Looking for Upgrade Recommendations?

[TLMagister]

My computer's a few years old now, and I've started to notice I can't handle the best settings for AAA games from 2017. I was wondering A) What would be the most effective upgrade in terms of gaming performance B) What would be the most cost effective upgrade if on a budget? C) If anyone has specific components they'd recommend in regards to A or B considering a budget.

My rig:
AMD FX-6300 6 Core(3.5Ghz)
16GB RAM
GeForce GTX 950(2GB)

It's also not overclocked because I haven't installed an aftermarket CPU fan and have three system fans so I was a bit nervous to overclock, and I wasn't sure if the CPU is bottlenecking anyways so I wanted to leave it, or would installing aftermarket coolers and overclocking be the next step in boosting performance?

Thanks in advance for everyone taking their time to read and respond!

 

[ThatVietGuy]

There is no one upgrade that will help massively.

You're on a dead CPU platform and moving up to a higher level CPU won't add much.

Upgrading the GPU will likely result in the GPU being bottlenecked by the older CPU.

You need to come up with a number you're comfortable with spending so that we can give you a proper upgrade recommendation.

If you're not looking to spend much then moving up to Ryzen might be the best bet.

 

[TLMagister]

There is no one upgrade that will help massively.

You're on a dead CPU platform and moving up to a higher level CPU won't add much.

Upgrading the GPU will likely result in the GPU being bottlenecked by the older CPU.

You need to come up with a number you're comfortable with spending so that we can give you a proper upgrade recommendation.

Ideally, I'd like to upgrade in stages but roughly looking at $200-400? If possible I'd like to stay around 400 but if it's really that dated possibly up to $500 if I could get combined GPU/CPU for that rate.

 

[xxector]

4770 or 4790 with cheap h81 mobo
the rest to graphic card

 

[ThatVietGuy]

PCPartPicker part list: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/CrTqyf
Price breakdown by merchant: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/CrTqyf/by_merchant/

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 1600 3.2GHz 6-Core Processor ($183.39 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: MSI - B350 PC MATE ATX AM4 Motherboard ($65.88 @ OutletPC)
Memory: G.Skill - Ripjaws V Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-3000 Memory ($106.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $356.26
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-01-27 19:53 EST-0500

This is just a quick build I put together just so you can see how little you can spend for Ryzen

The problem with the GPU right now is prices are very bad due to bitcoin mining. You would probably have to stick with your current GPU for awhile until prices normalize.

 

[cryoburner]

Like ThatVietGuy said, the cost of graphics cards is very bad right now. Any card that would be a significant upgrade for you is currently marked up to around double what it should be selling for. Your GTX 950 should perform very similar to a 1050, and the 1050 Ti would only be a very minor improvement, and not at all worth the $200+ those cards are currently selling for. In order to get noticeably better graphics card performance, you would need to move up to at least a GTX 1060, but they're nearly double the price they should be right now. No graphics card would make for a "cost effective upgrade if on a budget" for you at the moment, and it will more than likely be at least a number of months before prices get more back to normal.

A CPU upgrade could help smooth performance in games where your processor can't keep up, though your limited graphics card performance will still keep you from playing many AAA games at their best settings. And since their aren't any CPUs that perform significantly better than your FX-6300 on the AM3+ platform, it also means you would need to replace your motherboard as well. And since any of the recent processors from AMD or Intel require DDR4 RAM, so you would need to replace that for them too. RAM has also climbed in price to around double what it was a year ago, so you might need to limit yourself to 8GB if on a budget as well. Or just hold out, and maybe stick with what you have for a while longer.