Need to upgrade PC but don't know what to add next

Not nearly enough info provided.

Budget? What specific games? At what resolution? Rendering videos 6 hours a day, week, month, or year?

The standard advice is to upgrade the graphics if your CPU is at least in the ballpark, unless you have a budget large enough for both CPU, graphics card, motherboard, and maybe new RAM.

That AMD processors scores 4300 on the Passmark benchmark. By comparison, a 6 (?) year old Intel i5-2500 scores 6233; a 1 year old Intel i-5 6600K scores 7849; and the current expensive Intel i7-6900K scores 17528. It's around $1000; the 6600K is about $245.

The Passmark benchmark isn't highly correlated to gaming performance, but it gives you an idea of overall horsepower.

If video rendering speed is highly important, you probably would want an Intel i-7 unless you are restricted by budget.

I'd guess most would tell you to replace your CPU unless your budget is highly restricted. You'd need to replace the motherboard also if you go with Intel.

Most would also tell you to add an SSD for anywhere from $50 on up, depending on how much space you need on the C partition.

I'm not sure how far you can upgrade the CPU if you stay with your current AMD motherboard. Others will know.

So--provide more details about tasks and your budget.

Do you intend to rebuild yourself or have it done or buy an entirely new PC?

If your graphics card is good enough, then play around with this:

New Intel motherboard 150--Asus, Asrock, or Gigabyte; either H170 or Z170 chipset.

New Intel i5 CPU; 200 to 250; a K model only if you intend to overclock. Something in the range of i5-6400 to i5-6600K.

SSD: 50 to 100, depending on size.

Probably 8 GB new DDR4 RAM: 50

That's off the top of my head and assumes you don't need Windows, a case, monitor, or hard drives other than the SSD.

DeathByMayson said:

What Intel motherboard and SSD do you reccomend? Also will getting a new CPU mess up my computer in any way?

If you get an Intel CPU, you will also have to replace the motherboard and probably RAM. Those 3 things are the primary components of the PC, should be compatible with your case, monitor, hard drives, keyboard, mouse, Windows, etc.

I don't use video cards, so I'll let others comment on that.

Most Intel processors include graphics capability that is good enough for non-gamers like me and for some people who do mid-level gaming also.

Here are some good SSD brands: Crucial, Intel, and Samsung.

Before choosing an SSD, you need to decide how much capacity you need. My C partition uses only about 40 GB, so I'm fine with a 128 GB SSD that costs about $75.

If you have 500 GB occupied on C, you'd need a much larger SSD than me.

But maybe you can do what a lot of people do: use the SSD just for Windows and applications. Put all personal data on a regular internal hard drive. If you do that, maybe you don't need a big SSD.

Motherboard: if you want to overclock, you'd likely need an ATX motherboard with a Z170 chipset. If not, an H170 chipset is fine.

Look around for that from Asus, Asrock, and Gigabyte in the $120 to $170 range. There's a bunch of them and the difference will be mostly in features--that you may or may not need. Depends on if you have a lot of peripherals that need to be plugged in or have a lot of doo-dads or want to do serious overclocking. I've never spent over $160 on a motherboard.

You have a "Cyberpower" PC now. It's possible that it has a peculiar case that is not compatible with normal PC components, but that's unlikely.

If your power supply is 5 or 6 years old, you might consider replacing it too for $60 or $80.

Good brands: Seasonic, EVGA, and some from Corsair or Coolermaster.

DeathByMayson said:

ignatzatsonic said:

DeathByMayson said:

What Intel motherboard and SSD do you reccomend? Also will getting a new CPU mess up my computer in any way?

If you get an Intel CPU, you will also have to replace the motherboard and probably RAM. Those 3 things are the primary components of the PC, should be compatible with your case, monitor, hard drives, keyboard, mouse, Windows, etc.

I don't use video cards, so I'll let others comment on that.

Most Intel processors include graphics capability that is good enough for non-gamers like me and for some people who do mid-level gaming also.

Here are some good SSD brands: Crucial, Intel, and Samsung.

Before choosing an SSD, you need to decide how much capacity you need. My C partition uses only about 40 GB, so I'm fine with a 128 GB SSD that costs about $75.

If you have 500 GB occupied on C, you'd need a much larger SSD than me.

But maybe you can do what a lot of people do: use the SSD just for Windows and applications. Put all personal data on a regular internal hard drive. If you do that, maybe you don't need a big SSD.

Motherboard: if you want to overclock, you'd likely need an ATX motherboard with a Z170 chipset. If not, an H170 chipset is fine.

Look around for that from Asus, Asrock, and Gigabyte in the $120 to $170 range. There's a bunch of them and the difference will be mostly in features--that you may or may not need. Depends on if you have a lot of peripherals that need to be plugged in or have a lot of doo-dads or want to do serious overclocking. I've never spent over $160 on a motherboard.

So you're saying if I got an Intel CPU then some of my other components would not work?

I said this. Did you read it?

"If you get an Intel CPU, you will also have to replace the motherboard and probably RAM. Those 3 things are the primary components of the PC, should be compatible with your case, monitor, hard drives, keyboard, mouse, Windows, etc."

The key words in that are "should be compatible".

Unless you have a weird case (unlikely) or a weird power supply (also unlikely).

I'm not making any comments about the video card since I don't use them.