Old System Looking To Upgrade Video Card

[69Rocket-Joe]

Build:
MoBo: ASRock 870 EXTREME3
RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
CPU: Phenom II X4 B40
PSU: OCZ Fatal1ty 550W
Win 7 64bit

I also have a second system (has some instability issues so it is used as a HTPC but I can swap things around I just never got around to it) I can pull the following from:
PSU: CORSAIR TX Series CMPSU-750TX 750W
CPU: Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition
plus another 4GB ram

I am currently running an old 1GB 5770 card and it is starting to fail. I don't do a ton of gaming but want something decent enough to play the new COD or BF (actually the new Batman game might be a must have for me) games if I get back into it. My budget is about $300 give or take. With the black friday deals coming up what should I look for? And would I need to swap to the 750w PSU and would I see gains with swapping CPU's?

Thanks I have been out of touch with hardware since my last build about 3 years ago...

-Joe

 

[duhmentia]

Well i would definitely add the extra 4 gb of ram and the psu. With you budget I would probably get the fx-6300 and a radeon 7850. With those you would have no problem running new games like BF and Cod on the highest settings. Also with the Black Friday deals you might be able to pick up a fx-8350 for really cheap so keep an eye on that too.

 

[69Rocket-Joe]

That is an AM3+ CPU my MoBo is AM3 will an AM3+ CPU work with an AM3 MoBo? I don't think my CPU is really a bottleneck at this time though.

Thanks,

-Joe

 

[duhmentia]

Oh sorry I didn't see that, some AM3 Mobo's can support an AM3+ CPU but it doesn't work that well because while some can support them they can't fully use all the functions of the CPU's so I wouldn't do it. But yeah your Mobo can support it.

http://www.game-debate.com/hardware/index.php?pid=1146&moboList=FX-6300

 

[69Rocket-Joe]

Oh sorry I didn't see that, some AM3 Mobo's can support an AM3+ CPU but it doesn't work that well because while some can support them they can't fully use all the functions of the CPU's so I wouldn't do it. But yeah your Mobo can support it.

http://www.game-debate.com/hardware/index.php?pid=1146&moboList=FX-6300

That shows rev2.0 mine is not a rev2.0 so I think that is not an option for me. Will probably be doing a new build in a year or two, just looking to get by for a little longer.

Thanks,

-Joe

 

[duhmentia]

Alright then I would stick in the Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition because that is stronger than your other one and i guess the only thing you would need to upgrade would be your GPU. So with your $300 dollar budget you can get a pretty good one but make sure its not good enough to cause bottlenecking.

 

[gskill support]

Don't really need to upgrade CPU until you upgrade to 970/990 series chipset motherboard to fully take advantage of better processing.

You can get SSD or RAM to create a RAM disk or something for instant improvement. It can eventually be transferred to new machine anyway.