Budget upgrade for gaming

[chmcke01]

Long story short, I built myself a PC back in March 2011 to use for school...I won a $500 cash scholarship from a club I was in and used that as my base budget but went over a little. Since that was almost 7 years ago I am wanting to upgrade.

My primary question is whether I would be better off spending $500ish on a new budget build or if I would be better off upgrading GPU, getting an SSD, etc.

My current build is:
Case - Cooler Master HAF 912 mid tower
Motherboard - ASRock P67 EXTREME4 (B3)
CPU - Intel Core i5-2500K Sandy Bridge Quad-Core 3.3GHz (3.7GHz Turbo Boost)
GPU - Radeon HD 5770
PSU - Corsair CX Series 600 Watt 80 Plus Bronze Certified
RAM - G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3 1600
HDD - SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s

From the how to ask for advice...
Approximate Purchase Date: between now and the end of the year

Budget Range: as cheap as possible...preferably under $300

System Usage from Most to Least Important: gaming

Are you buying a monitor: No


Parts to Upgrade: SSD and GPU probably?

Do you need to buy OS: No, have Windows 10 key

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: prefer Newegg or Amazon

Location: Kentucky

Parts Preferences: I play some emulators and several people have mentioned that NVIDIA GPUs work better for that?

Overclocking: Yes/Maybe

SLI or Crossfire: Don't think so...just plan to have one GPU

Your Monitor Resolution: 1920x1080

And Most Importantly, Why Are You Upgrading: just want to improve quality of dated machine

 

[maxalge]

Long story short, I built myself a PC back in March 2011 to use for school...I won a $500 cash scholarship from a club I was in and used that as my base budget but went over a little. Since that was almost 7 years ago I am wanting to upgrade.

My primary question is whether I would be better off spending $500ish on a new budget build or if I would be better off upgrading GPU, getting an SSD, etc.

My current build is:
Case - Cooler Master HAF 912 mid tower
Motherboard - ASRock P67 EXTREME4 (B3)
CPU - Intel Core i5-2500K Sandy Bridge Quad-Core 3.3GHz (3.7GHz Turbo Boost)
GPU - Radeon HD 5770
PSU - Corsair CX Series 600 Watt 80 Plus Bronze Certified
RAM - G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3 1600
HDD - SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s

From the how to ask for advice...
Approximate Purchase Date: between now and the end of the year

Budget Range: as cheap as possible...preferably under $300

System Usage from Most to Least Important: gaming

Are you buying a monitor: No


Parts to Upgrade: SSD and GPU probably?

Do you need to buy OS: No, have Windows 10 key

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: prefer Newegg or Amazon

Location: Kentucky

Parts Preferences: I play some emulators and several people have mentioned that NVIDIA GPUs work better for that?

Overclocking: Yes/Maybe

SLI or Crossfire: Don't think so...just plan to have one GPU

Your Monitor Resolution: 1920x1080

And Most Importantly, Why Are You Upgrading: just want to improve quality of dated machine

the best bang for buck would be upgrading what you have

look for a i7 3770k (make sure the motherboard bios is up to date before swapping )


For now a gtx 1060 is a great idea, but will be held back a bit by your current cpu

 

[chmcke01]

Long story short, I built myself a PC back in March 2011 to use for school...I won a $500 cash scholarship from a club I was in and used that as my base budget but went over a little. Since that was almost 7 years ago I am wanting to upgrade.

My primary question is whether I would be better off spending $500ish on a new budget build or if I would be better off upgrading GPU, getting an SSD, etc.

My current build is:
Case - Cooler Master HAF 912 mid tower
Motherboard - ASRock P67 EXTREME4 (B3)
CPU - Intel Core i5-2500K Sandy Bridge Quad-Core 3.3GHz (3.7GHz Turbo Boost)
GPU - Radeon HD 5770
PSU - Corsair CX Series 600 Watt 80 Plus Bronze Certified
RAM - G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3 1600
HDD - SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s

From the how to ask for advice...
Approximate Purchase Date: between now and the end of the year

Budget Range: as cheap as possible...preferably under $300

System Usage from Most to Least Important: gaming

Are you buying a monitor: No


Parts to Upgrade: SSD and GPU probably?

Do you need to buy OS: No, have Windows 10 key

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: prefer Newegg or Amazon

Location: Kentucky

Parts Preferences: I play some emulators and several people have mentioned that NVIDIA GPUs work better for that?

Overclocking: Yes/Maybe

SLI or Crossfire: Don't think so...just plan to have one GPU

Your Monitor Resolution: 1920x1080

And Most Importantly, Why Are You Upgrading: just want to improve quality of dated machine

the best bang for buck would be upgrading what you have

look for a i7 3770k (make sure the motherboard bios is up to date before swapping )


For now a gtx 1060 is a great idea, but will be held back a bit by your current cpu

Thanks, I will check out that video card. It looks like that processor runs around $550 these days on Newegg and is out of stock everywhere else I have checked (even if it was in stock it is $300+ alone is the same price as a MSI B350 Gaming mobo and Ryzen 5 1600)...for $500 I could get the motherboard, processor, SSD, and RAM for a Ryzen build and reuse my current case and PSU. Would that not be a better (subjective I know) use of the money?

 

[maxalge]

Thanks, I will check out that video card. It looks like that processor runs around $550 these days on Newegg and is out of stock everywhere else I have checked (even if it was in stock it is $300+ alone is the same price as a MSI B350 Gaming mobo and Ryzen 5 1600)...for $500 I could get the motherboard, processor, SSD, and RAM for a Ryzen build and reuse my current case and PSU. Would that not be a better (subjective I know) use of the money?

you should not buy the 3770k new, look at places like ebay or craigslist, or whatever popular local used market there is where you are from