Upgrade my gaming PC, or start from scratch?

[cwattis666]

Hi guys, I have very little experience with building gaming PCs and need some advice. I built a gaming PC about 6 years ago, and have gradually been upgrading parts as and when needed, but once again require an upgrade as I am starting to notice lag on newer games. I have also started streaming, and am only able to stream games such as Hearthstone, since they don't require as much power, but I want to be able to stream most games on decent settings.
I am wondering if there is an obvious component to upgrade out of my current list, that should solve my problem, or if everything is outdated and it would be easier to completely build a new one (I have very little money but can start saving, what budget components do you recommend that will be much better than my current build?)
Current Components:

-AMD FX - 4170 Quad Core Processor (I suspect this may be the weakest component, as I have not touched it since 2012, an am thinking upgrading to an i5 would do the trick? is that compatible with my other components?)
- 16GB Dual Channel DDR3 RAM
- Gigabyte Motherboard
- AMD Radeon R9 380 series (MSI) (This was the last thing I upgraded)
- 1863GB Seagate Harddrive
-750w Super Flower platinum power unit

Thank you very much for your time,
Cosmo

 

[richiestang_78]

So obviously somethign like a new Intel i5-8400 or Ryzen 2600 would be a good choice for a new setup, but you will need DDR4 RAM, which is still quite expensive especially for the faster speed that both intel and Ryzen prefer.

So to get a pretty large boost in gaming performance my suggestion would be to look for a 4th gen intel chip like the i7-4790K or i5-4690K. I think there are some 6th Gen Intel Motherboards that support DDR3 but I beleive they are rare and Im not entirely sure which ones there are. Even an older Intel chip will blow away your AMD in gaming performance.

I would then maybe look at a graphics card upgrade, something like the RX570 followed by the RX580, or maybe a GTX1060 if you cna find one on sale.

 

[bignastyid]

I'd do a platform upgrade(cpu, motherboard and ram) to a 2000 series Ryzen or 8th Gen Intel rather than spending money on your old platform.