Out of Pod Experience

Hi there. I just did some quick googling and looked at some comparison benchmarks. Overall, the combo of an AMD FX 4100 and a Geforce GTX 650 is pretty underwhelming. They're both (very) low-end components. Check the minimum and recommended system requirements for Skyrim and DA:I. My guess is you'll pass the bar for minimum. You'll probably be ok for Skyrim, but DA:I might struggle. Depends on how low you're willing to turn down the settings. You can play EVE on just about anything. Hope this helps.

http://cpubenchmark.net/cpu_lookup.php?cpu=AMD+FX-4100+Quad-Core
http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu.php?gpu=GeForce+GTX+650

I run the following and play a whole slew of games on maximum, near-maximum, or "somewhere in the middle but still gorgeous" depending on the game and its optimization:

Processor: AMD FX-8320 8-core processor @ 3.5 GHz
RAM: 3GB DDR3
Hard Drive: 500GB Toshiba SATA (came with system) & 1TB Western Digital Black SATA
Graphics: NVIDIA GTX 960 SSC 2GB
Motherboard: MSI 760GM-P34(FX)
Power Supply: XFX Pro 550W
Operating System: Windows 10

I've had this system for a few years now, and the occasional hardware upgrade on the GPU or CPU is basically all it has ever needed, and that has only been one round of upgrades. Next I may look at motherboard and another GPU boost, with maybe a bit of RAM too. That or the CPU, kind of torn...

Hi guys,

Thanks for your advice. I will spring for the ssd and I will probably upgrade the cpu and gpu at some point. Just need to find out what I can upgrade to without replacing everything else

Are you not paid per thread you moderate?

What's your budget, total? There may be other things you can do. The current setup is underwhelming in any case.

For both NVidia and AMD GPU's, the 'gaming' range starts with 60 (3 numbers) or 600 (4 numbers) at the end, take that as a rule of thumb. Anything under that is meant for office use or budget gaming, and won't be able to run newer games especially smooth.

If you want to run DAI, i'd recommend a proper SSD (Samsung 850 500gb or something like that) at the very least (otherwise loading times will be excrutiatingly long). You'll also want a good quadcore CPU and a good GPU - The game is rather heavy and inefficient, and leans on both relatively equally. A 'budget' PC may not be good enough for it unless you're okay with 30 FPS at the lowest settings.

I don't know much about CPU's, but i personally lean towards Intels for the past few years. They definetely have an edge over AMD's and may be worth the extra cash, especially for gaming as more and more games go multi CPU (DAI is just one example).

Do avoid Skylakes though for now (Intels in the 6000 range), as they also require DDR4 and newer, more expensive chipsets without much performance increase (yet).

well if i really can't play DA:I it's no great loss. playing EVE on high is the main thing for me right now, perhaps WoW and SWTOR.