Another upgrade thread

[ludloj]

Motherboard: P5N rev 1.02G
Ram: (2) sticks of 2 gigs = 4 gigs
Processor: Intel Duo Core E7200 @ 2.53GHz
GPU: 9600GT
OS: Vista

I have a $500 budget. What upgrades should I get as a gamer?

 

[Sunius]

I'll assume you're from US!

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-2310 2.9GHz Quad-Core Processor ($169.98 @ NCIX US)
Motherboard: MSI H61M-P23 (B3) Micro ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($39.99 @ NCIX US)
Memory: Corsair XMS3 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($39.99 @ Newegg)
Video Card: HIS Radeon HD 7870 2GB Video Card ($219.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Antec 520W ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply ($51.00 @ Newegg)
Total: $520.95
(Prices include shipping and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2012-08-30 00:58 EDT-0400)

How does that sound? .

 

[simon12]

I agree Sunius's suggestion looks good. Depending on what it is you may be able to keep your power supply also check if your drives are SATA or they will not work with it.

 

[Sunius]

^

Those must be sata, no way he was a vista machine with PATA hard drive (they didn't make them larger than 40 GB, and Vista would barely fit inside that).