You’ve got a solid board for AM3+ CPUs, but unfortunately, most people are just playing World of Tanks, World of Warcraft, and Skyrim—which, I guess, are basically the three worst games for AMD processors since they tend to run much smoother on Intel... you've really got three ways to go here:
1) Since WoW and Skyrim are pretty hungry for clock speeds, you could grab a beast of a cooler if you don't have one already and overclock that CPU as much as it'll take. Along with that, you might want to pick up an R9 280 (~$67 cheaper and maybe a tiny bit faster than the GTX 760) or even an R9 280X. The processor is still going to be a bottleneck even at 3.7-3.8GHz, but you'd at least have a better GPU right out of the gate and can upgrade the CPU later on.
2) If you can stretch the budget a bit, you could go with an FX 8320 paired with an R9 270 plus a cooler if needed, which would be around ~$733(maybe ~$833 including the cooler). The graphics card is a little weaker this way, but you get a much better processor and roughly the same gaming performance (plus it'll actually handle CPU-heavy titles better and give you more overclocking headroom).
3) This is a bit more extreme if you're planning on sticking strictly to those three games for a while... you stretch the budget, grab a Pentium G3258 + Asrock H81M-HDS, a good cooler, and an R9 270. You'd overclock the Pentium to about 4.5GHz and sell off your old gear. This would probably give you the best results in those three specific games, though it's definitely more work.
One last thing, though—what kind of power supply are you running?
If you're tired of waiting on this one, maybe just grab the Z97-A instead.
Also, you might want to pick up some extra stuff for those $58/$67—maybe two case fans 😛.
I wouldn't bother getting the CPU at Best Buy because they mark them up way too much... CPUs rarely die anyway, so I'd just order with shipping if you aren't shopping at Micro Center:
Honestly, it’s a step down from your last one. It’s just a low-end ASUS Z77 board, so the VRM isn't exactly impressive, there's no passive cooling, and I guess CF doesn't scale very well on it either.
They aren't even stocking 1155 motherboards anymore. 😬
Maybe there's some kind of trade-in deal? Like, maybe you get a 240GB or 250GB SSD plus cash for the difference, though I guess I'm not entirely sure how those things actually work.
Adam Moore3 said:1 x Asrock Intel LGA 1200 Socket A78 Chipset MB 1 x DDR3 4GB (1x4GB) Kingston, 1866MHz, CL10, Corsair Vengeance, HX318C10F 1 x Processor AMD Kaveri A8-Series X4 7600 (3.8GHz,4MB,65W,FM2+) box 1 x TOSHIBA 500GB, 7200rpm, SATA 6 Gb/s, 32MB, DT01ACA050 1 x Power Supply FORTRON 400W, HEXA 400, 12cm fan, Active PFC 1 x Spire Kepler Rev.2 ,cooler, 1156/775/FM1, 96.5×51×125 mm ,92mm 1 x MS PHOENIX case without power supply, Midi tower MBO: ATX, mATX
$791 techforum.com
That’s basically it. I guess you could always swap out the cooler and throw in a 1TB drive if you really needed to.
I was building in an ADM case, but that’s the HexaV1 (it's got slightly lower-tier capacitors, lacks the 8-pin EPS, the cables are shorter, and there are fewer connectors and less total wattage), not the Hexa + 😉
But honestly, this one is way more powerful, and maybe just $23 the better value if you want the best pick in this lower tier:
By the way, I think your processor is part of the issue too, not just the GPU. It matters for most newer titles—Assassin's Creed: Black Flag actually kind of needs a quad-core at minimum.
The Corsair Dominator DS for $100 performs slightly better than those entry-level liquid coolers. If you throw on one more high-quality fan, I guess it gets pretty close to the Noctua NH-D14.