$300 to spend, what would you upgrade on this PC?

[King$nake]

This thing was badass back in 2007 lol, but it is old and tired now. I cant quite afford a new high-end setup right now, but I am interested in doing a partial upgrade until then - and possibly use some of the parts towards the next build. If I have a MAX budget of $300, what would you upgrade? I mostly work in Premiere CC, Photoshop CC, and play WarThunder, iRacing, BeamNG, etc:

Operating System:
Windows 8.1 Pro 64-bit

CPU:
Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 @ 3.16GHz 43 °C
Wolfdale 45nm Technology

RAM:
6.00GB Dual-Channel DDR2 @ 333MHz (5-6-6-15)

Motherboard:
ASUSTeK Computer INC. P5B-Deluxe (LGA 775) 50 °C

Graphics:
Generic Non-PnP Monitor (1680x1050@64Hz)
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285 (EVGA)

Storage:
298GB SAMSUNG HD321KJ ATA Device (SATA) 40 °C

Optical Drives:
SONY DVD RW DW-G120A ATA Device

Audio:
High Definition Audio Device

 

[King$nake]

anyone?

 

[Drogos]

well i would strongly suggest u save up more. even if you buy used 300 might not cut it cuz you will basically build a new machine. if you buy mobo, cpu and new ram will probably go past $300. you will also need sata hdd and dvd also. so basically you will reuse the case, video card until u can get a better one and PSU depending of how good is it. you can probably get non current decent stuff on ebay but honestly if your going to upgrade might as well really get the most current u can cuz it will last you longer. i found my i5 4690k for $150 used and that was really lucky cuz any were you look that was a damn good deal. so taking account of my cpu plus the Z97x mobo i spent about $275 that's not counting ram that can run 60+ for 8gb.

 

[Fat.Clown]

Best choice;
save for upgrade +1

If want to upgrade NOW!:
Computer Parts, PC Components, Laptop Computers, LED LCD TV, Digital Cameras and more - Newegg.com
PNY Optima SSD SSD7SC240GOPT-RB 2.5" 240GB SATA III Internal Solid State Drive - Newegg.com
G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9D-8GBXL - Newegg.com

 

[King$nake]

Best choice;
save for upgrade +1

If want to upgrade NOW!:
Computer Parts, PC Components, Laptop Computers, LED LCD TV, Digital Cameras and more - Newegg.com
PNY Optima SSD SSD7SC240GOPT-RB 2.5" 240GB SATA III Internal Solid State Drive - Newegg.com
G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9D-8GBXL - Newegg.com

Thanks! So I would just reuse my GPU, PSU, Case? I wonder how big of improvement these upgrades would be over what i currently have?

Also - how outdated is my GTX 285? Is it even relevant compared to today's GPUs?

 

[Dauntae]

that would give you a good head start on a system, BUT the 285 is really in need of upgrading, I loved mine when I had one but it's so out dated and can only use direct X 9 so it won't do too well on any modern games and some games require at least direct X 10 or better. Seems no matter what you upgrade the other will bottleneck. If you get fat clowns suggestion the 285 will be the bottleneck but if you save a little and get a GTX970 the cpu will bottle neck the GPU so you really need to start saving if you want a decent gaming system. Myself I would go for the 970 first and save for the rest. I think the 285 will be the bigger bottleneck than the E8500, But some games will be worst than others. All depending on how CPU intensive the game is.

 

[PP Mguire]

My advice which is a +1, save more cash for the upgrade. You need CPU/GPU/Motherboard/RAM.

I also suggest getting an SSD.