics card will go crazy and I'll have to restart my computer.

Spoiler: GPU Freak Out

So it's definitely time to upgrade some stuff.

Spoiler: Specs

Just wondering what you guys would suggest as far as upgrading mobo/gpu/cpu (and making sure they're compatible). Budget ~ 600 maybe more.

Thanks for any help!

 

if you're willing to go a bit above $600, this would be as good as it gets.
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/zkQLbv
You could probably get a little bit cheaper mobo, but it might require flashing the bios.

 

I'd say get a GTX 970-980 graphic card

 

Any reason to go for the i5 vs say http://pcpartpicker.com/part/amd-cpu-fd8350frhkbox when it's 2/3 the price?

 

For the most part, Intel outperforms AMD in pretty much every aspect these days. AMD is decent for a budget build, but if you want power, go Intel.

 

Games like battlefield that actually utilize all the cores run great on AMD, but 95% of games that are out now will run better with fewer, more powerful cores.
DX12 is supposed to take much better advantage of multi-core CPU's, but who knows how long it will be before games actually come out that support it.

 

Okay, is there any sort of checklist I should go through or is it fine to just swap everything out?

 

everything I linked is compatible so long as everything on your end works with it aswell.
Power supply, case (gpu length may be a problem) etc.

 

Yes, the i5 is dramatically faster.. the parts that should be suggested completely depend on what games you want to play, at what graphics settings, what resolution and what framerate you want.

 

I changed some BIOS settings when I got my SSD a while back. Not 100% sure but I may have activated AHCI mode & RAPID mode and maybe something else. Will this have any effect when replacing my parts?

Thanks for all the help so far!

 

Well those settings will be reverted to however the bios comes stock on the new motherboard. I'm not sure if you'd have any sort of data loss, but a format would be worst case scenario. I wouldn't stress about it too much, just back up anything important beforehand.

 

unfortunately it looks to me like some SERIOUS artifacting going on. it would indicate to me that your GPU is really biting the dust. sometimes, you can hold yourself off a little longer by underclocking your GPU just to make it last longer without artifacting, but you'll lose performance like this. But judging by your screenshot, that may not help you as you're not dealing with just a few artifacts but instead a shopping mall full of them.

anyway, you could upgrade your GPU to something much more modern and your gaming experience would be much better. That Phenom may not allow something like a GTX 970 or a 290x to completely stretch its legs, but you'll certainly still get fantastic framerates. unfortunately, your Motherboard is an AM3 and not an AM3+, to do any worthwhile CPU upgrades youll need a motherboard also. If you do upgrade your GPU, upgrading your CPU will probably net you up to another 10 fps. Not much, and maybe not even a problem for you if your GPU is already cranking out some serious power.

If you DO upgrade your CPU/MB, in the current state of gaming I would say something like a basic i5 would be perfect. BUT, with DX12 around the corner an 8-core FX (e.g. FX8350) would be a much better bet for the same $$, especially with the extra cores. In the current state of gaming, thread-sharing is very poorly managed and usually the load gets placed unevenly on a CPU, giving more/most/all of the load to one thread or a few constantly changing threads(ex. core 1&2 100%, 6 thru 8 have ~10% usage and these loaded cores change constantly) . Because of this reason, the Intel CPUs always take the win for their raw per-thread power. DX12 will allow developers to manage core load-sharing much more efficiently, actually allowing them to utilize and assign threads individually(ex. 1 thru 8 have ~30% or some number like that). This will bridge the current (TINY) gap in performance between FX8350 gaming rigs and i5/i7 gaming rigs.

What I'm saying in all this technical jargon is that if you go with AMD processors for upgrading your rig, there will be a long life ahead for it as well.

 

Personally I'd get rid of the AMD processor. Grab yourself an i5/i7, they are worth it. I noticed your GPU is a GTX 550 ti, I own a GTX 650 ti and I have no complaints about it for gaming, however there's newer models out that are probably better bang for your buck currently.

 

+1 to what sasrt8 said. That's why I haven't upgraded from my 8350 yet.

 

Thanks for all these details, and to everyone else for their comments.

I think I'll be upgrading to this in a month or so, and get Windows 10 while I'm at it.
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/PMhJBm

 

Make sure the RAM in your current system is compatible with this new mobo.

 

KINGSTON HYPER-X 4 GB DDR3/ 1600 MHZ (x4)
Looks like it'll be fine, thanks n4nø

 

cpu: fx 8350
gpu: R9 390