Upgrading To Next-Gen

I recently read an article on Gamespot where they took the money you would spend on a Xbox One or PS4 and used it to build a PC that will play better than both consoles (and pretty much run any high-end PC game currently on the market at its highest settings).

You can check out the specs they used here:http://www.gamespot.com/articles/can-we-build-a-gaming-pc-on-a-console-budget/1100-6418829/

My current PC is not very up to date at all, but after looking at their list, I feel that I either come close or surpass their recommendations.

Here is a list of my hardware:

AMD A6-3670 APU Processor (Quad-Core)
8 GB of RAM (nothing fancy here, just standard name brand sticks)
Western Digital 500GB HDD 7200 RPM Sata
Decent sized Thermaltake case with 600 watt power supply
I'm good already good on 37" HD monitor, wireless mouse and keyboard
GeForce 9800 GT Video Card

So as you can see, I feel like I'm already covered on many areas their budget forces them to spend money on (I also already own Windows 7 for example). I'm not sure how my RAM stacks up, but I do know I have twice as much as they recommend. I'm also not sure of if my four cores is good enough.

Obviously the biggest issue is the video card. My hope was, instead of spending $500 on an entirely new rig, what if I just bought a $300 video card? Could I run games like Battlefield 4 and Titanfall on their highest settings without lag with the rest of my hardware and this one upgrade?

 

Highest settings without lag, at what resolution? @ 1920 x 1080, sure, 770 GTX or 290 should be okay.

I'd look at getting at least a 256 (or 128) MB SSD for the OS and some apps, and offload the rest to the slow HDD.

I don't play either of those games, so I can't say much.

 

Thanks for the info. Here's what I've decided.

I ran several tests on my hardware via the site "Can I Run That Game" for many different current and older PC games and it seems like the only piece of my hardware that doesn't pass under the recommended section is my video card.

So I looked up what the recommended video card was for Battlefield 4 and I found this one for a pretty good price: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130826

So with a AMD Quad Core CPU, 8 GB of RAM and this new video card, will I be able to push most current PC games to their highest settings on my 720p monitor without a problem?

 

Oh, 720p? Probably so. But, at the resolution, I'm not an expert.

 

Here is a video that has what you need: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqwdzxLtCbM

Not superclocked, but should help.

 

As theefool suggested, I would definitely spring for a high end GPU and and a SSD. I play Battlefield 4 regular, though I cannot compare my rig to yours as you CPU is not familiar to me.

My rig:

i5 2500K
GTX 780 3GB
Kingston DDR3l 2*4GB I
Samsung 830 128GB SSD
Corsair 650W PSU.

At 1920*1080 I get around 80-120 frames on ultra settings.
The SSD greatly reduces loading time, often by 1-2 minutes. When gaming with my brother who does not run the game from an SSD, he joins around 2 minutes later than me.

At 1280*720 though is unfamiliar grounds for me, but if your budget allows id still go for the 700 series, then you'd be more set for future games and the GPU would not be obsolete that fast. And if you where to get a new monitor, you'd be able to run higher resolutions.

So a 770 ought to get you decent frames and load time should be bearable if you spring for a SSD as well.