why did i have to scroll so far down to read this ? You are the only one who got it right . <| sep |> Wait until you get the mauler mammoth epic variant bud . it just demolishes people . The slow fire rate even helps it as a long range weapon . I use that gun with red dot , quickdraw , grip , hollow point and long barrel with the merc man at arms rig and have so much fun . Best gun for taking on groups of enemies because it kills in 2 to 3 shots . 2 shots if you hit hit the head . Each bullet takes almost half their health . Hope they don ' t nerf it . <| sep |> About the CPU after poking around , it looks like the Phenom II you have probably sits in an AM 3 socket , and that is what will ultimately decide what you could upgrade to . As it stands , the AM 3 socket has a few okay offerings , like the FX 8350 , but the full range of compatibility isn ' t something we could verify unless we had the make and model of your motherboard , something not included in the specs you linked . Either way , even the very best possible chip you could put into an AM 3 socket won ' t really stack up all that well against some of the reasonably priced i 5 offerings , which is why I recommend that you wait . If you really want to jump forwards in performance , you ' re looking at replacing not only your CPU but also your motherboard , and your best bet then is to wait for Zen or switch to Intel , which would be my ultimate advice . If you decide not to go with the newest and shiniest , that ' s understandable , but Zen will also be the first AMD offering to support newer hardware like DDR 4 and offer support to M . 2 and NVME storage which is to SSDs like SSDs are to hard drives . Plus , as a bonus , Zen will hopefully push down the price of existing AMD hardware that might work with your motherboard , and lower the cost of Intel ' s stuff at the same time . About the SSD So long as you stick at a SATA based SSD you cannot run into compatibility issues . How do you know it ' s SATA ? Any 2 . 5 in size of a credit card SSD will take a SATA data and power connector . Furthermore , the interface itself is backwards compatible . For example , my girlfriend ' s machine only offers SATA gen 2 ports , but she has a normal SATA gen 3 SSD hooked up as her boot drive , it just runs at SATA gen 2 speeds instead which is 3 Gbs instead of 6 Gbs , which really isn ' t noticeable to her , it still starts up way faster than a normal hard drive . So anything in the 2 . 5 in form factor you can pick up will work great .