So I'm helping someone upgrade this:
CPU ________________________________ Intel Core 2 Quad 9550
CPU Cooler __________________________ Stock
Motherboard _________________________ Gigabyte w/ a bunch of stuff that doesn't really matter
Memory _____________________________ 8GB DDR2 1333
Hard Drive __________________________ 1GB Western Digital Black
Blu-ray Drive ________________________ Asus 4x BR Burner (DOA)
Backup Device _______________________ 1GB WD Blue in a USB2 Enclosure
Video Card __________________________ Sapphire AMD 6970 2GB
Sound Card __________________________ Onboard
Power Supply ________________________ Seasonic 500W w/ 8pin+6pin PCIe Connectors
Case _______________________________ Antec Solo - the case is dirty and actually quite bent up
OK So the guy plays various games, some latest cutting edge ones and some older games, also hosts movies for his family to watch all running Winodws 7 Pro. I'm helping him upgrade and his max budget is about $1000 - where does the Tech Report Hive Mind think he should look at upgrading first? I'm thinking Case first since his is just horrible w/o a side (he lost it apparently) and he's getting CPU throttling issues just from this alone - obviously after that he needs to upgrade to a faster processor, maybe a Core i7-2500k + Motherboard and Memory - or should he go IB? I believe other than that he really shouldn't spend the money on Disk or Video since they are quite fine (other than the DOA BR Burner.)