Parts

Operating System

Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit SP1 (Some people have informed me that this Windows doesn't allow over 16gb of ram but does this matter in the short term, is there a workaround or should I just upgrade to Windows 10)

CPU

AMD FX-6300

Vishera 32nm Technology

RAM

16.0GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 803MHz (Two 8GB Sticks)

Motherboard

Gigabyte Technology Co. Ltd. GA-78LMT-USB3 6.0 (Socket M2)

Graphics

2048MB (1.1GHz) ATI AMD Radeon R7 360 Series

HP x2301 (1920x1080@60Hz)

Storage

931GB Western Digital SATA Disk Device

Extra Info

6 Fans, 1 in the Front, 1 in the Back, 1 in the PSU, 2 in the GPU and 1 on the Side Panel.

The games I usually play are both CPU intensive and GPU intensive. However the games I play pretty consistently are Overwatch (Ultra setttings, No Motion Blur, Render Resolution 83%, which gets 60fps with some drops to 50) and Rainbow Six Siege (With Medium settings, everything turned on and Very High Shadows, this gets me constant 60fps)

Now what I really want from an upgrade is better preformance and graphics quality if it is at all possible on a pretty tight budget of around 200 dollars give or take and if it needs a few parts then I can keep saving up. I've had this Pc for around 2 years now and the only changes I've made to it is a change to the PSU after the old one died.

Whoever told you that 64-bit Windows cant see more than 16GB isn't correct. It's literally partially the reason why there is a 64-bit version. Regardless you should be on Windows 10.

(after looking it up) I stand corrected, but this is just fucking stupid and counterintuitive.

Here are the upper RAM limits for the different editions of Windows 7:

• Starter: 8GB
• Home Basic: 8GB
• Home Premium: 16GB
• Professional: 192GB
• Enterprise: 192GB
• Ultimate: 192GB

your actually looking pretty good for a cheap upgrade on that system.

Getting a new GPU, the GTX 1050ti, is probably your best option. It is around 55% faster (or better if you get an OC'd one) than what you have, and It costs around $180 - so that should suit your needs and budget.

You are going to have to pop the side off your case and check your PSU specs, though. Some 1050's require a 6pin PSU power cable that I'm not sure that you have. The 1050 doesn't need much power, as it is very efficient, so it generally has the same PSU requirements the R7 370 does - but, you would want to double check it still against your PSU specs.

The only issue I can see is that your CPU may hold back performance gains in some titles. But, some good news on that - your motherboard supports the 8 core FX 8350. It is only 25% more powerful than what you have, but you can also find it dirt cheap. It is, however, the best CPU that will run on that motherboard, so if you want better you would need a new motherboard.

These would be the last upgrades you can do on that board. Next time you get to start from scratch.

I would just keep saving, that cpu is going to bottlekneck any upgrade and as a former owner of an 8350, it wont be much better. Dddr4 is super expensive so moving to current gen cpu will cost you 200 on ram alone almost, not including the cpu and motherboard.

Honestly there is not quick 200$ fix since your cpu is so bad for gaming.

Go for one of the new AMD Ryzen 3 chips are the corresponding motherbaord. It will be more expensive but it will be current and have a upgrade path in the future. The build as it is now is so outdated that I feel as if it isn't worth it since you'll need to upgrade all of the core components almost immediately. This is one of those situations where saving up a bit will be a lifesaver. It's a good idea to use Windows 10 now as well.

Edit: Save up another $300, for $500 you can build/buy a pretty solid Ryzen 3 build. I know it's not what you want to hear but it's the truth. Sticking with the processor you have now is just going to bottleneck everything and there is no upgrade path from there so you'll end up with a new board/ram/cpu anyway

I also have owned that CPU, it's bad for gaming and it certainly held back my GTX 1070 - Still though, I was still playing almost everything at 60fps+ with high settings - Doom, The Witcher 3, etc etc - But, I mean, the 1070 is ~150% faster than the 1050 ti. Even the 970 is lot faster (~60%).

That 1050ti is very mid range, and it would take A LOT to bottleneck it. I think the 1050 ti is a pretty decent match for that AMD CPU, and the 8350 (even his current 6300) should let it stretch its little legs in most cases.

It wont be a great improvement, but from his current low end GPU it's still a meaningful upgrade for him (IMO). There are many worse ways to spend $200 on performance. I mean, games can bench close to double the FPS on the 1050ti vs the r7 360... That's not too shabby, even if the FX hold back a little of those gains.

I guess it depends on how valuable that $200 is to him.

Does upgrading from Win7 Pro to Win10 really have much of an impact on performance?

I just want to second this, emphatically. I upgraded to a 1050 last week (supposed to be a 1050ti, so the seller is sending a replacement), and it's maybe the best budget tier card I've ever seen, especially if you play games at around 1080p. It won't max everything out, but it'll come damn close, and I don't think there's a game out there that a 1050-series can't run at 1080 and decent-to-good framerate with at LEAST medium-high settings. Maybe Mankind Divided, but that's this generation's Crysis, from what I've seen. I've heard tell of Titans struggling with that game.

Sorry if I'm gushing/sounding shill-ish, but I'm still kind of shocked at what this thing can do for the price. Obviously, there are far more powerful cards out there, some of which aren't that much more expensive than the 1050ti, but speaking solely from my own experience, you really can't go wrong with one of these. They're dirt cheap (by GPU standards) and will handily boost both games you mentioned without breaking a sweat.

@swonkeydonkey: @tommytours: Upgrading to Win 10 normally wouldn't improve performance much, if at all. However, when AMD introduced the Bulldozer-based architectures, the unique "dual-core" design they used, 2 ALUs for every 1 FPU, really confused Window's process scheduler. Microsoft was used to the way Intel did virtual cores with Hyperthreading, and failed to make effective use of AMD's architecture.

Supposedly, Microsoft introduced updates to Win 7's scheduler to correct the issues, but there's still the possibility that 10 is even better out of the box, as 7 moves to a more security-focused patch support scheme. Remember also that Microsoft only supports DX12 on Win 10, so you're going to want to be there eventually, and it's entirely possible only 10 is getting the performance-focused updates. I've heard you can still get the upgrade for free if you get it from MS's accessibility website. Not sure if that still works, since I've not used it in awhile.

@tommytours: no, most games don't have dx12 and those that do don't benefit much from it. Windows 10 is an upgrade though, they have added a game mode but i have yet to try it. Only issue i have with 10 is forced upgrades even with the pro version.