PC Upgrade Tips

[DeadStretch]

Hi,
A couple months ago I upgraded a very old system to something a bit more modern. At the time I was on a very tight budget. I had to reuse the GPU and HDD which is pretty small. I have some extra cash now and I am looking to add some improvements.

OS: Win 8.1
CPU: AMD Athlon x4 760k (Stock Fan and Heatsink)
Mobo: ASRock FM2A55M-VG3+
RAM: G.Skill Ares 8GB
GPU: XFX Radeon HD 4850 512MB 256-Bit
HDD: 465GB Seagate ST3500410AS
Case: Rosewill fbm-01
Monitors: Acer S220HQL (1920x1080@60Hz), Sony KDL-23S2000 (1360x768@60Hz)
Optical Drive: TSSTcorp DVD+-RW TS-H653A
[Edit]
PSU: EVGA 430W 80PLUS 100-W1-0430-KR

The main use of the system is gaming. Games of all ranges. Platformers, RPG, FPS, MMO, Racing I am thinking about upgrading the GPU and adding an SSD drive (small one about 120GB) for the OS and other commonly used programs. Also maybe a newer HDD. I'm looking to spend about $150-$200 on this upgrade. Also I was thinking of buying aftermarket fans, one for my CPU and one for the case exhaust. I believe my case has a rear mount for a 92mm fan.

Also I am quite the noob with PC tech so a link to a guide or explanation on how to get windows and other programs like Steam over to the SSD would be great.

Thanks.

 

[RookieOfTheYear]

I would put the $200 towards a new GPU. Its quite difficult to transfer the OS if you don't have one SSD and 2 HDD's. You can buy software that will transfer just the OS for like $20-30. And the SSD won't have really any effect on games.

The other thing you could do to boost performance is to get a CPU cooler like the hyper 212 EVO and overclock your CPU a little. But I think the GPU is bottlenecking before the CPU. Although, they might be closer than I think in performance. You probably should have waited and bout an AMD FX-6300.

But, if you are pleased with the performance you are getting now in games, then there would be no need to upgrade. With the SSD, you will get much fast load times and boot times. So really, it depends on what is important to you.