Ive been told that my CPU isn't good enough. Do i need to upgrade?

The fx 6350 is basically a higher clocked fx 6300. That would not be an upgrade. You can OC the fx 6300 to the same clocks and it will perform like an fx 6350 or even better (if you OC more).
What is your basic system configuration?. The only logical upgrade would be to go with an intel mobo+cpu but you can keep the fx 6300 for a bit more.

This really wasn't needed. I just wanted to know the cpu (already know), gpu model (still unknown at this point), motherboard model (already known), amount of ram and clockspeed of ram and power supply model.

When you say 'applications' what type of applications do you mean? If you mean things like games and video/image editing, then your GPU will play an important part in this. Do you know what video card you have? It's not in that list that you posted.

I think it means games because he/she mentioned running "a demanding game" in the last question.

Ah yes, I missed that when reading. So we need to know what GPU (Video/Graphics card) you have, Chadders, because that is likely the cause of your lag. The Fx6300 is still a great CPU even in newest games, so I doubt your CPU is the problem.

The FX 6300 is not 'bad' whatsoever. With an R9 380 and the FX6300, you shouldn't be having any problems with performance. It does depend on how demanding the games are, that you are playing, but in general it should be fine. You say you have a 'brand new' GPU... Have you got the most up to date drivers for it?

There is a posssibility that your CPU is overheating (or your gpu). Do you have good case airflow? What cpu cooler are you using? (if you are using the stock cooler that would definitely cause overheating and thus thermal throttling). Also, the drivers included on the CD are not the latest drivers (that would be impossible) but the latest drivers at the time the CD was made. I guess you installed Catalyst Control Center from the CD (If not, go to AMD's official site and install it along with the latest drivers). Enter it and on the Software update check update beta drivers and then wait for it to find new drivers and install them (an exe will download). Latest games optimization are included in the beta drivers so you need to update to the latest drivers (even beta ones, as AMD WHQL certification is not that often).
P.S. WHQL certification is just a certification (they have to pay MS money for that and wait 2-3 weeks), it doesn't necessarily mean the drivers are better. (Nvidia has WHQL drivers more often but they still have many problems).

Thought so. The drivers on the CD that come with any PC product are always out of date. Either download the most up to date drivers from AMDs client Catalyst Control, or if you haven't got that, go to AMDs website and download the drivers from there. If that doesn't work, then as Compuser10165 says, you could be having temperature issues, which will cause your CPU/GPU to perform really slowly, which is a safety measure to avoid damage to your PC.

If your running the stock cooler for a 6350, i can pretty much guarantee you that its now overheating, you removed your gpu bottleneck, thus allowing the cpu to have much higher utilization.

is this an OEM(store bought) system or have you assembled it yourself? if OEM, there may be a lot of unneeded system utilities and other applications running hogging your processing power, memory & disk usage.

i haven't seen a reply with the type of case you are using. as Compuser stated, if the system isn't getting good airflow / good cooling, then this would also hold you back.

and that is a very cheap and lower end FX motherboard. you could upgrade to a higher quality 990FX and get more from your existing hardware: ASUS Sabertooth 990FX, though this is a US link.

AMD's latest R9 300 drivers link for Windows 8.1 x64

Overclock the kwap out of that 6300, burn the mf down, no where left worth going with that rig, after the fire dept. puts it out, buy intel..

Wow this thread got long. You have been misinformed that your CPU is bad. In fact, it's sitting 2 tiers from the top tier of gaming performance. Source: Toms Hardware's very own 'best gaming cpu's for the money' article:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-cpu-review-overclock,3106-5.html

I write this a lot on here - you want to understand how many cores the game you want to play best uses. For instance mine's World of Tanks. It uses only 1 core. So when upgrading from my trusty 'ol Intel X6600 quad core, I looked at PER CORE performance of AMD and Intel chips. What did I find? An I3 comes in about 2100 CPU Marks per core while AMD's come in at far less. An I7? Also just over 2100 CPU Marks per core. What did I get? An I3 with the ability to upgrade to an I7 when mine is feeling a little dogged.

What is the application or game you're wanting to improve? In general, video editing uses 2GB system ram per core, so your 6 core to 16GB isn't optimized for video processing either. Of course I don't know what application or game you're trying to optimize, and maybe 2.6GB is the optimal GB ram-per-core your application recommends.

I have an intel Core i7 4790K @ 4GHz, Radeon R9 290X 4G OC, 16GB RAM (2x8GB) @ 2400MHz on a Gigabyte z97 Gaming GT motherboard.

There are games that run choppy on my Rig when I crank all the details to max, like GTA V, Project Cars (In Oculus Rift DK2 Mode), Need For Speed Most Wanted, etc, etc...

The solution is to lower the graphics settings in the games until you don't get choppiness any more, that works for me on everything except Project Cars in the Rift which is a difficult beast to tame I have got it butter smooth for 90% of the time which works for me

I could buy a 2nd video card but then I'd need a new Power Supply as my 750W just won't cut the power requirements of 2 x R9 290X's so I lower the settings and bide my time until a suitably faster Video card is released.

This is the common story of Gaming on the PC, there will always be a game that will push the limits of even the fastest Rig, but that doesn't mean you should upgrade for it, just that you need to evaluate how good your PC is for most of the things you use it for.

