New video card?

[csc]

Really, an FX-4130 would be a pretty balanced match for a GTX 750 Ti @ 1080p (and a big jump from an 8800 GTS). Add in another 4GB of RAM and he should see a pretty solid improvement. I wouldn't invest much more in that system though.

That's the path I shall follow. Thanks to all for the help.

 

[96Firebird]

Really, an FX-4130 would be a pretty balanced match for a GTX 750 Ti @ 1080p (and a big jump from an 8800 GTS). Add in another 4GB of RAM and he should see a pretty solid improvement. I wouldn't invest much more in that system though.

I agree, for most other games the 750 Ti would be a good match with the 4130. However, Rome 2 is hard on the CPU, and the 4130 would be the bottleneck most of the time when paired with the 750 Ti.

 

[Leyawiin]

If his son ever got the bug to try to overclock the FX-4130 he could easily get it to the 4.3 - 4.5 Ghz range with a decent air cooler. His motherboard may have a 4+1 power phase, but it is heatsinked and should be able to OC that much.

 

[Hyperlite]

Lucky kid - dad came asking for a video card and he get's a whole new rig! 😀

 

[boozzer]

That CPU would be badly bottlenecking any half decent card. In Rome 2:

http://gamegpu.ru/rts-/-strategii/total-war-rome-ii-patch-2-test-gpu.html

this is good info. if the game he is playing is rome 2 total war, he needs a new pc. max graphics in big battles you need a 290 or better. to not play like a slide show, a cpu equal to 2500k or better is a must.

I have tried it with a duo core haswell + 290, it works pretty well, but big battles when 8000 or more soldiers on screens gets laggy. so a 4 core is a must if big battles is a concern.