So right now I'm just looking for a graphics card, and I'll worry about the rest of the upgrading after I have this part. I've been looking for what Setsul recommended which was a used graphics card for $50-100. I asked elsewhere and got recommended to buy a gtx 750 TI, although I'm having some trouble finding that one for under $100, especially when I consider shipping.

Is that card going to be enough to boost my fps? (keep in mind I'm probably still going to upgrade my CPU after I buy this) Is it going to be overkill for TF2? Is there a better card I should buy instead? Also is there any compatibility issues I should be worried about when buying gpu's? I don't want to buy a part only to realize it doesn't work with my PC once it gets here.

You could wait for the gtx 1050 ti, which is a successor to the 750 ti, but based on the newer technology of pascal or something like that, I actually got a gtx 750 ti for my optiplex 790 dell, and certainly allowed for tf2 to be run at high settings. Get the gtx 750 ti used or something if you can.

#31
Are you actually looking for a used 750 Ti?
Because even whoever you asked didn't just completely ignore the "I'm looking for a used GPU for 50-100$" and just went straight to the "Get a 750 Ti" chant, it's not going to be <100$ new.
Or why are you talking about shipping?

Even an AMD R7 250 would be enough, which is <100$ new.
Also if you really can't find a used 750 Ti and would buy a new one instead, don't and get an RX 460. Same price, a bit faster.

#32
Expected MRSP is 150 USD.

i can probably sell you my old r7 260x for ~40 usd not including shipping if you want

I said I was looking for a used gpu for < $100 and was told I could get a used 750 Ti for that price. I want to know if a used 750 Ti for around $100 is reasonable or if there are better cards I could get for a similar price. I'm concerned about shipping because there are really no places near me where I can buy used PC parts, I suppose I could look for a shop next time I go to the city, but idk when that will be.

King, that'd probably be something I'm interested in, assuming it can run TF2 at a decent pace. Not sure what the shipping and fees are going to be like going from UK to Canada though.

Shops don't really sell used parts, you have to look on craigslist or similar.

A 260X is about as fast as a 750 Ti so that would be fine as well.

Alright, so update time.

I bought an AMD Radeon R7 250, and I'm seeing a minimal boost to my fps. I'd say the average fps I'm getting has gone up to maybe 70ish, but I'm still dropping down to 40 in big fights. I did play a game with gpuz running and my gup load has gone down dramatically to an average of about 40%!

So now I suppose the next step would be to upgrade my cpu? What kind of a price range should I be looking at if I want to be able to stay above 120 fps? and any suggestions on which specific card I should be buying? I'm willing to drop a few hundred bucks on this, but I'm looking to get the best value for my money.

I'm a bit late.
Why did you not take KiNG up on his offer? 40$ for a 260X is great.

For streaming (you mentioned that in #1) try to find an i7-2600 or i7-3770. 2600K, 2700K or 3770K are also fine, but not faster, since you can't overclock with your motherboard.

GPU depends on what settings you're going to use. Let's just play safe and get something about 3 times as fast the 250 (drops to 40 but you want 120). That would mean a 270 or 370 used or if you want a brand new GPU an RX 460.

Kind of ruins the whole "as cheap as possible" with ~50$ for an 250 (if it was new) and now 100$ for a 460 instead of going straight for the 460.

Thanks for responding!

I followed up with KiNG on his offer, but unfortunately the offer was no longer on the table, as I believe he wanted to give it to his dad or something.

I'll look into those CPU's you suggested, I was hoping the 250 would be good enough once I update my CPU, but if I find that it's not, I'll consider upgrading again.

Yeah, upgrade the CPU first and see what happens.

The 6570 is bit slower than a ancient HD 4750. TF2 is CPU limited but not to that extent. A more modern GPU would also allow you to use GPU encoding for streaming significantly increasing FPS..

So I've had my new CPU for a while now, but am having trouble getting it to work. Probably could have posted this reply like a week ago, but laziness got the better of me.

When I put the new CPU in the PC, it tries to start, but then stops and gives me 4 beeps. The screen won't display anything, and I'm forced to open it up and put the old CPU back in. After some googling I read that updating my bios might help with the problem, so I tried to do that, but I'm not entirely sure if it actually worked, but either way my CPU still doesn't. (Is there a way to see the most up to date BIOS I can have? My current BIOS version is: American Megatrends Inc. P02-A0, and as stated before, my motherboard is an Acer Aspire M3970)

Any suggestions as to what I could do to get this thing to work? (Thanks for all the help for the past few months btw, this always feels like a chore to me so I'm often slow, but I do really appreciate it)

Also side note, should I be replacing the thermal paste every time I switch out CPU's? Or is it fine to just leave the old stuff on? I have been replacing it, but I'm starting to run low so if I'm using way more than I need to I'd like to cut down. Using the same cooling unit for both CPU's if that matters.

Acer Aspire M3970 is not the motherboard.

I'm going to take a guess here:
You got a 3xxx CPU (Ivy Bridge), which is not supported on that BIOS version and you indeed need to update it.

