I built this computer about 9 months ago and I was on a tight budget.I tried getting the best pieces for my computer in that budget and made some compromises. By that I mean instead of going with an i3/AMD something and a GPU I went with an i5 & iGPU. I also got only 4 GB of RAM and took the hard drive from my laptop. Now I have some money and I want to upgrade some parts, I just don't know what I should upgrade...
My current setup:
Case: Cougar Solution Black
PSU: Corsair VS450
MB: Gigabyte GA-H87-D3H
CPU: Intel i5-4440 w/ Stock Cooler
GPU: Intel HD 4600
RAM: Corsair Vengeance 4 GB
HDD: WD Scorpion Blue 250GB 5700 RPM
well it depends on what you are doing right now. If your looking for pure speed and overall improvement, definitly go hard drive first, the one you have is quite slow, so if possible get a 7200rpm one, but ideally you want a hybrid, or an ssd as you get a massive improvment from this.
If you looking at gaming etc then no doubt go for the graphics card, this will result in a massive improvement in that area. However you need to make sure you power supply is large enough, especially with the larger cards, so use the watt calculator on coolmasters website when looking at cards to make sure it will be compatible.
In terms of ram, 8gb is the sweet spot right now. The current stuff you have should do for a bit atleast, but do consider doing that in the future.
But yeah does depend on what you are using it for.
Hope this helped, hit me up with anymore questions you may have.
Could Grab a 1TB Blue/Black HDD. If you want an SSD you could get a 240GB-256GB SSD no more than $120USD. Then a Graphics card, GTX 660TI/R9 270/R7 265, or if you feel like splurging on the graphics a 280X or GTX 770. Another 4GB of RAM could be added first or last depending how much you are willing to spend or how much you want the graphics performance.
I think I will get a 270X (found a really good deal), another 4GB RAM stick and an 1TB WD Blue 7200 RPM drive... maybe a SSD in the future. Right now I mainly use my computer for gaming and streaming. I just have this little problem. When I don't stream I can play TF2 on high with ~30-40 FPS. When I stream it I can't even get 30 FPS on low...
Get an R9 270; it's a underclocked 270x and about 20 bucks cheaper(but if your 270x is cheaper, go for it)
Otherwise, that upgrade path sounds really good.
For streaming, look into setting up Intel's Quick Sync. I have a 3570k and I record some footage. Using quicksync for recording has been epic. I see a drop of maybe 5-10fps in tf2 and gmod.
Definitely get the R9-270.. But there is a $30 rebate available on this 270x
http://pcpartpicker.com/part/powercolor-video-card-axr9270x2gbd5ppdhe
I would also recommend getting a SSD as a boot drive instead of getting a 1TB drive. You can get a lot of everyday performance out of that.
I would recommend:
- r9-270x (if less than $180)
- 240GB ssd http://pcpartpicker.com/part/pny-internal-hard-drive-ssd7sc240goptrb
- 8GB ram
- 1tb HDD
After that I would just save for a complete system upgrade and carry over your drives and ram. I still think we are a ways away from DDR4.