Hey, I have a 2010 pc that I've been thinking of upgrading for quite some time and after talking to some of you in the past extra-life marathon I decided to start looking for what to change.

So first things first, here is my build:

• Intel Core i5-760 2.8GHz Quad-Core Processor
• Asus P7P55D ATX LGA1156 Motherboard
• Corsair Dominator 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3-1600 Memory
• Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive
• Cooler Master CM 690 II (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case
• Corsair Professional 650W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply
• Asus VW246H 24.0" Monitor
• Microsoft Windows 7 Professional Full (32/64-bit)

I also have, but could't find in that site:

• ASUS RADEON HD 5870 1GB DDR5 PCI-Ex 2.1
• Samsung DVD+/-RW 22X SH-S223L SATA

I was thinking of upgrading my RAM and my Graphics Card and maybe buying a SSD.

What do you think? Have any sugestions of what should I upgrade and what should I buy.

Any help is welcome.

Thanks!

I wouldn't upgrade until next year. Too many unknowns right now. Call of Duty required 6 GB of RAM just to start. Watch Dogs wants a top of the line CPU but only a mediocre graphics card. It will take six months or so before we start getting a good picture of what types of PC's people will need for next gen games. Plus we have the whole Steam Machines thing going on which has the potential to change a lot of things, and AMD has their Mantle tech they are pushing while Nvidia has things like PhysX and TXAA that they are pushing. Just so many unknowns right now. Wait six months to a year. Then you'll have a much better idea of what you'll need.

I'd just buy an SSD.

When you do upgrade you'll need more RAM, a new processor, a new mother board and a new GPU. Also buy an SSD while you're at it.

You can probably upgrade the GPU to a HD 7850-7870 or GTX 660-670. Anything better and you'll probably bottleneck the GPU with the CPU you currently have. Also at this point I think 8GB should be considered the minimum amount to play current games. SSDs are a luxury and not a necessity. I'd upgrade other parts of your PC before getting an SSD.

Depending on how much you are willing to spend within the next year, what I would do is upgrade the motherboard and CPU. Then I would wait until nVidia comes out with the GTX 800 series (est. release in the later half of 2014) to upgrade the GPU. You won't get a noticeable increase in performance after upgrading the motherboard/CPU but you will get a dramatic jump once you get the GPU.

I agree with the idea to wait a bit and see what happens once the new systems have been out for a little bit, the probably do a bit more of an extensive upgrade.

CPU: i5 3750K (you can get a Haswell but i prefer Ivy Bridge because it is just as good but cheaper)

Mobo: GA-Z77X-UD3H (nice all around motherboard, not the most expensive)

RAM: 2x8GB DDR3 1866+ (no need for 2400mhz on Intel)

VGA: AMD Radeon R9 280X (gotta get that Mantle, plus it is cheaper than competition and overclocks like a beast)

Yea, I'd say upgrade your motherboard and processor first, you could use that RAM on a new board.
Then go for a new video card next.
SSDs are good but it's only gonna help games load faster or windows boot quicker.
Like mentioned above, it is kinda a bad time to upgrade but concerning video cards mostly.

A new SSD will make your computer feel like new but better and upgrade your RAM. You can hold off on other stuff till next year where the new video cards should be capable of lasting a lot longer in the next gen than the cards that are out now.

Right now is a really weird time to upgrade. nVidia and AMD are currently throwing punches and it's too early to tell who's going to come out on top.

If there's a game that you want to play right now that you're having performance issues with, throwing another 4GB of ram and upgrading your video card would be the best bet. I'd bank on the nVidia GTX 770 if you're interested in the 3 games that are bundled with it. AMD's 290 beats it in performance and is only a little more expensive; you don't get the pack-in games and the card is very loud, but it will be more future-proof when compared to the 770.

But remember... nVidia has their Maxwell cards coming out early next year, nobody knows what to expect with them. Probably next year, both companies will have GPU's with 20nm fabrication, which could make a huge difference in cooling and performance, but could also have little to no impact. I think the bigger factor is AMD's Mantle system. We'll know how evolutionary this will be in December when they patch BF4 to support it. We may not even see any performance gains for a few years when console and PC games become unified as a result, but it could be a runaway success for them.

Right now is a great time to buy a card, but it's also a great time to wait.

Only the reference 290s cards are hot and loud, but you don't need that, a 280X will do fine against the 770.

Both HIS IceQ X2 Turbo and Sapphire Vapor X models of 280X will be cool, quiet and give enough overclock room to match and surpass the GTX770.

Soooooooooooooooooooo tired of people over-hyping SSDs, that and Mechanical Keyboards (i have both), What is the point of loading the single game you managed to fit on that tiny SSD faster, if it is going to run like shit?

All your part is pretty good still so don't upgrade anything. Get an SSD if you think you want a faster PC.

