Upgrade Slowly Over Time or All at Once?

[Duschaefer]

My computer is roughly 7 years old and it's starting to show it's age. I'm interested in upgrading, but I'm unsure if I should upgrade it piece by piece over time or build a new system from the ground up. My biggest concern is both budget and attempting to future proof it as much as possible. I'm not looking for an incredibly advanced rig, I just want to play WoW and some new release titles at max settings.

This is what I'm currently using. If there is anything here worth keeping moving forward, that would be great too. Keep in mind that I don't need peripherals, and while I only use one monitor currently, I plan on keeping it and will not be adding a second at this time, but hopefully in the future.

My budget is between $1000-$1500
CPU - Intel Core i7-930 2.8GHz Quad-Core Processor
Motherboard - Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R ATX LGA1366 Motherboard
Memory - Corsair XMS3 6GB (3 x 2GB) DDR3-1600 Memory
Storage - Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive
Video Card - MSI GeForce GTX 560 Ti 1GB Video Card
Case - Cooler Master HAF 932 Advanced ATX Full Tower Case
Power Supply - CoolMax 850W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply
Operating System - Microsoft Windows 10 Home OEM 64-bit
Monitor - Samsung SyncMaster P2250 1920x1080

Feel free to let me know if you need more information.

[Fascinate]

I would sell your currrent PC for ~250 bucks on craigslist (about what its worth, ask 300 take 250) and build new PC all at once. Monitor is fine unless you wanted to upgrade to 1440p or 144hz.

[Cilraaz]

Considering your budget is fairly high, I'd suggest the same as Fascinate. For you to upgrade your CPU, you'd have to upgrade your motherboard. The current CPUs/Motherboards require DDR4 RAM, so you'd need to upgrade that. At that point, the 560 would be woefully inferior and need upgraded. If you didn't want to sell what you currently have, you could re-use the WD Caviar Black drive, case, and PSU, though.

[Ringthane]

Considering your budget is fairly high, I'd suggest the same as Fascinate. For you to upgrade your CPU, you'd have to upgrade your motherboard. The current CPUs/Motherboards require DDR4 RAM, so you'd need to upgrade that. At that point, the 560 would be woefully inferior and need upgraded. If you didn't want to sell what you currently have, you could re-use the WD Caviar Black drive, case, and PSU, though.

Pretty much this. If you want a computer to last another seven years, you might as well go ahead and do it all now. I just did the same thing, and replaced my CPU, motherboard, and memory. Now I'm pretty much set for a while.

[Thunderball]

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-6600K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($238.98 @ NCIX US)
CPU Cooler: Thermalright TRUE Spirit 140 POWER 73.6 CFM CPU Cooler ($49.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: ASRock Fatal1ty Z170 Gaming K4 ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($102.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory ($79.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($90.49 @ Newegg)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 1070 8GB Video Card ($419.95 @ B&H)
Monitor: AOC Q2778VQE 27.0" 60Hz Monitor ($279.99 @ B&H)
Total: $1262.37
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-07-30 04:59 EDT-0400

You would want to keep your HDD (keep SSD for games and OS, HDD for everything else, you can also go for 500GB SSD option if 250GB is not enough for your OS+games), PSU and case (you can replace that if you want, I recommend Fractal Define R5 or Enthoo Pro M). You can apparently also keep your OS if you contact their support.

[Deleted]

You would want to keep your HDD (keep SSD for games and OS, HDD for everything else, you can also go for 500GB SSD option if 250GB is not enough for your OS+games), PSU and case (you can replace that if you want, I recommend Fractal Define R5 or Enthoo Pro M). You can apparently also keep your OS if you contact their support.

I would probably also change the PSU. I can't find anything about Coolmax PSU's, or that particular model. Better be safe and the budget is there to get a new PSU.

[Surfd]

My computer is roughly 7 years old and it's starting to show it's age. I'm interested in upgrading, but I'm unsure if I should upgrade it piece by piece over time or build a new system from the ground up. My biggest concern is both budget and attempting to future proof it as much as possible. I'm not looking for an incredibly advanced rig, I just want to play WoW and some new release titles at max settings.

Give up on that second one there. It is practically impossible to effectively "future proof" a pc, considering that at the rate the technology evolves, they are practically obsolete within days of you putting a new one together.

The best you can hope for is decent upgradability down the line.

If you are upgrading from a 7 year old pc, upgrading it piecemeal can be done, as the primary source of improvement would be a new motherboard, which will in turn require a new Processor and new ram, but you should have no problem carrying over harddrives and video cards most likely until budget allows you to go better on those.

I would recommend investing in a new motherboard, processor, and ram. If you are planning on ditching the old guts, you should be able to re-use the case / powersupply without much issue.

Make sure whatever motherboard you chose will support DDR4 ram (as that is going to be the future standard for your next upgrade cycle after you put a new machine together). If you go Intel, make sure it supports the Skylake architecture (socket 1151 with a z170 chipset preferred). This will give you a lot of room for future upgrades. The Asus Z170-A board is what I used for the new PC I built for myself just a week or so ago, and it is a beast of a board.

Having said all that, you did say you want to play stuff at max settings. Your old vid card likely wont cut it, so you will need a new one. You have a lot of options on that front, as the new generation of ATI and Nvidia stuff just started dropping which means prices are going to do all sorts of weird things for the next few months. If you can get by with just carrying your old card over to the new rig, you could do that (and wait things out to see if any of the previous gen cards you had your eye on take a dive in price). If you really want to be budget smart, you could try hold off till end of year on a video card. This would let you maybe scoop a dynamite deal on something during online "black friday" weekend sales or Boxing week sales, and would also give 3rd party companies a few months to play with the high spec reference card and add some breadth to the competition in the high end segment.

[Thunderball]

I would probably also change the PSU. I can't find anything about Coolmax PSU's, or that particular model. Better be safe and the budget is there to get a new PSU.

Well my policy on PSU changes (when the old one for sure produces enough power) is building with it and see what happens. Unless his electricity bills are enormous then it's a good way to save on that.