So this is what I bought in 2011, boxing day sale. It has an I5 2300 & 6GB DDR3, stock motherboard, fans, HDD (1TB, I also have a 500G external), heatsink and case...which has broken. Drive bay doors are gone because they were damaged, case is terrible, found it really hard to manage cables. It had a GeForce GT420 and a generic 300W PSU, but I took those out and put in an Antec HGC-520M PSU (520W) and an ASUS HD 7850.
My peripherals are fine, and I'm running a dual monitor setup, a 1600x900 for docs & browsing, usually has Winamp, and a 1920x1080 for my main monitor. The desktop is also wireless, but I tossed the stock wireless card and bought some Netgear dual band stuff (Also to replace an old and terrible router) and it's been working perfectly. No disconnections, no extreme latency, no problem. Wired isn't currently an option.
If there's an upgrade you're thinking of suggesting, keep in mind I don't need the most flashy and top-end in terms of parts, I just need something that's going to function at an acceptable level, considering I'm using a 7850 and playing everything at either high or ultra with some shadows turned down. Let's establish a total budget of $300 or less for any and all upgrades. Before you post links, I live in Canada, so Newegg.ca, canadacomputers.ca, amazon.ca and especially futureshop.ca would be most convenient for me. Otherwise, post away.
I definitely want a new case, but will my generic motherboard have problems with other cases, or should that be one of the first things to go? Do I really need a new heatsink? As far as I can tell my CPU hasn't been overheating. Temperatures for the GPU can get quite spicy in the mid 60s though, but it's never enough to drop performance drastically as far as I can tell. I've cleaned out my mom's dust-caked heatsink and I've seen what it does to computing speed, and my computer's never shown any such symptoms thus far.
Looking for feedback and advice, preemptive thanks for any and all replies.