Unsurprisingly, the easiest way to get the newest version is from Acer.
https://www.acer.com/ac/en/US/content/support
After putting in the information (Category Desktop, Series Aspire, Model M3970) and selecting the category BIOS/Firmware you should end up here
https://www.acer.com/ac/en/US/content/support-product/3673?b=1
With only BIOS and no firmware available, that makes the search even easier. You want Ivy Bridge support and probably not the Linux version which narrows it down to one.
http://global-download.acer.com/GDFiles/BIOS/BIOS/BIOS_Acer_P03.A3_A_A.zip?acerid=634725575431135695&Step1=DESKTOP&Step2=ASPIRE&Step3=ASPIRE%20M3970&OS=ALL&BC=ACER&SC=EMEA_8

kinda off topic but i have a AMD FX-8800P Quad Core APU with Radeon R7 Graphics and i run cs go on 20 fps with lowest settings and barely get 80 fps with tf2 with comanglias config and low poly models. Is my pc good enough to handle 120 fps on tf2 on max settings or should i upgrade?

Go get your own thread.

Jk.

I don't understand the question though. If you barely get 80fps on the lowest settings, what makes you think it'll magically get 120fps on max settings? And why haven't you just tried it?
Also isn't that a notebook?

I had like 100-200 fps on chris's maxquality but not on maxframes or comanglia's config for some reason. After the update, I barely get 80 fps. Also, i wanted to ask if my PC should be able to handle cs go and tf2.

the PC is this http://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/productdetails/inspiron-3656-desktop/ddccz307b

The link doesn't work.

Well apparently it can't handle CS:GO and TF2. You tried, it didn't work, why should it?
I don't think that GPU should've ever reached 200 fps on maxquality either.

CS:GO and especially TF2 are CPU bound. You can't replace that CPU, if it's indeed an FX-8800P.

AMD FX-8800P is a low end mobile APU M8.

Nah, it's solid midrange.
Still terrible for TF2.

I have no idea how I forgot to mention what CPU I bought in my last post, but it's an: Intel Core i7-3770 Quad-Core Processor 3.4 GHz 4 Core LGA 1155 - BX80637I73770

So I've been trying to update my BIOS, but I've run into a little issue. When I'm attempting to run the program, I get the error "rom file size does not match existing bios size" and it just closes on me. I googled this, and actually found someone from 2013 who had a problem pretty much identical to mine: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/328340-30-need-flashing-bios

We're both trying to update to the same BIOS version (although his current version is a little older than mine), and we're both getting the same error, and in the end he realized he had to update his motherboard because it was non-compatible. Someone in that thread did say to use the /ECUF option in the .exe, however I'm getting the same issue as someone else where any key I press just gives more options, and then closes the .exe.

The last post in that forum explains what to do, but I'm not sure what they means when they say "Enter the address for the afudosx64 executable from there."

The usual run command prompt as administrator, I take you got that far.
Then enter "C:\way\too\many\folders\afuwinx64.exe" and press enter. Use the actual path where the exe is located, obviously.
Maybe double check the model number first though.

I'm still getting the "press any key" problem where I can't type in any command, because it just closes.

http://imgur.com/a/NjbII

In the first pic here, you can see what I typed in, and what it looks like before I try to type in "/ECUF"

The second pic you can see it just closes the second I press any key. Is there anything I can add at the end of what I entered to open the .exe, and do the /ECUF command all in one step? Or is there another way I can get this to work?

REDACTED

You still need to type in the command to run after afuwinx64.exe.
So the command that the batch file should execute is
afuwinx64.exe ..\ROM\P03-A3.ROM /p /b /n /r

If you get the "ROM ID does not match BIOS ID" error and you are absolutely sure you told me the right model number, otherwise it won't work and might break something, then you can run
afuwinx64.exe ..\ROM\P03-A3.ROM /p /b /n /r /x

It's all both in the readme file and the tomshardware thread.

Alright, feels like it's time to work on this again. When I try typing all what you suggested in, I get the error "Problem opening file for reading" Any ideas or suggestions?

Here's a picture of what I tried: http://imgur.com/337ZWw9

I get the same error if I try it without the /x, or if I add capitals in the same spots as you did.

Well apparently the file is broken. Redownload it?

So the night you posted, I tried redownloading it and I was able to run the /p /b /n /r commands just fine, didn't bother trying anything more because I thought redownloading had worked, and I could finish updating my bios the next day, but ever since then I've just been getting the error every time I try the commands. I've redownloaded it again and again, tried it every way I can think of, and I still get the "problem opening file for reading" error.

If it ran without /x check if the BIOS has been updated.

Nope, still on P02-A0. The first time I tried it, I was literally just about to head to bed, so I guess it's possible I did something different and that's why it worked? Honestly I can't remember it that well, but I'm pretty sure I was able to put in the /p /b /n /r commands without an error message before (although nothing happened when I did)

Good news: I have updated my BIOS to the latest possible version!

Bad news: The latest possible version was P02-A2. The version I was originally trying to upgrade to (P03-A3) was not compatible with my old BIOS version (P02-A0)

More bad news: My computer still won't start while my new CPU is in. The one time I tried it, it didn't beep or anything like before, it would just attempt to start, and then after half a second shut down. Then a few seconds later try again with the same result. This repeated until I unplugged my PC.

Just to restate so nobody has to scroll around looking for it, I have an Acer M3970, and the new CPU I bought was an Intel i7-3770. Also I don't think I've mentioned it yet because I don't think it's relevant, but the cooler that came with my new CPU doesn't fit into my motherboard, so I've just been using the same CPU cooler with both the CPUs)