Looking to do a small upgrade to my Computer.. What should I upgrade?

[Apple_Powah91]

I plan on getting a small upgrade for my computer soon. My biggest issue right now is having lots of things happen at the same time (Like heavy SC2 battles). I just want to be able to play Skyrim / HoMM6 / ME3 and such at good fps, which I can probably achieve to a point right now but I'd like a little bit of room to upgrade graphics if I want. I also plan on getting a SSD and Windows 7 (I have Vista now), and I'm not sure if that will make any difference but I thought I would include that just in case.

Here's what I have now.
Motherboard - Biostar N61PC-M2S
Processor - AMD Athlon 5000 Dual Core Processor
4 Gigs DDR2 Ram
Video Card - NVidia Geforce 9500 GT


Those are the main components to a computer, yes?

Edit - Forgot to put a budget. I'd like to keep it under 200 dollars after SSD / Windows 7 if possible.

Edit 2 - A recommendation on a low budget SSD to put Windows 7 and possibly 1 or 2 games on (Probably not WoW) would be greatly appreciated.

Edit 3 -.- - Windows 7 64 bit or 32 bit? I'm not quite sure of the differences here.

[Hoffa3]

Basically all the components u have posted are out dated. I'd recommend at least 8gb of ram for vista or w7. That would help the bottle necking during heavy gameplay. New gphx card will help ur fps, 5000 series is good. If interested I have 8gb of ram and a 5680 gphx card with very light use. I want to get rid of both of them are bout 2 months old and I'll sell for 150 if interested

[Shakadam]

Honestly, 200$ aint gonna help you much here. I'm afraid your entire system is outdated. The only thing I can think of would be getting a new gfx card, a Geforce 560Ti for example. However your processor is gonna be a severe bottleneck but it'll be better than what you have.

[OhpUldum]

I wouldn't recommend a SSD when you are working with such a trim budget. You would in turn see a better investment on your dollar by taking the money budgeted for a SSD and putting it towards a new motherboard / memory / and CPU. Just updating to the current generation of Intel i3 2100, 4GB of DDR3 memory, and a $60 LGA1155 motherboard would give you far better performance over updating say just the CPU and grabbing a SSD.

Games like WoW and SC2 are barely affected by a SSD. Yes the loading screen times are faster but if you are looking to improve your overall performance and game experience you won't find that in grabbing a SSD.

Intel i3 2100 124.99
4GB Corsair DDR3 1333Mhz 26.99
ASRock H61M-VS $59.99

Works out to be roughly 211.97. Yes your video card is old and you will be going from one bottleneck to the next but if you're looking to spend around $200 to upgrade this system the money is best spent on updating the CPU/Mobo/Memory since that will help all of your games and applications. Then when money permits you take a look at grabbing an updated video card.

[Apple_Powah91]

I'm looking to grab an SSD for my operating system, as stated. I'm upgrading from Vista to Windows 7 and would like the installation to be clean and fast, along with booting times. If people think it's still not worth it then I'll consider not grabbing the SSD.

[Asera]

There's almost no performance difference between Vista and 7 now.

[Apple_Powah91]

Intel i3 2100 124.99
4GB Corsair DDR3 1333Mhz 26.99
ASRock H61M-VS $59.99

Works out to be roughly 211.97. Yes your video card is old and you will be going from one bottleneck to the next but if you're looking to spend around $200 to upgrade this system the money is best spent on updating the CPU/Mobo/Memory since that will help all of your games and applications. Then when money permits you take a look at grabbing an updated video card.

Thanks for the recommendations by the way. Since you don't recommend an SSD, I could use the money that I would be spending on the SSD for a better graphics card. Which would you say is the best budget graphics card?

[OhpUldum]

I'm looking to grab an SSD for my operating system, as stated. I'm upgrading from Vista to Windows 7 and would like the installation to be clean and fast, along with booting times. If people think it's still not worth it then I'll consider not grabbing the SSD.

You would have a clean and fast installation by just formatting your current drive and installing Windows 7. If you want to upgrade the hard drive then I would suggest a 1TB Samsung Spinpoint for $60

If your primary purpose of this system is for gaming then upgrade what is going to affect your gaming positively. That is the GPU/CPU/Mobo/RAM. The SSD would barely impact your gaming performance and in turn experience.

---------- Post added 2011-08-21 at 12:56 AM ----------

Depending on the budget here are some video cards I'd recommend.
MSI N560GTX Twin Frozr II 179.99AR
MSI R6770 Twin Frozr II 139.99
ASUS ENGTX550 109.99AR

If you have more money to stretch the budget then we can look at some higher models but these are three cards that are great performance for the money spent. Also since you are running a 9500GT any of these three cards shouldn't require you changing the power supply.

[Apple_Powah91]

Thanks for the help. What kind of performance would you expect from this build assuming I buy the Asus card you linked? Also, any comments on 32 bit vs 64 bit Windows 7?

[ispano]

Only possible reason to use 32bit is if you have less than 4GB of RAM. And even then it's almost better to just use 64bit in case you upgrade the RAM later.

[OhpUldum]

32 Bit windows is for people who will never have more than 3.25GB's of memory. Since most gaming systems have a minimum of 4GB's you will want the 64 bit operating system. Assuming you go with the i3 2100, 4GB of memory and the GTX550 linked you can expect to play on high to ultra settings with AA/Shadows turned off around 40 to 60FPS.

[Apple_Powah91]

Alright. Thanks a lot guys for the quick and accurate responses!

[Ominouscloud]

As others said, I'd not put an SSD high on the priority list with your current setup. The problem you're going to run into here is mobo, CPU and RAM will all have to be upgraded at the same time since none will be compatible with newer items so re-using won't be possible on those components. Also that GPU may barely run Skyrim on low settings if that since it requires minimum 8800 GT and the 9500 GT you have is in line with the older 8600 GT (taken from systemrequirements.in/system-requirements-for-the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim.html and tomshardware.com/forum/260559-33-nvidia-geforce-8800-640mb-gigabyte-9500gt-gddr2).