Old system upgrade opinions

[FlyingTR]

Hi all, I would like to start to upgrade my rig, and I do not know which part to start. It is 5 yrs old, it still works pretty good. However, new games started to cause some troubles and I can't go more than medium settings on most games @1080p without huge spikes in FPS. I tried my best with OC and cooling but it is sadly time to upgrade.
I am not looking for the best parts out there, I know a i4790k with a gtx980 would do just fine, but I really don't have 1000$+ to spend right now. I have about 300-400$ right now to spend on a new part(s)(gonna sell my useless 30fps stuttering PS4+some money that I have right now for PC)

At first I thought changing my GPU to a newer GTX970 would be fine for a while, however more and more I think about it I realize that my CPU would bottleneck as soon as that GTX 970 does its magic.(or would it please chime in)
Another option is to get a MB and i4790k, which would put me in the 400$+ range. But then my rams are pretty useless, and GPU would still be a problem for most of the games. (probably best option for future proofing). Also for this option I am not sure if this setup would work fine with my GPU, because when I put this rig 5 yrs ago general consensus was AMD works with AMD and Intel works with NVDIA. I am not sure what works with what right now.


So what would be your choice if you had 300-400$ dollars to spend right now for this rig, I would keep getting new parts eventually but it would take me at least 6 months to get something new.
Do you have another combo maybe rams+MB, or GPU+rams that would buy this rig some more time?




My rig right now,

CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 965 O.C'ed to 4.0 Mhz
Cooler Master H110 280mm CPU cooler

GPU: HIS HD5870 sitting @ 900Mhz and 1250Mhz

MB: Gigabyte GA-790XTA-UD4

Ram(weakest link): OCZ AMD Black Series 1600Mhz (2x2GB) ram @1333Mhz because not stable at 1600Mhz(OCZ3BE1600C8LV2G)

PSU: LSP 750W PSU

Storage: Crucial m550 SSD 240
Samsung 840 EVO 250

Case: HAF 932 slightly modified to accommodate H110, and extra fans.
I also have some Noctua and Akasa Viper fans for cooling sitting on the case as well as stock big fans.

 

[hiyabusared]

Honestly to me I would upgrade the board/cpu and ram. Again the benefits of an i7 are great but I have to say even i5 does the job pretty damn well. Again price per performance is always better than throwing money. Imo go with the i5 4690k and z97 board and upgraded ram at 1600mhz. Forget the 980 go with the 970 or upgrade the gpu to a r9 290 or if your 4k gaming wait it out for pascal in 2016 and find a used gpu in the HD7000+ series for ati or an nvidia 600+ series

 

[rwoody]

I agree with hiyabusared. Upgrade the CPU, mobo, and ram first. You won't see huge FPS gains in your games, but you have to lay the foundation before upgrading the GPU. Here's what I would go with on your budget.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117372 i5 4690K $239.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157503 ASRock Mobo $104.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231660 Ram $66.99
Total $412

A little over budget, but worth the extra $12 for quality stuff.

And to answer you question about which GPU you can use...they are pretty interchangeable now. AMD and Nvidia both have GPU's that trade blows for the better card in each price point. You can choose either, providing you have the right PSU and case to accommodate them.