Opinions for upgrading

[DevilxDog]

I'm thinking about upgrading my GPU. My stats are:

CPU: AMD A8-5500
GPU: XFX R7 250X 2GB
RAM: 8GB PC3-12800 DDR3-1600
PSU: 500W Antec Basiq Power
Motherboard: MSI MS-7778 (Jasmine)
Monitor: ASUS VX228H

I'm looking for a card that will last me a couple years for gaming. I just got a 1080p monitor in the last year and will not be upgrading that. I am not a computer person so I will not be overclocking, SLI or any of that kind of stuff.

I will be getting some gift cards from best buy so I will be purchasing from there. I know they don't get the best deals but free money is free money. I'm not sure of my budget yet but thinking it's around $200, maybe I'll be able to stretch it to $250 but not sure.

If there's any other info you need let me know. Thanks in advance.

 

[hdgaming]

You probably need to upgrade both cpu and gpu to have a decent gaming experience. But since you only have 200$ that's not gonna work. If you want to upgrade your gpu first you could have a look at the new gtx 1050ti price/performance ratio should be very good, but your cpu will bottleneck it quite a bit.

 

[DevilxDog]

Will the 1050ti be good enough for 1080p and decently high graphics for a couple years? I thought I saw that the ti was slower than the plain 1050. How do I find out that my CPU will be bottlenecked with a new GPU and is there a way I could compare CPUs and GPUs to see if I could find a combination that would work near my budget?

 

[dontlistentome]

If I was you here's what I'd do: Wait till you get the 1080p monitor. When you do, test your favorite games on it at two resolutions(720p & 1080p) and low settings. Check the framerate you get at each resolution. If the framerate increases a lot when you drop down from 1080p to 720p that means you could benefit in those games from a more powerful videocard. If your framerate does not increase that much, it means that in those games your current performance is limited by your CPU and a more powerful videocard won't help you.

Use low settings for this test since you want to make sure the limiting factor(if any) is the CPU, not the videocard.

 

[DevilxDog]

I've been doing some research and if I have to upgrade my CPU then I need to build a new computer. My motherboard limits me to only a few CPUs and there not much of an upgrade and come with an integrated graphic card install and that would be a waste since I will be using a dedicated card.