Deleted

Buy console.

If not, just check on official site of motherboard what kind of GPUs are recommended.

Also, I don't want to scare you, but I heard from my friends in USA that craiglist isn't best source for this kind transactions. Dude is selling PC cheap, and he doesn't even know what he is selling. I can bet that if anything will happend you won't hear from him again. Think about it, better pay a little more that pay twice.

Good luck and have a nice day.

Did you get the specific model of the motherboard?
Check here also: http://www.cpu-upgrade.com/CPUs/AMD/FX-Series/FX-8310_motherboards.html

I would also try reddit, either r/pcmasterrace or r/buildapc they would surely be able to give you a hand.

The fact that the seller has no idea what hardware he has in that pc, or the condition that the hardware/parts are in. You might have it a day or 2 or week and it might break down. Highly suggest you build your own pc from scratch using whatever parts you have to save money or to upgrade later on. Never buy a pre-built pc. Take 2 weeks of your time. research everything want to buy, find the best prices from trusted stores only.

EDIT: For $400 you could build a whole new pc still under warranty.

Well motherboards are cheap. So even if it ends up somehow not supporting 280x, you can buy a new motherboard for 50-100$ that could most definitely run a newer video card. Your problem is not the motherboard really. It's the power supply and if it's powerful enough to support a 280x (seeing as AMD video cards are power hungry as hell compared to Nvidia). Most people buy a PSU that is enough to run their system. So get that into consideration, that you will probably have to change the PSU and maybe the motherboard.

It's got the necessary PCI-E x16 slot to stick the card in. The thing I'd worry a little about is whether it's got enough space inside for an R9 280x. That card's about double the length of the slot. Depending on the layout of the motherboard, its backside might be right on top of where the RAM goes or something similar to that. I'm having some trouble finding the motherboard (darn proprietary setups!), so I can't say for certain one way or the other. The case doesn't seem super-huge, so the motherboard may not have a lot of real-estate to work with, but the layout is the real potential sticking point. Power supply is the other issue. High-end video cards often want to gobble more than most stock PSUs can handle.

There is no information about the motherboard, but unless they have some really strange solution going on that I'm unfamiliar with, it should not be a problem upgrading it. As long as you don't have a first generation PCI-E port on it, any PCI-E card will work (PCI-E 1.0a has issues with PCI-E 2.0 and greater cards). A Radeon 270 seem to perform roughly on par with a GTX 660, which while not using the latest technology still works well enough, so I don't think you would have to upgrade your graphics card right from the get-go.

I would NEVER buy a 2nd hand pc. You dont know what happened with it OR EVEN where it came from.
Could as well be stolen property. I never trust anything "too good to be true".
Hell, I wouldnt even buy a 2nd hand pc from my best friend.

If you do, make sure you'll get the original receipt. If he cant give it.. then.. well...

hmmm? Well, the cpu should be upgradeable, you just need to find processors with socket am3

I myself have the 8320, but thats a socket am3+

http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare/304/AMD_FX-Series_FX-8310_vs_AMD_FX-Series_FX-8320.html

No real difference. I was able to play tomb rider almost at full (nvidia geforce 450 only :( ), also starcraft 2 hots. Rome 2 and wolfenstein the new order. borderlands 2, I mean, i have more AAA games with big graphics, but i have not yet played them, still, the pc can handle them.

Its not an intel, thats for sure, but with a proper graphics card you should play any game available (maybe not in the highest graphic option, but close enough, and its enough to beat any console in the market atm).

And playing virtually any current games with a 400$ desk with monitor included, thats a hell of a deal.

I built mine with around that amount, it was mobo, cpu, heatsink and ram, thats it.

should be possible, but there's a chance that the PSU doesn't have 2X PCIE connector and might be insufficient in wattage if it does have it.

specification varied. could be R9 270

Newegg link

PCI Express is backwards compatible. The R9 280x is PCIe 16x 3.0, but as long as the motherboard in the computer supports PCIe 16x 2.0 it will be fine. PCIe 16x 2.0 can support faster speeds than the R9 280x can put out so there will be no problem.

You can even run a larger PCI card in a smaller slot. Those little PCI slots that are about an inch long are PCIx 1x. I use to have a HD 4850 which was a full size 16x card and my motherboard only had 1x slots so I cut the back of one of the slots open and plugged the card in with the rest of the GPU's connector just hanging out the back. It worked fine without any problems. You just have to make sure the bandwidth of the PCIx lane can support your card or else it will bottle neck it and not let you use it to it's full potential.

If you buy the computer I would definitely ask him to hook it up so you can see that it works when you get there. I personally would keep the $400 and save up a little more to build a new computer, unless it has a nice monitor and you need a monitor.

Edit: Forgot about the PSU. That's pretty important to make sure it has the right connection, but more importantly that it has enough power and is decent quality so it doesn't fry the entire computer. The R9 280x is pretty power hungry, under 100% load it draws more power than a Titan.

Since no one will answer your question.

If the GPU is PCI-e then any other PCI-e card will work -- as long as your PSU can supply the power.

edit: LOL nm as soon as I post someone gives a good answer @ AllTracTurbo :]