trouble shopping for new cheap gaming laptop

Enixfire · June 26, 2016

I'm currently using a 14" HP pavilion g4 model 2235dx for all my computing needs. I got it from my dad about 5 years ago and it's starting to show its age and not run the games I want anymore. I'm not rich by any means. I maybe make around $800 and half or more goes to rent, bills, and food a month. I'm thinking of upgrading to at $500 laptop that won't run things at max or even medium graphics, but can at least support minimum with pretty good FPS per second.
I'm really scared about shopping and not buying something that will not significantly better.

Current specs:

GPU: Radeon HD 7520G

CPU: AMD A6 4400 (2.7 GHz w/ 3.2 GHz Turbo)

RAM: 8 GBs

I've looked around and I found that a lot of Acers have pretty good specs for low cost. I've found one with:

GPU: GeForce 940m

CPU: i5-6200U (2.3 GHz w/ 2.8 GHz Turbo)

RAM: 8 GBs

I don't know how well to convert these and it seems like the GPU on the Acer blows away the one on my HP but the cpu is what scared me. It seems weaker than my AMD A6, but I don't know since scores from cpubenchmark.net say otherwise.

I usually play FFXIV daily, with the occational Subnautica, Skull Girls, FF HD rereleases, Portal 1 & 2, Borderlands 2, Alan Wake, and Silent Hill titles. I get about 25 to 30 fps on FFXIV and would love to be able to get more. Right now I can't really even raid cause of my computer's limits.