What to upgrade on my PC?

Hello All - I am new here and looking for some advice on what would be the best upgrades for my PC at this point. I have had it for 8 years while slowly upgrading separate parts over the years. I am hoping to be able to run Destiny 2 at 60 FPS when it comes out - I'd also love to run other more graphic intensive games, rather than just play them on console. Here are my current specs -

Original System Model: Studio XPS 435T/9000

CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU 975 @ 3.33GHz

GPU: Radeon HD 7800 Series

RAM: 24GB

SSD: 750GB

HDD: 750GB

PSU: Corsair CX750M

OS: Windows 10

Monitors: 30in. Dell & 27in Benq

I am thinking at this point I may just need to upgrade my GPU, but I am not sure what my build can handle at this point. Should I consider a new CPU? Any advice is greatly appreciated! Thanks!

Other than upgrading your GPU like you say, I'd recommend looking into getting a newer processor (even a newer i5 if you didn't want to fork out for a newer i7). However, with that comes a new motherboard and new RAM as newer boards don't have support for DDR3 RAM anymore as it has been 'replaced' by DDR4.

As curious as I am to see what a Bloomfield i7 can do with modern games, it might be time to upgrade to Kaby Lake, or Ryzen 5 or 7 if anyone here can vouch for AMD.

Except for the drives and case, you need to upgrade everything. We don't know how well Destiny will run yet, but a 7700k with at least a 1060 will be a good start. If you have the money , go for the 1070 or 1080ti. I'm sure a 1070 or 1080ti will be fine for Destiny . . . Unless there are major technical issues.

@horseman6 PSU and monitors are more likely fine too.

But yeah, I think it's time for mobo, RAM, CPU, GPU upgrade. If that's too much at once just do either GPU or the other stuff and wait for a deal later.

For reference, I have an Asus Strix GTX 1070 and can run some stuff at 4k/30 and most things at 1440/60 comfortably. That's with an ancient i7 2600k and 8 GB RAM (nothing overclocked currently). I went the route of getting the GPU first.

So feel it out, honestly if you're gaming at 1080p and have no desire for 1440+ it might make sense to just get a 1060 or 1070 now and see how that goes. Also research the games you're playing, some are going to be more CPU intensive (Forza for example).

I'd say the real wildcard is Destiny 2. If that game isn't CPU intensive and is a good port, then you might be ok with just a GPU upgrade. If it's an optimized piece of crap (like most PC ports recently) it probably won't run well on anything less that a top of the line system.

I have a 3570K, which, while an i5, is faster than your CPU and I've had trouble will my CPU bottlenecking my 1070 in a few recent games. My suggestion would be to wait until Destiny 2 is out, buy a new GPU, and see how it goes. If you can't get the performance you want, then it's full system upgrade time.

If you do a full system upgrade, take a serious look at AMD's Ryzen. Their 1600 (6core/12thread) and 1700(8core/16thread) are an awesome value, especially if you do anything other than gaming on your computer that needs CPU muscle. Intel announced Skylake X this week (launching in August), which looks like a solid response to Ryzen on the high end, but does little to compete with the mid-range Ryzen parts.

Damn, it's been 8yrs since that CPU huh? Can't find a comparable benchmark, but this is even a worse case scenario. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TScpVAGNdcI

Unless you really need it you could wait it out a bit or get a modest GPU. If you want to do a sensible upgrade you could always do it with as @cameron says Ryzen offering and/or ebayed parts. If you want to splurge I might wait a bit more for the end of this year, beginning next year.

I think getting a graphics card will still give you a lot more life https://www.reddit.com/r/nvidia/comments/4oiba9/gigabyte_gtx_1070_g1_benchmarked_on_6_year_old_pc/

But the best thing would be a full motherboard + GPU upgrade but you can try a gpu first and see how it goes.

Thank you all for the wonderful feedback! You all pretty much confirmed my suspicions...I have been keeping this PC alive as long as I've been able to (I've had it as an_ancient said, for about 8 years lol). I'm thinking I'll probably give a new GPU a shot and see how that goes, but likely commit to a new build shortly after. Thanks again all! Very much appreciated.

honestly, i would upgrade both the CPU and GPU in your machine. Older processors tend to struggle with newer games the past 2-3 years almost as much as an old GPU. up until last year i was running a phenom II 965 and i upgraded to a FX 8320 that i caught on sale. The benefit i saw from that alone made my crossfire 7770's run better. Shortly after that i upgraded to a r9 390. now i can run most anything out there at 1080p on high settings and usually hit the 50-60 fps range so i'm locked in on my current machine until the time comes when i'm forced to run new games at medium/low settings. but seriously don't sleep on the CPU upgrade. my old laptop i dug out recently had an older i5 and a mobile radeon 5800 gpu with 8gb of ram and it stuggled to run overwatch at 1366x768 at low settings.

The processor seems still looks good and i guess you have not face any problem on playing games, but the problem here is your GPU which considerably as old for now. Better to upgrade the GPU first, then you could try to upgrade of your processor later. I always prefer AMD for GPU since they always provided latest driver than what Nvidia always do.

If you are looking to run Destiny 2 at 60fps on a 1080 display, I would recommend a GTX 1060 or an RX580 video card. If you are going to run at 1440p and don't want to have to turn down any settings, might consider a GTX 1070. But, the rest of your build seems totally fine.

If you can afford it look at building a whole new system on a modest budget. I actually think saving your money now, so that you could afford a new base would be a strategy worth considering. Not a fun prospect perhaps in terms oif cost and waiting; but a new mobo, CPU and RAM would put you in good position down the road. On paper your processor is still quite powerful; but modern processors, mobos and RAM bring with them increasers in performances in all subsystems in addition to what they bring on paper.