Upgrading my desktop! A few questions for the experts!

[DeidaraLP]

Hello Forum!

I'm currently planning an upgrade for my desktop PC. I dont have much clue about PC hardware, so i need your help guys.

My current specs are:
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GeForce 8800 GT - 512MB
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Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E8400 @ 3.00GHz
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6GB RAM
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Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium
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My PC can handle games up to 2012-2013 on medium. But i would like to play the newest games like Fallout 4, Battlefield 4 and GTA V.

I'm thinking about buying AMD Radeon HD 7950, would that be good enough for the newest games, and for how long would it last before it becomes to outdated?

I have no clue about which proccesor i should buy, people tells me i need i5 but i have no clue what that means?

And is there anything else in my computer i should upgrade beside this? Or would that do it?

Last question, can i go from a Nvidia Video Card to a Radeon Video Card without any trouble, im thinking about drivers and such or is that no worry?

 

[Forever Oleg]

First of all, you have a weak dual core. Weak. Dual core. If you want to play the newest games with that, forget about Witcher 3 or GTA V at 1080p. BF4? Maybe low-meds. Fallout? maybe. The CPU will bottleneck a lot.

What RAM is it? DDR2 or DDR3?

What is your PSU?

 

[clutchc]

If you have a high quality 500W PSU (or better) w/2 x 6 pin PCIe power connectors. you can upgrade to the HD 7950. But it may not help with today's more CPU intensive games. Your platform is quite obsolete, and upgrading the CPU to keep up with the gfx card will mean buying used someplace like ebay. Plus I imagin it still uses older, slower DDR2 memory. The dual core you have now will probably bottleneck the HD 7950, meaning you won't be getting all the performance from the card it has to offer. But yes, it will make you able to play games at a faster frame rate using higher in-game settings at 1080p.

If your system is totally problem-free, you can just uninstall the old driver, remove the old card, install the new card, re-boot and install the new driver for the new card.
If you think you may have some conflicting issues going on, it may be better to run DDU from safe mode, swap cards, and then boot and install the latest driver for the new card and OS. http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/display_driver_uninstaller.html
Then run CCleaner to clean up registry errors, software conflicts, and resource-wasting crap that has accumulated over time. https://www.piriform.com/ccleaner/download
That's what I usually do, but I'm a bit of a purist.