I agree... an SSD will improve load times for the game that is installed there, but this is an atypical scenario. With 8GB of ram, you essentially won't have a swap file, so even then the SSD will not benefit you once the game is launched and running. The biggest advantage to an SSD is your boot time with Windows and overall snappiness of the OS.

@jayjonesjunior: Calm down, guy. I suggested it because having an overall faster PC is useful. I didn't say it was essential for games

Not for games, but for the OS. SSDs make a far more substantial difference for running the operating system than anything else. Once you get used to how fast a machine works using an SSD it becomes very difficult to go back to HDD. For games the load times are usually quite fast as is so an SSD makes little difference, but an SSD can make an old machine feel brand new it speeds up general OS stuff so much.

In the case of an up-to-date machine, an SSD is a good choice. However, when we're looking at a rig such as this, there are other, more important upgrades to be had. Some more RAM (at least 4 gigs) and a bit of a beefier processor (as well as a new GPU, but after the nVidia/AMD dust settles) would benefit him in the long-run much more than a speedier HDD. A fast OS won't mean anything if games are garbage and the processor is hamming tasks up.

@lukos: The only thing you "need" right now for games is more ram. 8Gb is pretty much the standard nowadays. It also helps that ram is dirt cheap and by far the cheapest upgrade for you to get. Your other parts should be fine for now and I would wait a bit.

If you don't mind blowing some money then a new video card would be the second most important thing. The Nvidia GTX760 GTX770 (forgot about the game pack ins) is the gold standard for single card price/ performance now in my opinion. And if you don't mind spending unnecessary then I would get a new cpu third if you can afford it/ have to have games run at max but I would wait since your i5 is still fine. SSDs would be forth on my list. They make a huge impact on load times in games but not much else. Like others have said it's mostly the huge OS performance gain you'll get.

At the end of the day I would still wait till the next gen intel "tock" jump in processors (ie the next gen/ brand new architecture) and simply upgrade everything except ram then. You'll have to upgrade your motherboard and cpu then anyways. There also might be a more dominant gap between nvidia and AMD graphics cards. If we're lucky ddr4 ram and PCIe 4 might finally start to come out then too and be worth it. (you'll be upgrading the motherboard for the cpu anyways so might as well get it). Oh and SSD prices should drop dramatically in the next year alone.

Wait till 2015 if you can.

SSD > VIDEO CARD > RAM.

An SSD is an upgrade in almost any system. My 5 year old PC has a 256GB Samsung 840 Pro and it brought the thing up to a more passable system.

Don't really know much about ATI Cards, but if you are more than 2 generations old, it's time to upgrade (usually). I'd go for this personally, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814133490

Your RAM is fine, if you want to upgrade to 16GB go for it but you shouldn't mix and match your ram sticks, you'd want to swap out your current sticks for 4x4GB or 2x8GB dimms.

Thank you all for your help.

So with all this I think that for now I'm going to upgrade my RAM, any sugestions for that? Sould I buy 2 more 2GB of the same RAM or go for a 2x 4GB or even 2x 8GB?

Another question, my motherboard has PCIe 2.0 and some of you recomended the GTX 770 that is PCIe 3.0, wouldn't that be a problem? I've had some issues with my current GPU because of bad drivers install (auto updated the drivers and it gave me blue screens).

PCI Express 3.0 graphics cards are backwards compatible with 2.0, and actually there is next to zero performance difference anyway so you'll be just fine going with a GTX 770 on your current mobo. SSD's are becoming pretty cheap these days, a 128GB SSD is more then enough for your operating system and one or two high end games you may want to put on that if you ever went with that, main brands for a SSD would be Kingston / Corsair / Samsung or an Adata, I personally would stay away from any other brands. From your current build, would highly reccomend upgrading your RAM to 16GB DDR3 1600 or 1866 (no point going any higher than that) and changing the graphics card, remember VRAM is vitally important these days now, so if you can get a 4GB version of a GTX 770 or 760 whichever you choose, would be very good in the long run, thats where the next gen games are going, the old rule of 2GB VRAM for 1920 resolutions is about to be dumb-founded by next gen.... Your CPU is perfectly fine for now, and never forget about AMD either if you want a cheap 8-Core CPU, with next gen using all 8 cores, the 8 "physical" cores will start tearing ahead of intel's hypertheading tech untill Intel release their 8-core next year.

@vackillers: Any suggestions for the RAM? I've looked up some but I can't find any information if they work on my motherboard.

http://www.gskill.com/en/product/f3-1866c9d-16gxm

http://www.corsair.com/en/vengeance-16gb-dual-channel-ddr3-memory-kit-cmz16gx3m2a1600c10.html

http://www.corsair.com/en/vengeance-low-profile-16gb-dual-channel-ddr3-memory-kit-cml16gx3m2a1600c10.html

http://www.gskill.com/en/product/f3-12800cl10d-16gbxl