Low Frame Rate, what do I upgrade?

[Valkyrries]

When playing certain video games, I usually range from 20-50 fps, which isn't bad - but at times it drops very low and I can barely play the game properly. It also drops to under 10 when I'm trying to stream.

My specs are:
AMD Athlon X4 880k Quad Core processor 4.40 GHz
Nividia 720 Ti graphics card
My monitor is 1280 x 1024 and has 60Hz


Also, I'm looking for a new monitor. I'm currently using an old monitor made by dell that could be more than 5 years old. When I play a game there's usually black borders on either side or the top and the bottom, what do I need to upgrade to also fix this?

I play most of my games on low/medium.

 

[MrN1ce9uy]

Is that a GT 720 or a GTX 750 Ti?

 

[Palewing]

For that last part, go the nVidia Control Panel >Adjust desktop size and position > Aspect Ratio. If that's not possible, updates to the latest nVidia drivers. If it still doesn't work, reduce the desktop resolution to match the resolution in the game. If you use another aspect than the native one, though (such as 16:9), you will always get black borders or the game will stretch (which looks even worse).

Athlon Quad Core could be anything, so you have to be more specific.

As for the graphics card, this is isn't strictly your card, but a relevant comparison none the less. http://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Nvidia-GeForce-GT-720M-vs-Nvidia-GTX-1050-Ti/m7921vs3649

And yes, if you meant a 750 Ti, then the card is probably good enough relative to the CPU.

 

[maxalge]

When playing certain video games, I usually range from 20-50 fps, which isn't bad - but at times it drops very low and I can barely play the game properly. It also drops to under 10 when I'm trying to stream.

My specs are:
AMD Athlon X4 880k Quad Core processor 4.40 GHz
Nividia 720 Ti graphics card
My monitor is 1280 x 1024 and has 60Hz


Also, I'm looking for a new monitor. I'm currently using an old monitor made by dell that could be more than 5 years old. When I play a game there's usually black borders on either side or the top and the bottom, what do I need to upgrade to also fix this?

I play most of my games on low/medium.

your cpu is bottom tier, of course streaming is going to ruin fps

 

[Palewing]

I see you have updated the post with your CPU. Indeed, streaming with that will not work well at all. A new Ryzen 7 1700x (as an example) will have a total performance of x4 what you have, easily.