$900 budget for upgrades - any advice?

[1LT (Ret) Aston]

I built my first PC back in 2015. Since then, I haven't added much to it other than an extra HDD for storage and an additional monitor.

I recently considered buying a 1080Ti just as a "fuck it" moment but then I saw that there may not be much point in doing so since I run on a 60Hz 1080p monitor. I'm not too fussed about going over 60 FPS, I just want consistent 60 FPS even when I throw in a fuck load of visual mods into Fallout/Witcher/Skyrim.

However, I figured that there might be an alternative way to get more for my money, and I wanted to see if you guys might be able to offer me some perspective. All I want is to get as much performance for my £700 ($900) budget, whilst future-proofing my PC for later upgrades. I'm happy to consider anything at this point.

What would you do if you had my build and roughly $900 to play with?

Below is my current build:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Core i7-4790K 4GHz Quad-Core Processor
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master - Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler
Motherboard: Asus - MAXIMUS VII RANGER ATX LGA1150 Motherboard
Memory: Kingston - HyperX Fury Blue 4GB (1 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory
Memory: Kingston - HyperX Fury Blue 4GB (1 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory
Storage: Samsung - 840 EVO 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive
Storage: Western Digital - Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive
Video Card: Gigabyte - GeForce GTX 970 4GB G1 Gaming Video Card
Case: NZXT - Phantom (Black) ATX Full Tower Case
Power Supply: EVGA - SuperNOVA G2 750W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply
Monitor: BenQ - GL2450HM 24.0" 1920x1080 60Hz Monitor
Monitor: BenQ - GL2450HM 24.0" 1920x1080 60Hz Monitor
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-09-25 11:48 EDT-0400

 

[SSG (Ret) Madsen]

the only thing as really springs to mind is better/More RAM.

8 is fine, but 16 is better, and it is fairly cheap.

I would not recommend buying a GPU atm, the 970 is great still, i would wait until the card after the 2080, and then buy that, but until then i would not bother upgrading (i use a 970 myself)

Personally i like to have more SSD's, i currently use 1 120 SSD for Windows, teamspeak etc. as my C-drive, and then i have 2 250GB SSD's for games, and 2 1TB HDD's for everything else.

While that is definately a bit overkill, then the principle of having a big SSD just for games, where no other things are on, are very handy and makes it easy to install/uninstall while keeping junk away, so with that in mind, i would recommend buying a SSD drive of 250 or more for games, while keeping your current SSD and HDD.

your CPU is pretty good (i use the same myself) but ARMA are very CPU intensive, and if you have 900 USD to throw away for upgrades, i would recommend atleast looking at the new things that Intel is putting out. i9-9900K etc for complete overkill.

the only other thing as really springs to mind is that your monitors are only 60Hz, so consider getting something with atleast 120Hz.

Power supply is good, keep that
Case is good, only change if you want something new to look at, or the condition of it is bad
Motherboards i am not a expert on, so i wont comment.
CPU Cooler looks acceptable, however, if you buy a new CPU, atleast consider that your current might not be enough, through it should be.

 

[CPT Bowman]

I would go for a new motherboard (Asrock, ASUS, MSI) and 8th gen intel 8700K processor, you'll need new DDR4 ram to match, get at least 16G at 3000Mhz or better speed. Get a nice air cooler to match like a Noctua or a DarkRock, put it all back together and call it future proofed for the next several years. If you're only wanting to play at 60FPS I think the 970 should be able to keep up especially if you're overclocking it mildly.