Worth an Upgrade..?

[jaysnet]

Hi All,

In April 2013 I got this:

Case COOLERMASTER CM STORM ENFORCER - GAMING ENTHUSIAST CASE
Processor Intel® Core™i5 Quad Core Processor i5-3570 (3.4GHz) 6MB Cache
Motherboard ASUS® P8Z77-V LX: USB 3.0, SATA 6GBs, ATI®CrossFireX
Memory (RAM) 8GB SAMSUNG DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz (2 x 4GB)
Graphics Card 2GB AMD RADEON™ HD7870 - DVI, HDMI, 2 mDP - DX® 11, Eyefinity 4 Capable
1st Hard Disk 120GB INTEL® 520 SERIES SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 550MB/sR | 520MB/sW)
2nd Hard Disk 1TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD1002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
3rd Hard Disk 1TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD1002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
DVD Drive 24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Memory Card INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Power Supply 450W Quiet 80 PLUS Dual Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan
CPU Cooling Super Quiet 22dBA Triple Copper Heatpipe Intel CPU Cooler
Extra Case Fans 2 x 12CM Black Case Fan (configured to extract from rear/roof)
Sound Card ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs
USB Options 4 PORT USB 2.0 INTERNAL PCI CARD + STANDARD USB PORTS

Firstly, it's still a fantastic machine, as it copes with everything I throw at it. However, I've been geting itchy fingers and was wondering if it would be worth upgrading, to 'future proof' for a few more years. Mainly:

1. Is it worth upgrading the Graphics Card, and if so, reccommendations? Would I then need a new PSU?

2. I have 3 old IDE Hard Drives. Would it be easy to install them into this machine, or not worth it?

I guess I'm trying to avoid a brand new machine in the future, but if I can tart this one up a bit (if needed), then I'm happy to do that.

Many thanks for any suggestions.

 

[Oussebon]

Upgrading the GPU would help with games, check out the RX 480 by AMD when it released on 29th June.

It should be possible to get older HDDs working with adapter cables but in view of them being somewhat old and perhaps lower capacity and performance, and the fairly reasonable price of HDDs nowadays, it might be more efficient to pick up a WD blue 2TB or something.

 

[jaysnet]

Thanks Oussebon, I'll probably do what you suggest (with the HD). I'll keep eyes peeled for the GPU.

Cheers!

 

[ubuysa]

I'd second Oussebon on the HDDs and personally I'd scrap them. IDE is a very old interface and it's limited to a 133 MB/s data transfer rate, you'll find them to be way too slow - especially alongside those Caviar Blacks. In any computer system HDDs are the poorest performing components (because they use moving metal parts) so for maximum system performance you want the fastest HDDs you can get.