Upgrade advice for PC build

[scottishbullet]

Hi. Last December (2012) I built a system on a budget with the goal of upgrading this year. I was (and still am) a novice when it comes to hardware but I did some research last year and got some help from a local computer store. I use my PC for video editing with Premiere and After Effects so that's my main focus to make faster editing and render times. Here are my specs.

CPU: Intel Core i7-3770 @ 3.4GHz
Motherboard: Gigabyte Z77-D3H LGA1155
RAM: Patriot Viper 3 16GB (4 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory
Hard drive: 120GB 2.5" Solid State Disk (OS and Premiere and AE)
Hard drive: WD Green 1TB (Programs, Current Data)
Hard drive: Raid 1, 1TB backup for storing unused files (Will upgrade to 2 or 3 TB)
GPU: MSI Radeon 7770 1GB GDDR 5 Video Card
Casing: Antec 300 TWO ATX Case
PSU: Antec 620W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular Power Supply
O/S: Microsoft Windows 8.1 Pro (64 bit)

So what would be suggestions on improving the hardware to get better rendering results?

 

[H4X3R]

Hey there
There is mainly just 1 improvement, the graphics card. I highly recommend that you buy an nVidia card so that you can use the CUDA technology to accelerate the video editing process. A good one would be the gtx 760, but it all depends on your price range. Please specify that.

 

[scottishbullet]

Thanks H4X3R. That is within my budget. What would be the next better card above the gtx 760? What do you think about adding an extra SSD for scratch disk? I've read that can help.

 

[H4X3R]

The one above the gtx 760 would be a gtx 770 coming in at about $100 more. As for an SSD as a scratch disk, its a great idea if you have the money.

 

[scottishbullet]

Thanks for the advice. I was able to pick up a GTX 760 and I can already see the difference. Can I get some input on the drive config? I've read so many opinions about this and there doesn't seem to be a good answer. Here is what I was thinking of doing...

1: 240 SSD - OS and APPS
2: 128 SSD - Media Cache (Scratch?)
3: 4TB HDD - Project Files
4: 1TB HDD - Renders (Previews)

Is there a better way to configure this? Sorry I'm such a newbie on this stuff.