Upgrade, or just buy new

[spawnie]

is it worth trying to upgrade an older PC to play newer games ? my mother board is an Asus M2N68-LA..it can handle 8 gigs of ram, there is only 4 gigs installed. The CPU in it is an AMD Phenom 9500..is there a better cpu that can go in this mobo, or should I just use this one till it dies and just buy a new PC..I tried playing Fallout 4 on this PC, and it can play it on low setting, but it has a really low FPS. The video card is an Nvidia GeForce GTX 550Ti

 

[Ztdutxjgxgtu]

The cpu, mobo is too old.
Just buy new pc, keep this as backup.
Gtx550 was a good card but no enough, these days

 

[Danra]

To upgrade or not depends upon what case, power supply and if using one a CD, DVD or Blu-Ray you are using because, if they are high quality especially the power supply, they will be the only things you will keep if you upgrade.

Almost the entire computer will need to be gutted. If you replace the motherboard make sure it will fit inside your case and mount properly [large enough].

If you purchase a new computer get at least 16GB of 3000 [speed] DDR4 and Nvidia GTX 1060 or ATI RX 580 with at least 3GB of VRAM as that will permit you to play MOST video games at 1080p resolution, 4 to 6GB is better for games with a lot of graphics at that resolution.

The CPU can either be AMD or Intel these days. For games that use one or two cores Intel is best, such as an i5-8500. For games that use more than 4 cores AMD is usually the new king. Check the overall price of CPU and Motherboard to determine which is least expensive for your purposes, probably an AMD. https://www.amd.com/en/products/cpu/amd-ryzen-5-2600x

Remember, no matter how many cores your games use there will be programs or Windows operating system components running in the background, so an extra CPU core or two more than a game uses will help game performance.

A AMD Ryzen 5 2600X is a very good choice because it has a slightly better cooler and higher clock speed that some games will utilize, and it is vastly less expensive than an Intel i7-8086K, and considerably less than an i7-8700K, especially when motherboards and CPUs are both included in a price search. And with 6 cores and 12 threads this CPU should last at least 10 years regarding games because it is much more difficult to create games that utilize 12 threads vs 2 or even 4 threads.

Most important is what most people ignore, get a high quality power supply. There are some good ones, such as Seasonic. Go to www.junnyguru.com for outstanding GPU reviews. Depending upon the demands of the hardware you purchase, a good quality GPU from 550 watts to 650 watts should be plenty for a $1,200 to $1,400 U.S. purchase for a complete new build.

In your case, at the very least get a GTX 1060 or ATI 580 with 4 to 6GB of memory. Yes, those cards will perform better in a new computer build, however, they will yield higher fps than what you now can accomplish in many games. Note: If games you play are CPU "hogs" you will need a better CPU to get more performance.

 

[polis_putrus]

How much money do you have to spend?