Help with upgrade?

[Nafninja23]

Hey guys, I bought my pc early 2012 and finally have a bit of money to upgrade a couple of components. Problem being I have no idea what's best to upgrade first without unbalancing the machine, whilst still getting a good upgrade. I'm likely going to purchase a ssd and second hdd as well (these seem needed) - so my main question is what do I upgrade now??? - probably can spend £200 - £300 atm, any advice appreciated

Spec ___
Case
COOLERMASTER CM690 MKII ADVANCED CASE

Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i5-2500 Quad Core (3.30GHz, 6MB Cache) + HD Graphics

Motherboard
ASUS® P8Z68-V LX: USB 3.0, SATA 6GBs, ATI®CrossFireX

Memory (RAM)
8GB SAMSUNG DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 4GB)

Graphics Card
2GB AMD RADEON™ HD6950 - 2 DVI,HDMI,2 mDP - DX® 11, Eyefinity 4 Capable

Memory -
1st Hard Disk 1TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD1002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
2nd Hard Disk NONE

1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive 24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM

Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT

Power Supply
CORSAIR 650W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX650 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE (£69)

Processor Cooling
SUPER QUIET 22dBA TRIPLE COPPER HEATPIPE INTEL CPU COOLER (£19)

Fan Controller
NONE

Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)

Wireless/Wired Networking
GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS 802.11N 300Mbps PCI CARD (£16)

USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD

 

[keynes]

Without indicated your intended use is difficult to give advice.

 

[Nafninja23]

Want machine to just generally run faster, and give better performance throughout, including games. Possibly another GPU, or an upgrade? Though don't know if upgrading the CPU or something else would be more beneficial ??? What do people usually upgrade first I guess is the question??

 

[keynes]

If you are more specific you could probably get better feedback. An SSD will make windows boot faster and a better gpu is ideal for gaming. The r9-280x would be a good choice.

 

[Nafninja23]

Well I only want some ideas really. Just don't know where to start. There's not necessarily any issues with my pc for me to say I want x to run faster ect....

 

[steaky360]

As Keynes has suggested, a GPU will help with gaming, SSD would help mostly with boot times (for the OS primarily and maybe any programs stored on it), CPU could help with 'general speed' but wouldn't really improve the speed too much, you have plenty of RAM for most uses, your PSU is fine unless you want to really start packing more hardware in. You could look at getting a dedicated sound card? Asus Xonar range or something similar start pretty cheap and are excellent.

I'd say the graphics card + SSD as suggested by Keynes along with a sound card would be the best bet for the upgrades.

But if you don't know what you want to run faster (games/programs etc.) then its difficult to be more precise.

 

[nathanjrb]

I have a Xonar D2X sound card and it's excellent - but not really worth it unless you're a bit of an audiophile or work heavily with sound, such as editing.

 

[Nafninja23]

Okay cool, well programs seem to be fine, so say I wanted to go for gpu would it be better to just upgrade the one I have, or is it worth putting a second in??? Any suggestions on which ones would be a good bet would also be appreciated

 

[tom_gr7]

i'd go for a 120gb ssd, you can pick up decent ones for less than 80 quid. Kingston, samsung, corsair, intel, san disk, are brands i'd go with.

then depending on your budget, i'd look at getting a new gpu - if you're into gaming.

 

[Nafninja23]

So I've bought a 120gb ssd now, what's people's opinion on the gpu????
Budget of 300, could be persuaded to spend a tad more if really worth doing

 

[keynes]

So I've bought a 120gb ssd now, what's people's opinion on the gpu????

I am still a bit confused
You said there are no issues with your system right? Is gaming the main use? Are there any games you can't run? If not, you obviously don't need an upgrade. Your gpu is quite strong and if you wish to upgrade I would say that the gtx 770/r9-280x would give you a decent improvement.

 

[tom_gr7]

I'd go for a GTX 680, 770 or above. Might be able to get a factory overclocked card for 300 quid too. Really worth the extra few quid over a standard card.