New to OC and upgrading components

[Jagerfiend]

Hello, I'm new to this site and to building systems in general and was wondering if anyone would be able to give me a guide as to what I should upgrade to etc.
I bought an Alienware Aurora R4 end of last year and I am looking to upgrade it's parts to improve performance as I'm getting fps issues from games. Mainly play games such as BF4, WoW, and most recently GTA V.
My system specs are:
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4820K CPU @ 3.70GHz
AMD Radeon(TM) R9 270
ASETEK LIQUID COOLER
HARD DRIVE : 1TB SATA 6GB/S (7200RPM)
MEMORY : 8192MB (4X2GB) 1600MHZ DDR3
Windows 8.1

Not sure if those are all that I need to post but I can post more specs if needed. Any help would be great! Cheers in advance

 

[stulid]

Hi and welcome.

The GFX card is what i would swap out as you have a monster CPU already.

What resolution monitor do you have?

What PSU do you have? are you still using the same Aurora case?

Do you have an SSD?

Have you tried overclocking that CPU?

 

[Jagerfiend]

Thank you!
My PSU is an 875W
I run my system off a 50" tv as my monitor broke when I was moving house.
In terms of overclocking the cpu I haven't touched a thing on the system since I bought it as I'm new to it all really.
As for SSD's, I have a couple of old hard drives as memory backups thats it. Sorry if I'm a bit vague or unclear with my computer specifications, as I said im completely new to this so not very 'aware' of what info is needed really

 

[Jagerfiend]

Oh and yes it is the Aurora case which I have

 

[stulid]

You have a good powerful CPU and plenty of RAM.

If you have all mechanical HDDs then adding a SSD to run the OS from and whatever games you can fit on it will give a strong boost to overall PC responsiveness.

And a stronger GFX card such as a GTX970.

YOUR BASKET
1 x KFA2 GeForce GTX 970 OC Silent "Infin8 Black Edition" 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card **WorldWide Exclusive** £275.99
1 x Crucial BX100 250GB SSD SATA 6Gbps 7mm Solid State Drive (CT250BX100SSD1) £72.98
Total : £348.97 (includes shipping : ).

 

[Jagerfiend]

Oh man that is much more affordable than what I thought! That's fantastic, thank you!
For that SSD, would I need a case for it to fit the system? The drive is a slide in port not a screw in kinda thing?

 

[stulid]

Sometimes they come with metal adapters to fit 3.5" (normal size) bays.

Or you can buy them - https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CM-019-AK&groupid=1657&catid=2101&subcat=2102 - https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-027-OK&groupid=1657&catid=2101&subcat=2102
They have no moving parts and are slim and small so you can stash them anywhere using even velcro.

 

[Jagerfiend]

ah still at a cheap price. That's great, thank you for the info, it's greatly appreciated. In terms of the GFX card, if I have two installed does it make any difference or would the new one invalidate the old one?

 

[stulid]

So you mean add a 2nd 270X?

 

[Jagerfiend]

no no, if I were to buy the card you recommended, and add it to my system with the current 270x, would it cancel the 270x out or would they both work together to improve graphics?

 

[stulid]

It replaces it.

To be honest I would also do a fresh clean reinstall of the OS and its drivers (using the latest from nvidia and for the motherboard/chipset).

GTX970 vs a 270X - http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1355?vs=1043

Sell your 270X for £70-80 and thats money back into your pocket.

 

[Jagerfiend]

ah okay then thats cool! Just wondering That's great thank you kindly for being patient and so helpful! I'll lob the old 270x on ebay or something. thanks mate Massively appreciated!