Hello . If you are looking to upgrade/build a PC from Core 2 Duo / Phenom / etc. i would like to help you depending of many factors a good choice for a fresh start with a good socket processor and looking for 1080p gaming resolution and 720p HD.


To start i want to tell you that i don't have idea about U$S prices in EEUU; or the money that you use, i will try to be the most accurate possible.

First, i want you to watch the follow video, it may help you, not even with graphics card, also with processors choice:



-------------------------

1. It's crucial to know which motherboard you will choose, if one for Crossfire / SLI, Four Channel, Overclocking, etc... the most important thing, is the socket and the memory tipe.

If you are going to choose i3/i5/i7/ 4xxx / Pentium GXXX, the socket is LGA1150 and DDR3.

If you are going to choose AMD FX, the socket is AM3+ and DDR3.

If you are going to buy i3/i5/i7/Pentium Skylake, the socket is 1151 and DDR4.

There are a lot of sockets and chipsets to buy, i usually recommend the chipset B85 for Haswell (Intel), H170 for Skylake (Intel) and Asus Evo 2.0 for AMD FX Processors. ALLWAYS A88x chipset for APUs.

Now, lets suppose that i have 450 U$S, and i'm looking for 1080p, without importance about details settings.

In this case, it's very difficult to say something if you are looking for an upgrade. APU is not a bad choice if you don't care about details / resolution, but if you buy an APU, take for sure that you will need a faster RAM, a good chipset from your motherboard, and it's very possible that, even A10 Godavari, to bottleneck your PC if you buy a i.e. R9 380 - GTX 970.

This is the first option:

- APU A10 7850K
 - 2x4 Corsair Vengeance 2133 Mhz
 - EVGA 500w 80 Plus
 - 1 TB Western Digital
 - Thermaltake Versa
 - A88X Chipset Motherboard

 All for about 420$ (Amazon)

Now, if you are looking or you are fanboy of Intel, there are better / many options, i.e. G4400 (Skylake DDR4) or i3 + GPU in that range of price. I personally recommend this option, because you have too much posibilities to upgrade (i5 - i7) the processor and the GPU by separated way, and you aren't stuck like with the APU. I don't recommend absolutely nothing FX Processors, they're old and need an extra-cooler to work properly without high temperatures.

i3 6100 Skylake
H110 Gigabyte Motherboard
2x4 DDR4 Kingston HyperX Fury
EVGA 500w 80 Plus
Thermaltake Versa/Commander
1TB Western Digital
R7 250x (Regular for 1080p, very good for 720p)
 
All about 470$ (Amazon), clearly a very better option and performance, just for a little bit more of cash.

You can look at: R7 250x, R7 260x, R7 370 or R9 380. It depends of how much performance you want and how much MONEY you have.

That is the minimum needed for 1080p gaming, you can also take a look at the A8 7650k or decrease the case price, if you have - money than 400$

If you have no more than 250$, you can't expect so much from this. You just can play TF2, SA:MP, GTA IV... etc,

For these situations, i recommend you an A6-6600K, with a standard motherboard, case and power supply, 4GB of RAM, and 1TB Disk.

Or, you can get a G3250 intel processors, that is a lot better than the A6 but it's integrated graphics is poor. If you choose it, get an HD 6670 atleast (to discard the needing of a power supply).

600 U$S PCs:

- i5 4460
 - 2x4 Corsair Vengeance
 - GTX 950
 - B85
 - Seasonic 620W
 - Corsair Carbide 100R
 - 1 TB Disk.

With a PC like this, you can run every game to 1080p Medium-High settings, so that's the concept of price to performance, i personally recommend this option for a medium-high gaming experience. You will get more than 40-50fps in any game, at exception of AC Unity / Syndicate, badly optimized games.
 
800 U$S PCs:

Processor: i5 4460/4590/4690k
Motherboard: Asus / Gigabyte / MSI B85/H97
RAM: Corsair / GSkill / Kingston 2x4GB 1600MHz CL9
HDD: 1TB Western Digital Caviar Blue / Caviar Black
SDD (Optional): Samsung Evo 250 GB
Video-graphics Card: GTX 950 / GTX 960 4GB / R9 380 4GB / R9 380x
PSU: 600w 80 Plus (Antec, Cooler Master, Corsair, EVGA, Seasonic, TT, XFX)
Case: TT V3 / V4 / Commander - Cooler Master N300 - Corsair Carbide 100R


Gloriouses PCs Gaming Master Race (more than 1000/1500$):

Processor: i7 4790k (1150) / i5 6600k / i7 6700k (Skylake)
Motherboard: Asus Z97 / Gigabyte H170 (for Skylakes)
RAM: Corsair Vengeance DDR3 / DDR4
HDD: 2TB x 2 Western Digital Caviar Blue
SDD (Optional): Samsung Pro 1 TB
Video-graphics Card: GTX 970 / 980 Ti
PSU: 750w 80 Plus (Antec, Cooler Master, Corsair, EVGA, Seasonic, TT, XFX)
Case: CoolerMaster Trooper


The post will be in constantly update, if you have a doubt you can ask any community or me on IRC. I hope to have helped you.