Upgrade CPU or GPU?

Frogfish

Honorable
Jul 25, 2013
6
0
10,510
I have an aging system and am considering an upgrade. I use it for gaming, movies and web browsing. This is what I have:

Motherboard: Asus M5A97 R2.0
Memory: 8 Gb
CPU: Athlon II X2 240
GPU: Nvidia Geforce GTS 250 Dark Knight

I believe that my mobo will support, for example, an AMD FX 8320 3.5GHZ. That would cost me around $185 here in Sweden. For the same price I could get a Radeon HD7850 1GB.

Which of these two alternatives would give me the biggest overall improvement? Getting both would strain my wallet too much right now.
 
Solution
The way I see it, your CPU is underpowered compared to your GPU. I'm optimistic for AMD to perform really well in next-gen games, so I'd recommend grabbing the 8320.

Frogfish

Honorable
Jul 25, 2013
6
0
10,510


I play everything from shooters to strategy games and would like to be able to play the latest stuff coming out the next year or so (Watch Dogs, Titanfall etc). My monitor is 1680x1050 but I plan on one day upgrading to a 2560x1440.
My budget is around $200 right now, maybe a bit more in a month or so.
 

Frogfish

Honorable
Jul 25, 2013
6
0
10,510


Thanks guys! I will have a look around for a good deal on a new CPU.