AMD FX-8120 eight-core processor [3.1GHz, 8MB L2/8MB L3 Cache] or 3rd Generation Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3770 quad-core processor [3.4GHz, 8MB Shared Cache]. The FX-8120 is cheaper.How well would this perform for gaming say with a radeon hd 7770 2Gb GDDR5 or a geforce gtx 550 Ti 1GB GDDR5 and 8GB RAM DDR3
the i7 would be a vastly better cpu, but it is overpowered if all your going to do is game. If you do heavy multitasking or video editing the the i7 is for you if all you do is game then i would get the amd vs this i7, but if u want to stick with intel (which i recommend) then go for an i5-2500k
I agree with stevemk14ebr. The i7 3770 is the most powerful CPU, but it might be overkill. The Intel i5 2500(K) should be more than sufficient for gaming purposes. In today's computers, the CPU i seldom the bottleneck. I'd suggest that you instead upgrade the GPU to maybe GTX 570 or 580. I'm on the i7 2600K myself (very similar to the i5 except from Hyperthreading), and CPU usage during Battlefield 3 and similar demanding games never exceeds 5-10%. The i5 2500K is widely regarded as the gaming CPU. Spend less money on the CPU and more on the GPU Remember to cash out for a decent (modular) PSU!
If you have a 970 or 990FX chipset based board, you can upgrade the CPU to a second gen once they come out, and supposedly further to a third gen Bulldozer next year.