Recommendations to get more performance out of my PC?

[mikestancato]

I have a pretty big buffer $500-$600 to work with and am looking for recommendations to get the most out of my money. I am a pretty hardcore gamer and also do a lot of work in 3ds/AE. You guys here at tom's know what your talking about so I leave it to you to decide what would be the best upgrades for my PC!

Current Setup:
AMD FX-8320 CPU
ASUS M5A87 R2.0 MOBO
EVGA GTX 1060 6GB FTW+
8 GB DDR3 1066 Ram (4gb x 2)
Rosewill CAPSTONE 650w PSU
2x Samsung 1TB HDs

PC was great 3-4 years ago as a budget gaming build. I know my RAM is suffering, and not having a SSD is pretty bad as well. Also my CPU and MOBO are quickly becoming outdated. You guys think I should go CPU+MOBO first (preferably intel so I can upgrade to DDR4 down the road)? Or can I get away with my combo for a few more years and go to a higher DDR3 speed + SSD? Pretty sure my setup is already bottlenecking my GPU a bit.

Any help would be much appreciated! Thanks guys!

 

[Supahos]

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-7700K 4.2GHz Quad-Core Processor ($343.33 @ OutletPC)
CPU Cooler: CRYORIG H7 49.0 CFM CPU Cooler ($34.88 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: MSI Z270-A PRO ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($114.99 @ B&H)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws 4 Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory ($96.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $590.19
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-02-16 13:58 EST-0500


Probably your best option. Add a SSD later should be valid for years to come. Next thing would be the GPU but it should have several years of higher end life in it

 

[mikestancato]

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-7700K 4.2GHz Quad-Core Processor ($343.33 @ OutletPC)
CPU Cooler: CRYORIG H7 49.0 CFM CPU Cooler ($34.88 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: MSI Z270-A PRO ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($114.99 @ B&H)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws 4 Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory ($96.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $590.19
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-02-16 13:58 EST-0500


Probably your best option. Add a SSD later should be valid for years to come. Next thing would be the GPU but it should have several years of higher end life in it

MSI MOBO over the ASUS that everyone seems to be recommending these days? Or does that really come down to preference at this point? Same question with Ripjaw > TridentZ?

 

[Eximo]

Trivial differences when it comes to motherboards and memory.

For motherboards, look at the aesthetics and features.

For memory, I like to buy the speed I want, rather than overclocking and tweaking. CAS 15 3000, CAS 13 2666 and even CAS 16 3200-3400 is all about the same rough performance/price. So again you can concentrate on getting it to match the board and CPU cooler.

In this case you could go with an EVGA board to match your GPU and pick up some black memory.

 

[Supahos]

I was looking for a cheap, quality board, and cheap fast memory anything else and you'd pretty well be over budget.