CPU upgrade for games

[jevanb]

my son (13) plays lots of games, he is always complaining about lag, (GTA5, arma3,skyrim) he upgraded his ram to 10Gig, and he bought a Gforce GTX960 video card then found out his power supply needs replaced , So we put in a 600w powersupply, his system is a gateway desktop with a gateway motherboard DX4380g v1.02 , ad his chip is AMD A6-5400k apu w/radeon hd graphics single core. What chip and or motherboard should he buy under 200 bucks that would boost his performance with out breaking the bank, I might throw in 150 more if he is good and do his chores...lol, BTW his socket is a FM2

 

[Hydroshot]

my son (13) plays lots of games, he is always complaining about lag, (GTA5, arma3,skyrim) he upgraded his ram to 10Gig, and he bought a Gforce GTX960 video card then found out his power supply needs replaced , So we put in a 600w powersupply, his system is a gateway desktop with a gateway motherboard DX4380g v1.02 , ad his chip is AMD A6-5400k apu w/radeon hd graphics single core. What chip and or motherboard should he buy under 200 bucks that would boost his performance with out breaking the bank, I might throw in 150 more if he is good and do his chores...lol, BTW his socket is a FM2

CPU: AMD FX-6300 3.5GHz 6-Core Processor ($121.75 @ Vuugo)
Motherboard: Asus M5A97 LE R2.0 ATX AM3+ Motherboard ($89.99 @ Memory Express)
Total: $211.74 is this good ?
http://ca.pcpartpicker.com/part/asus-motherboard-m5a97ler20

http://ca.pcpartpicker.com/part/amd-cpu-fd6300wmhkbox

 

[synphul]

If it's within budget, I'd opt for an i5 with h97 motherboard at around $250. His current cpu is likely holding him back some but if playing multiplayer online it's not always the system. Sometimes it can be server lag which has been known to affect games like arma3.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4460 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor ($176.95 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H97M-HD3 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($74.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Total: $251.94

To try and keep closer to $200 there's the option to go with an fx 6300 and overclock it. This would be a decent affordable motherboard for overclocking a 125w cpu along with a decent budget aftermarket cooler to keep it cool when oc'd.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD FX-6350 3.9GHz 6-Core Processor ($119.95 @ SuperBiiz)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($25.98 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3P ATX AM3+ Motherboard ($82.89 @ OutletPC)
Total: $228.82
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-08-02 16:28 EDT-0400
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-08-02 16:22 EDT-0400

This is sort of why I considered the i5, it has stronger performance than current amd cpus despite have fewer cores and what appears to be lower clock speed due to its design. It processes more per cycle than the amd cpus do so comparing ghz between amd/intel is more like apples and oranges. It's only around $20 cheaper going with the amd setup. There are less expensive amd am3+ motherboards but many inexpensive boards have weaker voltage regulators which can lead to thermal throttling (slowing the cpu down to prevent heat issues).

Games like skyrim are more cpu intensive than others and typically run a bit better on intel cpus due to their higher core performance.

The 4460 would be close in performance to the 2500k (stock speed in this comparison).
http://www.techspot.com/review/467-skyrim-performance/page7.html

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-processor-frame-rate-performance,3427-6.html