Hello, I built this PC about 2 years ago and I have around 200$ to upgrade with, I was wanting to know what should I upgrade first, and in the near future.
I use this PC for gaming and as a media viewer, I don't play any crazy hardware requiring games just basic things like CS:GO, NewZ, and H1z1.
[Part List] CPU: AMD FX-6300 3.5GHz 6-Core
Motherboard: MSI 970A-G43 ATX AM3+
Ram: Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB DDR3-1600
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition 2GB
Case: Cooler Master Storm Scout 2 ATX Mid Tower
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8 Professional
CPU: AMD FX-6300 3.5GHz 6-Core - Still has plety of life in it
Motherboard: MSI 970A-G43 ATX AM3+Still has plety of life in it
Ram: Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB DDR3-1600Still has plety of life in it
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB - I could never have just 500GB but then I8'm a content creator, so if this is sufficient then keep it, an SSD for your OS would Definely help though!
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition 2GB - Try selling and getting an R9 290 or a GTX 960 for a nice performance boost?
Case: Cooler Master Storm Scout 2 ATX Mid Tower - Still has plety of life in it
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8 Professional - Still has plety of life in it
You could probably get an 8 core (if the board can support it and you don't have an interest in overclocking it).
I would get an SSD. You could get one for just a boot drive or have it do boot + storage. Either way you should definately get an SSD for at least boot. You don't need to blow a bunch of money on one as a 64 gig ADATA one would work for just a boot drive.
I might get 4 more gigs of ram just to be above 8 because..... why not. Good to have some then top out, I guess.
Some case fans are always a great buy. Better to have positive air preassure than almost none at all :D
If you're not happy with that GPU you might be able to get a 380 or something. CPU might be a bottle neck though so you might want to check that before doing anything.
I agree with this in addition to mine, maybe just spending the money on maintenance like dusting out your case replacing old fans etc.. if the performance is still good for you
Well, as the others have said, it all have a lot of life ahead of it... Best you can do is just get an SSD... 45$ for 120GB Adata or something... No need to go overkill with expensive stuff... You will benefit hugely with something like this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820220936
Keep saving and buy a new platform entirely when you need the grunt or grab a ssd now to store the OS and a few games/apps. With the titles you list there is very little point in grabbing a new gpu or upgrading to an 8 core.
I personally would do a clean install after backing everything up. Makes it all a lot easier and a fresh install gets rid of any crud that was filling it up. There are ways to transfer an install though, but I'm not sure how to exactly do that.
But you'll need an SSD of the same size or bigger if you want to migrate everything. The other option is you can just remove everything except the OS and in theory a 120 GB would be fine for cloning, but I'm not a 100% on this.