My friend has a Core i7 920 @ 2.6GHz, nVidia GTX 960 2GB, 12GB RAM on a Gigabyte X58 UD5 motherboard and he is still more than happy with his Rig. This is what I upgraded from (Excluding the nVidia GTX 960, I had an nVidia GTX 580) and I upgraded due to the demands VR were putting on my rig, Games that run perfectly on a 40" 1080p TV @ 60Hz were running choppily in the Rift @ 75Hz. My upgrade mostly resolved my issues but I STILL need more GPU grunt or Project Cars needs more optimizations.

I did notice that there was a doubling of FPS in the Heaven benchmark on the R9 290X going from x58 Core i7 920 @ 2.6GHz to the z97 Core i7 4790K @ 4GHz.

I upgraded to get PCIe 3.0 support and USB 3.0 support was an added bonus.

My point is that if you are mostly happy with your PC then leave it alone while saving your money for a full system upgrade when a suitable upgrade is released.

If you think your hardware is OK, then I'd concentrate on the game, but tweaking games can be an uphill learning experience.

Throwing money at the problem often makes it go away. But since you're running AMD then you'd have to either get a faster AMD AM3+ CPU, or change your motherboard, CPU & RAM, (and spend time learning about them) and go Intel.

Commodity hardware makes this somewhat cheaper if you don't want to overclock, ASRock make good motherboards for cheap.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-cpu-review-overclock,3106-3.html

Depends how much you want to spend, and whether you'd rather spend that on a new build or not.

When I upgraded my machine I learned a very valuable lesson, the CPU DOES MATTER for games! Most people play down the importance of a fast/expensive CPU for gaming.

Also PCIe 3.0+ is VITAL to getting the most from your gaming experience, with PCIe 2.0 you can install a top of the range video card but it will not run full speed until you upgrade to PCIe 3.0 or higher when released. I didn't realize how much difference this made until I upgraded.

I would suggest getting the best CPU, GPU, RAM, SSD and motherboard you can afford, the new Core i7 6700 looks nice, especially because it has 20 PCIe 3.0 lanes built into the CPU allowing full PCIe 3.0 x16 connectivity to your GPU while leaving 4 lanes available for fast M.2 SSD connectivity for your boot drive and possibly a game drive too.

This would allow you to build a system that will last for years before you need to upgrade it again.

Sell off your current system and put that money to good use building a true Dream Machine.

I am not anti-AMD, I like AMD, the industry needs AMD, I have an AMD video card but I am also not a fool.

The fastest CPU's for consumers are made by intel, FACT.

The most stable and regularly upgraded graphics drivers are from nVidia, FACT.

AMD are back to competitiveness with the Fury and Fury X video cards but they really, REALLY need to put a lot more effort into their drivers. They are not unusable, broken or particularly terrible but nVidia do have better driver support with their graphics cards. That is something I noticed coming from an nVidia 580GTX to an R9 290X.

I sometimes feel like my card should be performing better than it does, like with Project Cars in the Rift, one of my friends has an nVidia 780Ti but an otherwise comparable PC and i took my Rift to his house to let him experience it and was telling him to try to ignore the slight choppiness in Project Cars but to my surprise and slight horror, there was none. An older, technically inferior card with 1GB less Frame Buffer was outperforming my R9 290X in this game, bravo nVidia, shame on you AMD lol. On paper the R9 290X 4GB factory OverClocked card was faster than the 780Ti but in this particular use case scenario it wasn't.

To this day I kinda wish I'd bought an nVidia card...Doh!

According to even the highest modern standards your system is definately
still "high end" and should still be capable of doing anything task wise with
decent power and speed despite what you may of read or heard.

Anyone who says a 6 core CPU working at almost 4Ghz, is insuffcient
needs to be given a polygraph test because they are deinately full of s*it!
If your system is slow you need to have your machine checked for a virus
or malware, and maybe look into how many service process's you have
running as something may be present in the background on your system
taking up valuable memory and cpu resources. Also if you are having trouble
with playing a particular game in particular it likely might not be your CPU
that is the bottleneck, but maybe your graphics card instead.

Some gaming requirements are actually ridiculious and are actually
INTENDED by design to make people consider an upgrade just to play
the game. Run a thorough scan on your system and update your video
card and direct x drivers. If that doesnt give you an improvement consider
replacing your video card with a newer Nvida or Radeon card.

Best of luck to you!

I use passmark to compare processors and all other components that will make up my build.

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/

your amd FX 6300 is rated - 6342 [socket is AM3+]
in comparison the intel i7 4790k is rated - 11,232

However the amd chip is about $94.00 and the intel is about $371.00
The question is do you have the best chip for the motherboard, if not, then see what possible upgrades there are.
AMD FX-9590 rated - 10,276 and goes for about $239.00 [ socket is AM3+]
If the 9590 is not compatible with your mother board then perhaps you may have to think on a rebuild.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/699?vs=1289 This link compares both amd chips mentioned. You must make the decision as to which course of action to take.

if considering an AMD uddate; 990FX board with an 8350 @ `$150-180 is a better idea than a 9590 for `$220-240

Just out of interest, why is the 990FX with an 8350 the better option?

I assume the 990FX board will have PCIe 3.0 support and the AM3+ doesn't, if that is the case I'd agree wholeheartedly, but I'd add that if your budget allows, buy the highest rated CPU for the 990FX board and get 8GB or prefferably 16GB of RAM. More and more titles require 8GB and some support more, over time this trend is only going to continue especially with Windows 10.

because all you're getting with the 9590 is a higher price and more power consumption. an 8350 clocked to >4.5GHz will give the same performance. the AM3+ board he is using is not geared towards "gaming" with overclocking or higher memory speeds in mind. a nicer 990FX board will be.