I need some.

I currently have an AMD Phenom 9850 Quad Core Processor.

I currently have 3.25 GB of RAM.

I currently have an ATI Radeon HD 4850.

I'm looking to upgrade. I'm 17 and I have a minimum wage job, but I'm basically able to put away about a hundred dollars every week, I currently have four hundred saved up. What's the first thing I should upgrade ? What should I upgrade it with ? Price is really not something I'm worried about, and I'd easily be able to double up on shifts and put away two hundred per week. Lay it out for me, thanks.

If you're 17 and have a minimum wage job, then I suggest saving your money.  Sorry it's not very sexy.

@Spoonman671: Well, I was actually hoping you could've answered my question, but if you're worried about my life decisions I could let you know that my university costs are fully covered via scholarships/money I saved up in the 2 years I've worked at this minimum wage job.

Get an SSD

All I can say is be careful. This process has a habit of spiraling out of control. I just wanted to update my video card, from the same one you have, but then I knew my processor would bottleneck any upgrade pretty hard. So then I decided to upgrade my processor, but I wasn't impressed with what AMD has been putting out, so I went Intel. That necessitated a new motherboard. That new motherboard necessitated new DDR3 ram. See what I mean? At this point I just decided that I shouldn't do it half-baked so I got a new case, hard drive, etc. Upgrading one thing turned in to a completely new PC. A ~$200 upgrade blew up into right around $1k. To be fair though, it's all 3 year old parts minus the hard drive, which is 6 years old.

To speak toward your question, the 4850 is old and it shows. It was a good card but I think its time is ending. What resolution are you working with?

@Subjugation: 1680 x 1050.

Do you actually have 3.25GB of RAM or are you running WIN XP or WIN 7 32bit? First thing i'd suggest is make sure you are running a 64bit version of an OS. Upgrade to Win 7 Home 64bit, it will run you about 100 bucks.

Secondly i'd upgrade the graphics card. A 6850 would be ideal, you are going to be hindered by your CPU in the long run, so anything more might be a waste.

The best thing I would recommend is save up more, not sure where you are located but 800 USD can build you a nice new rig.

@Subject2Change: I'm on XP. I have no problem with saving up for a while, I'm just curious which GPU/CPU I should be looking forward to, so I know what my goal is.

@talkingtoast: You can get a Sapphire HD 6870 on Newegg for about $160. It should run things pretty well up to 1080p. It's what I ended up ordering. I'll probably Crossfire down the road when it starts to struggle. After the 6870, costs start going up quite a bit.

@talkingtoast said:

@Subject2Change: I'm on XP. I have no problem with saving up for a while, I'm just curious which GPU/CPU I should be looking forward to, so I know what my goal is.

It ultimately comes down to YOUR specific budget. Ideally a 2500k and a GTX 560 ti is what I would say, those 2 parts alone are gonna run you about 400 USD. Add in a mother board for 100, 8 gigs of RAM at 60 USD, a case at 75, PSU at 75, DVD Rom at 20, and another 80 for mechanical HDD and you are at 800 bucks.

Ideally your budget for a mid-range gamer system is about 800-1200 USD.

I'm guessing you're on a 32bit OS and you actually have more than 3.25GB of RAM. Since you have an old CPU, you'll need a new motherboard and then... new RAM anyway. All I can say is SAVE and don't buy anything. I'm not sure with US prices, but you want some more than $400 and you want to be getting a new CPU, mobo, ram, graphics card and get a 64bit Windows 7. Might want to look at your PSU as well.

Since you said you're on XP, wait till Windows 8 comes out and get 64-bit. No point having a DX10 card on a machine that doesn't support it. Keep some money on reserve for that. As a 17-year-old, if you are headed to university this fall, Microsoft offers crazy discounts, bringing the cost down to roughly $30 for a legal licence of Professional 64-bit.

RAM is probably the next thing that needs to be upgraded. From previous experience, 64-bit doesn't play nicely with less, but I upgraded straight from 2GB to 4GB. Keep reading, though...

Third, your processor is old and a replacement will be in order in the near future. But that's going to necessitate a whole new MoBo, probably new RAM, and maybe a new PSU... Go Intel; AMD kinda sucks.

Last on your priorities is probably the GPU. NVidia is better, but your card is definitely still passable for now.

Upgrading anything besides your OS and your video card will get costly fast.

At 1680x1050, the best bang for your buck is the 6870. If you don't mind spending a bit more, you can get the nVidia GTX 560 TI 448 for ~$250.

Then, if you have a student email address, you can get Windows 7 Professional 64 bit for $65.

http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msstore/pd/productID.216644200?Icid=Student_HUB_4up_Windows

and a SSD for your OS and the one or two games you constantly play, say an MMO. I'm apprehensive about a lot of SSDs. I only recommend the Crucial M4 and the Intel SSDs. 64 gigs, $85 bucks.

http://www.buy.com/prod/221150371.html

Right now, your GPU's probably your biggest bottle neck. Those three upgrades will breath a bit of life into your computer; perhaps enough to let you stave off a CPU upgrade for a while.

Then, you can start saving up your cash for the overhaul. A new CPU means a new motherboard, which means new ram and perhaps PSU, new heat sink and fan. Ivybridge is looming and while it won't make a huge difference in performance on the desktop unless you're using integrated graphics, it might just cause Sandybridge prices to drop as retailers try to get rid of their stock. Platter based hard drive prices will drop.

@Zelyre said:

Platter based hard drive prices will drop.

From what I've read, it doesn't sound like that will happen anytime soon. News stores keep reporting that it could be through the end of this year before prices start to normalize which makes me a sad panda. If only SSDs could get to the $/Gb ratio that HDDs were at, then we could just move on entirely.

@Zelyre said:

Then, if you have a student email address, you can get Windows 7 Professional 64 bit for $65.

http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msstore/pd/productID.216644200?Icid=Student_HUB_4up_Windows

Wait, did they change the offer? I used my old university email address in December and got it for $40 or so, through MSStore. All I recall them saying is that you can only do it once per year.

@Subjugation: I'd be a happy panda if SSDs dropped below a dollar a gig for a good one; they have been coming down. I wouldn't mind filling my server with 5400 RPM 2tb drives if I could also keep my Steam collection on an SSD without having to sell another kidney. There was a 230 gig OCZ Revo SSD for $190 a few days ago. PCIE SSD that you can't boot off of, but it's pretty big and the price isn't bad. I still wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole, though. I bought 2 Crucial M4 128's for $180 during the holidays. I've spotted them on sale for $150 this last week.

Prices are starting to come back down on platter drives, though I doubt they'll ever return to pre-flood prices. The destruction of all those fabrication plants and the price of rare earth will ensure that we'll never pay less than $100 for a 1 tb drive ever again. Here's hoping that I don't need to replace any of my 2 TB drives anytime soon. I'd hate to lose all those um... HD videos of nature I shot.

@Aus_azn: It may have been a university specific offer. I work for a higher education institute and our Microsoft licensing agreement gives us 7 Pro and Ultimate for $10, but we can only buy one license of each title once a year.

The Digital River deal that was going on until last year-ish offered Win7 Professional to students with a valid .edu address for $39 if memory serves me correctly.