So... I was a PC gamer in the 90's, but then got caught up in the console era, and have only recently returned to the fold of PC Godhood ;-) I have built my machine on a shoestring budget, and come out with a FM2 system, that is entry level, but I didn't expect more from a machine costing less than £150.00(236.87USD) so now I'm going to upgrade. I'm getting a R7 250 OC 2GB DDR3 GPU for x-mas, and am looking to upgrade to FM3.
The Question is... is it as simple as swapping out the MOBO and CPU(my ram is pretty good actually, so I'll keep that) and then updating all the drivers on my Hard drive?
Well to be honest you are better off upgrading to a 860K and stick with the current FM2+ motherboard you have. It does not make much sense to me to purchase a while new motherboard and cpu when just purchasing a cpu will be much cheaper.
EDIT:
With the bit of money from not purchasing that motherboard you could put it towards a better graphics card.
That's a tough one in my opinion, I would shave off some budget to spend more on a GPU. What about an Intel option with the Anniversary Edition and a very cheap B or H chipset mobo? That would free up some budget for an R9 270 maybe?
I'm not a big fan of the Athlons, like Angel said, they feel a bit like Core2-era CPU's because they lack cache, but they're nevertheless a feasible option if you don't feel like spending a lot.
Thank you all for your comments. As I said, my GPU is going to be a christmas present, so I'm not going to mess my family about with that really, but I will look at R9 in the future. As for the rest, I'll give it some thought. Thanks for your help guys.