Question Benchmark software

Not only what hardware, but also the purpose of this question. I.e. Is this for stress-testing and see how some components fare under heavy load? Suspect some bad hardware?
Or is this purpose only to impress your gaming buddies ?
 
I will be updating some PCs RAM and HHD to SSD.

I want to have a "picture" of how the computer was performing before the upgrade and then check how much it improved.