Wanting upgrade CPU but very tight budget

[Plorine]

A chain is only as strong as its weakest link, right?

First off excuse me if I use incorrect terms, I'm not great in this area.

My current CPU is an AMD-FX 8320 which is serving me well for most games but there are a few games out there that run like crap because it's catered towards Intel and I've been surprised at the performance difference between my CPU and an Intel equivalent.

I'm not particularly looking for an "upgrade" but to generally switch over to Intel be it an equivalent, an upgrade would be a nice touch but as said, not necessary however I'm not 100% sure where the line stands in terms of CPU gaming performance, I don't know the difference between having an 8 core processor vs an Intel dual core, how many games actually support multi-threading and the difference having more cores makes.

Motherboard is a GIGABYTE 990FXA-UD3, I'm not great with socket compatibility or bottlenecking so help in this area would be appreciated.

Rest of the specs in-case they're needed:

GPU - GTX 970 4GB
Memory - 16GB
Windows 10 64x
PSU - 750W

As said in the title my budget is tight, I recently dropped money into a GTX 970 and more memory and my financial situation is generally not good right now. In an ideal world I'd like a second hand Intel CPU, I'm not fussed about a cooler if that would make it any cheaper but I'm not sure where to look, I'm not looking for a meaty CPU, brand new mine costs roughly £95, a second hand, Intel equivalent couldn't be too expensive, right?

 

[Ironsounds]

Hello... You cant put a Intel CPU into your current MB.
Here is a general performance list of CPU's... http://www.cpubenchmark.net/common_cpus.html

 

[Plorine]

OH really? well that's put a quick ending to this thread, thanks for the heads up

What about a fairly cheap motherboard that would fit what I'm looking for?

 

[geofelt]

Yes, you would be looking at a new motherboard.

Many games depend on the performance of a single master thread.
Typically, sims, mmo, and strategy games fall into that category.
Few games can actually use more than 22-3 threads.
Your FX-8320 has a single thread passmark rating of 1397 and a total rating of 8027 when all 8 cores are actually in use.
By comparison, the I3-4170 @3.7 costs less but has only 4 threads(2 fast and 2 slow)
The single thread rating is 2136 and the total is 5168.

Which is better for YOU depends on your games.

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To help clarify your CPU/GPU options, run these two tests:

a) Run YOUR games, but lower your resolution and eye candy.
If your FPS increases, it indicates that your cpu is strong enough to drive a better graphics configuration.
If your FPS stays the same, you are likely more cpu limited.

b) Limit your cpu, either by reducing the OC, or, in windows power management, limit the maximum cpu% to something like 70%.
Go to control panel/power options/change plan settings/change advanced power settings/processor power management/maximum processor state/
This will simulate what a lack of cpu power will do.
Conversely what a 30% improvement in core speed might do.

You should also experiment with removing one core. You can do this in the windows msconfig boot advanced options option. set the number of processors to less than you have.
This will tell you how sensitive your games are to the benefits of many cores.

If your FPS drops significantly, it is an indicator that your cpu is the limiting factor, and a cpu upgrade is in order.

It is possible that both tests are positive, indicating that you have a well balanced system, and both cpu and gpu need to be upgraded to get better gaming FPS.
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