Upgrading my current build!

[philipmccann]

I'm fairly new to taking an interest in the hardware my computer has and I'm thinking of upgrading my current specs, for gaming preferably. I'm very cost sensitive too. I currently have:
Motherboard: BIOSTAR A780L3L
PSU: Tesla 750W
RAM: 8GB (2x4GB)
Processor: AMD Athlon II X4 Quad-Core
Harddrive: 1TB Hitachi ATA Device
GPU: Radeon ATI 5450

The most fundamental upgrade I want at the minute is a GPU upgrade, I recently bought a Radeon 7750 and had white lines across my screen. Whether this is compatibility or a GPU fault I don't know, so I returned it. I'm thinking of buying the Zotac NVIDIA GTX 650 1GB. A friend of mine told me it wouldn't be compatable with my current motherboard.

So long ado, my question is this. Should I save and save and invest in an Intel motherboard and i5 processor. Or purchase a new motherboard, and (if it's possible) use my X4 Quad-Core on it? I'm very much into my gaming, but I wouldn't call myself serious and do not require the absolute latest tech. Cheers!

 

[rolli59]

The GTX650 will work fine with your board and most likely the HD7750 was faulty. The card will be a massive upgrade from your current HD5450.

 

[philipmccann]

The GTX650 will work fine with your board and most likely the HD7750 was faulty. The card will be a massive upgrade from your current HD5450.

Cheers! The game I want to run, is Rome Total War 2. At the moment it runs fine on low settings, but I'm hoping for medium-high. So the processor is acceptable? I was thinking of the Intel i3 but was told the X4 QC is pretty in-line with that model and only worth switching to Intel to buy the i5.

 

[rolli59]

Your CPU should hold you over for a while still, the GPU is the part holding you back.