What should I upgrade

[Xaos]

Alright. Just upgraded the processor on my computer. I always like to have another upgrade in mind and have an upgrade plan, but now I'm not quite sure. Here are my specs.

i3-3220 (this is great. Performs better than I thought it would. Will prob grt newegg cards for Christmas/birthday, so I may invest in an i5.)
GeForce GTX 650Ti
8GB of RAM
WD 600GB 7200RPM Caviar Blue HDD
450w psu, cooler master iirc

I also have a spare 80GB HDD to put in if I ever need the space, but I m trying to sell. I'm considering a SSD or maybe even another, bigger HDD (1-2TB). Also maybe aPSU. Not sure. What do tall think?

[a_bertrand]

Pretty much depends what you do with it. If it is PHP and web, then your setup is more than enough. If you do 3D rendering, maybe not So you should tell us what you do with your computer.

[Xaos]

Darn, knew I was forgetting something, sorry ! I game on it (BF3, Skyrim, etc.) and I want to get into using game dev engines like Unity. I also code on it, but mostly PHP, so it's fine for that.

[hallsofvallhalla]

Its plenty fine. The I3 will need to be upgraded eventually but is good for now. I do not see a difference in my 8 gig machine and my 24 gig machine so the ram is plenty for now.

I would get a kick butt Mouse and keyboard

[a_bertrand]

Indeed for playing, that should be enough, even to do stuff with Unity 3D. I would not spend money yet, even on a SSD.

[Jackolantern]

Really, the most important spec on a computer is RAM speed. Almost everything your computer does requires hitting memory (except for a few small operations using registers, but those are so small that they are not a concern), and memory is about 100x slower than the CPU. Therefore, leaving storage and the network out of the equation, memory is the weakest link on your system. And your system can only run as fast as its weakest link. This is called the Von Neumann Bottleneck. Modern i# processors do a lot to overcome this, from tons of space-age predictive computations and increased cache sizes and efficiencies, but it can't overcome it all, particularly when it comes to applications pushing huge amounts of data around, like games.

[Xaos]

Really, the most important spec on a computer is RAM speed. Almost everything your computer does requires hitting memory (except for a few small operations using registers, but those are so small that they are not a concern), and memory is about 100x slower than the CPU. Therefore, leaving storage and the network out of the equation, memory is the weakest link on your system. And your system can only run as fast as its weakest link. This is called the Von Neumann Bottleneck. Modern i# processors do a lot to overcome this, from tons of space-age predictive computations and increased cache sizes and efficiencies, but it can't overcome it all, particularly when it comes to applications pushing huge amounts of data around, like games.

So you reccomend a RAM upgrade?

[Jackolantern]

I have no idea how fast the RAM you have is. You could look at that article I linked, and then find out what you have. If it is at least mid-grade, it is probably fine

[Xaos]

I have no idea how fast the RAM you have is. You could look at that article I linked, and then find out what you have. If it is at least mid-grade, it is probably fine

Woops. Didnt even see the hyperlink

[a_bertrand]

It is true RAM can and will be a bottleneck in many cases, but it pretty much depends what you do. Also it is not said you will be able to find exactly if it is the RAM or the CPU is bottleneck, so it is not so easy to find ways to improve the speed of your PC.

However, if you see that the RAM usage is 100% (or nearly) and your system starts to swap, then you know that adding more RAM will increase a lot the speed.