What Needs Upgraded for better gaming?

[ChocolateMilk]

Okay, I am currently wanting to do some more gaming, however currently I am lucky if I can run games on high with little lag. I will list my components.
GPU : AMD Radeon HD 7900 series(3GB)
Processor : AMD A4-6300 with Radeon HD graphics 3.7 Mhz | 1 core 2 logical
Ram : 4GB x2
PSU :800 watt
-if you need more information or specifics just tell me.

 

[emeck]

Your GPU should be fine, but i would say you should look into getting a better processor (not an apu, as you should not need it) and probably 8gb of RAM.

 

[ChocolateMilk]

Your GPU should be fine, but i would say you should look into getting a better processor (not an apu, as you should not need it) and probably 8gb of RAM.

Okay, that makes sense, however I have a whole story on this but let me sum it up, I bought my gpu for $300(decent price) and when I got it the fans didn't work. I sent it back two months later, I get another however. This one's fans work but it overheats beyond belief. If I play a game on High for more than 10 minutes it blue screens. Finally, what processor would you recommend?

 

[emeck]

Your GPU should be fine, but i would say you should look into getting a better processor (not an apu, as you should not need it) and probably 8gb of RAM.

Okay, that makes sense, however I have a whole story on this but let me sum it up, I bought my gpu for $300(decent price) and when I got it the fans didn't work. I sent it back two months later, I get another however. This one's fans work but it overheats beyond belief. If I play a game on High for more than 10 minutes it blue screens. Finally, what processor would you recommend?

Some 7900 series cards are nutorious for being really hot, you could maybe undervolt it and turn up the fan speed slightly in afterburner, but i'm not completly sure what you can do about that besides getting a different gpu altogether. (maybe i could hear your whole story?)

The processor would also depend on your budget for it, and if you are going to overclock. Keep in mind that your are probably going to need a new mobo with it too.

 

[ChocolateMilk]

Your GPU should be fine, but i would say you should look into getting a better processor (not an apu, as you should not need it) and probably 8gb of RAM.

Okay, that makes sense, however I have a whole story on this but let me sum it up, I bought my gpu for $300(decent price) and when I got it the fans didn't work. I sent it back two months later, I get another however. This one's fans work but it overheats beyond belief. If I play a game on High for more than 10 minutes it blue screens. Finally, what processor would you recommend?

Some 7900 series cards are nutorious for being really hot, you could maybe undervolt it and turn up the fan speed slightly in afterburner, but i'm not completly sure what you can do about that besides getting a different gpu altogether. (maybe i could hear your whole story?)

The processor would also depend on your budget for it, and if you are going to overclock. Keep in mind that your are probably going to need a new mobo with it too.

oh... *sighs* well I can tell you this is not the first time here goes my spent so much more than I have in a year in a month. So I bought that non working R9 series gpu, I had a msi mobo at the time "military quality" ha... A thunderstorm happened out here in colorado and it fried the board. Along with the psu. So I bought a new mobo and a new psu. Then my hard drives died, bought new drives, so at that point almost new pc. I then bought the current mobo and cpu. Side note my old gpu/mobo died before the msi, hence why I got it, along with the new gpu. So x2 motherboards 3x HDD, 2x gpu, and finally 2x psu. I had so many things die in that month the pricing was crazy. I doubt that helps. But I can see what you are saying so best answer.

 

[emeck]

oh... well.. damn. That's harsh...


..damn...

 

[Johan Kryger Haglert]

Do you know the graphics card overheat or do you assume so because it crashes?

If it was a replacement shouldn't they be able to replace it with yet another one which worked better?

Do you have any case fans?

Your A4 6300 is quad-core but it's a weak processor.
Here's a comparison of the processors available for the motherboard you already have:
=2083&cmp[]=1997&cmp[]=1935]http://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare.php?cmp[]=2083&cmp[]=1997&cmp[]=1935

The Athlon X4 760K has four cores instead of two, the A10 6800K is also somewhat higher clocked and still have the integrated graphics. For the price though and a cheap upgrade I guess the X4 760K could be a decent choice?

It's still not as good as the i3 4170 which is a dual-core chip from Intel with hyper-threading. But that chip cost 50% more and you also need a new motherboard for it (socket 1150) so total price would be more than twice as much:
=1997&cmp[]=2522]http://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare.php?cmp[]=1997&cmp[]=2522

For more of an upgrade but also at a higher price would be the quad-core chip from Intel called i5 4460:
=1997&cmp[]=2522&cmp[]=2230]http://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare.php?cmp[]=1997&cmp[]=2522&cmp[]=2230

It's more powerful than anything you can put on your motherboard but the price of the upgrade would be 3+ times more than the Athlon processor.

And here's a test of three Intel processors:
i3 4170 - 3.7 GHz, 2 real cores * 2 threads / core
i5 4450 - 3.2 GHz, 4 real cores
i7 4790K - 4.0 GHz, 4 real cores * 2 threads / core:
=2522&cmp[]=2230&cmp[]=2275]http://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare.php?cmp[]=2522&cmp[]=2230&cmp[]=2275
Where the i7 4790K is the best you can put on a socket 1150 motherboard. It's also over-clockable.

Maybe compare your chip vs upgraded Athlon processor vs i5 4460?
=2230&cmp[]=1997&cmp[]=2083]http://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare.php?cmp[]=2230&cmp[]=1997&cmp[]=2083

Passmark may not be the best test for gaming performance but

In general the AMD processors perform poorly in games relative number of cores and clock.
The top of the line eight core processors most often doesn't catch up to the top of the line four core processors from Intel in DX11 gaming/titles.

So for a cheap price which seem to be what you've been going for the 760K I guess would help somewhat.
For a good gaming CPU you'd have have to exchange both motherboard and processor and spend more money which I don't know whatever you'd want. For simplicity I'd suggest something like the i5 4460, the Xeon E3 1231-v3 or the i7 4790K in whatever price category then.

800 watt PSU is plenty powerful. Now you had a AMD graphics card but it's still kinda over-kill, but at least you're safe with that one whatever you take even if the most massive most demanding AMD choices.

Idiot URLs and idiot page. Tried them with three different ways of posting the URLs. Too lazy to short them down to something which actually link cleanly. You copy-paste them instead.