How to spend my upgrade $.

[AlexHYS]

It's the year-end holidays in Malaysia and I've got myself a part time job.
I'll get about a thousand Ringgit.Which is ~300 USD.

My specs are in my signature.How should I spend my $? Or should I save up more money?
I really want a SSD, but this hot-ass FX8120 is a real thorn in my side.
The Elite 431's case airflow and space constraints also present a bottleneck for me.
And is the HD7870 still relevant with all the R9's?

Thanks.

 

[clutchc]

Most of the R9s are simply re-badged HD 7xxx cards. My R9-290X is sometimes recognized as a HD 7970.
With a BIOS update to 1006 you can use an FX-8350. A much improved performance upgrade to your FX-8120. That would still leave you enough to add a 120GB SSD. I'm basing my costs on the USD and prices here in the US. Prices may different for you.

You wouldn't see as much performance increase overall though, as you would with putting the money towards a new gfx card. But I don't know how much bottleneck the older Bulldozer would present to something faster that your HD 7870.