Upgrading my AMD vs. Getting a whole new PC with Intel?

So I'm in a bit of a dilemma. I have a PC with a 770, 600W power supply, and an AMD FX 6200. I've been getting low FPS for games like DayZ, Arma 3, emulators, and Star Citizen, even in it's dogfighting module. I want to upgrade my PC so it'll be able to run these games better in the future. I know that my AMD processor is not good at all for arma 3 and dayz, so should I spend $300 on a 9000 or 8000 series fx processor and power supply, or spend around $600 to get something like a 4790k, a new motherboard, power supply, case and other components, and then use components from my current PC? Is $300-$400 really gonna get me that big of a difference?

The 8350 is on sale for $170:

http://www.amazon.com/AMD-FD8350FRHKBOX-FX-8350-8-Core-Processor/dp/B009O7YUF6/ref=sr_1_1?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1421712818&sr=1-1&keywords=amd+fx+8350 

Also what power supply do you currently have now? 600W should be plenty. 

Well going from a 6200 to either the 8000 or 9000 series wouldn't require you to get a new PSU. Maybe a new motherboard if yours isn't up to the task but you wouldn't need a new PSU.

In all honesty you would not really see much of a performance difference in any of those titles going to an 8 core AMD CPU. They rely heavily on single core performance. Adding more lower performing cores won't change a thing. You may see some benefit from the higher clock speeds but in that case you might as well just get good cooling an OC your 6200.

If you want much better performance in single threaded performance you should go Intel. That being said you'd only need to replace your CPU and motherboard. You could reuse everything else. Additionally, there is no reason to buy an i7-4790k. An i5-4690k will be just as fast for gaming and is much much cheaper. If you have no interest in overclocking you could save even more money and buy a locked i5. 

No point in spending a ton of money going to Intel, the difference in performance will be very minimal, I know i just did the 8350 to 4790k upgrade and wished I didn't, I even then went 5960x from 4790k and regretted that decision even more, if I didn't do a ton of rendering I would go back.

for the games that op is exaly playing, and also the dolphin emulator, its totaly worth it to upgrade to intel.

Upgrading to a FX8 core in this case wont help him. Because those particular games are all heavaly cpu bound. Also Dolphin emulator realy sucks on AMD, because Dolphin only uses 2 threads.

If you upgrade to a FX8 core you will still keep those low fps drops in Arma 3 and DayZ. These are exaly two of the worst games for an AMD cpu. His GTX770 realy gets bottlenecked like crazy in Arma3 and DayZ.

just saying....

And i tell you this as an FX8350 owner. Its not worth it to spend that much in a FX 8 core which will not give you any better performance, in the particular games you play. So i would say go with an i5-4690K with a nice Z97 board, your 600W psu will be totaly fine.

Grtz Angel ☺

Got a 600W. Thanks for the response. I just don't know if an 8350 with a 770 will run DayZ and Arma III well, and I really want to run those games well more than anything. 

I don't know if I could fit my motherboard in the case I currently have. http://puu.sh/eLCy1/b7e2b130f5.jpg is my current motherboard, don't know if a z87 or something would fit. 

Just judging by looking I wouldn't run a fx 8 core in that motherboard. Either way you go you should end up having to get a new motherboard and cpu.

Thanks. Yeah my gpu is ridiculously bottlenecked in those games, DayZ, despite being as unoptimized for amd as it is, is like 20 fps max in towns, and arma 3, once again pretty unoptimized for amd, only goes over 30fps on low. As for the power supply, if I wanted to upgrade to a 980 or even add another 770 for sli in the future, I think I would need to get a 750W power supply. Correct me if I'm wrong. 

I think I'm just gonna save up about $500-$600 to get a 4690k, a new case, and a new motherboard, and use some of the parts like RAM that I have on my PC. 

You'd need a better board for any cpu upgrade. Even for a low power 8320E I wouldnt risk it with such a low end board.

I'd personally sell of your cpu and mb as a combo and grab any 1150 board and a cheap i5 or xeon.

I don't think I can possibly sell this processor and motherboard. I'm just gonna spend maybe $500-$600 on a new case, mobo, and processor and get an i5 instead. 

If you ever plan to upgrade to a GTX980 then your 600W psu would still be more then enough. Only for a GTX770 sli it wont cut it.

But an i5-4690K + mobo isn´t going to be $600,- right? you can still use your current case i suppose? I think that an case upgrade should not be your first priority, unless its realy a crappy one.

Yeah, I hope so. The only reason I plan on upgrading my graphics card would be if I want to do 4k gaming, or if my 770 stops running games well. My current case is too small, I think. My case is the one for an HP h8-1534, I bought a pre-built, and installed a new graphics card and PSU. If I go for the new mobo and processor, I might as well just make a completely new pc, install my old graphics card and psu into my current one, and give it to someone. 

I found myself wrestling with this same question for a while as i have an fx 6350 which i ran with a 7970 for a majority of its life (recently replaced with an r9 285 due to the card failing) my cpu is clocked at 4.7 ghz so with that said i've still had a lot of bottlenecks in skyrim (obviously skyrim curse it's 3 core utilization) bf4, and anything with on the fly physics calculations. I ultimately decided it's time for a new build and i'm selling my pc to a co worker who is still running an Athlon with a 9800, bless that poor man. I'd like to add that i'm using an I5 4690k till the broadwell cpus are out and ill sell the I5 on ebay and either get the new I5 or I7 depending on how games utilize cores by then. Ebay is a godsend for pc builders selling old parts on there is a must if you're willing to take the time.

The intel upgrade would be worth it for the emulators but in my opinion not for arma and dayz went from my 5GHz 8350 to my now 4.8GHz 4790k and in those two games the difference in frame rate is negligible. They both run like crap in multiplayer when its comes to nice framerates due to optimization of the engine in general.

Omg dude im in the same position as you. I have a fx8320 at 4.6 and this is hopeless in arma. Im hoping to sell my pc then rebuild to i5 4690k or a cheap second hand 3570k. I go on forums but all people say is that it wont do much. But fx series is only good in Triple a titles such as crysis, bf4, metro LL etc. Even if you got the new pentium and overclocked it to 4.8 it would smoke the heck out of a fx series cpu in arma and dayz. Its funny because all the games I play like dayz and arma are so bad like I get 20fps but in Arma3life I get 10fps.

My advice would realy be upgrading to an 4690K, like i explained above, an upgrade to an FX8 core wont make sense for you at all.

as for a case it also does not have to be that expensive.

Here you go: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/7T4NsY

NZXT are very decent cases, the only con of this particular case, is that you cannot use an optical drive.

God damn it's so much cheaper in the US for parts. In New Zealand it's $100 more expensive for each part. But yeah the i5 upgrade will really help even if its only like 10fps increase in arma/dayz. If you dont have a FX series cpu people just dont understand how bad they are in some games. I was thinking of going to the pentium and oc that to like 4.6+, because I mainly play CSGO and some arma here and there(waiting for gta 5!). So I only need small amount of cores but powerful.

rofl, i love the avatar op