Maximum PC

So I finished grad school and have about $1,200 to play with, but I have spent the last two years with my head in books and haven't been able to adequately keep up with tech. My current rig I built three years ago with the intent of overclocking and upgrading as I needed, but I was too busy with school to do any of it. Now, I see there are some great games I've missed (Skyrim, Batman Arkham City, Mass Effect 3, Witcher 2, Crysis 2) and Diablo III is around the corner. I've been playing some Fallout NV and see stuttering/redraws and would love to play the above at highest eye candy levels as I can. I do some video editing for the family and occasionally for work since workstations can't handle it.

Below are the specs to my PC, but I honestly don't know if all I need is a new monitor and video card and the rest is okay or if it is worthwhile to invest in Ivy Bridge and new overall system? (I do want a new monitor as I'm watching more video and my eyes seem to be getting a little worse with age!) I'll probably add a Blu-Ray disk drive but can reuse my case, OS, DVD drive (I like having two), PSU, sound card and peripherals. As much as I'd like to say I'll try to overclock, I never have. When I've gotten around to consider SLI or Cross Fire, I seem to upgrade single cards as opposed to adding an older card.

Below is my rig. Most of the parts aren't being sold anymore, but there are still links to them:

CPU
http://www.amazon.com/Intel-Processor-2-66GHz-LGA1366-BX80601920/dp/B001H5T7LK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1336420313&sr=8-1
Intel i7 920

Motherboard
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001KX8VES/ref=wms_ohs_product
EVGA 132-BL-E758-A1 X58

Power Supply
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817703009
PC Power and Cooling S75QB 750W

Memory
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227365
OCZ Gold 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)

Hard Drive
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152102
SAMSUNG Spinpoint F1 HD103UJ 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA

Video Card
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127400
MSI R4870-T2D1G Radeon HD 4870 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16

Monitor
http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/monitors/2007WFP/en/about.htm
Dell™ 2007WFP Flat Panel Monitor


So am I better off starting over or upgrading some parts?

Thank you for your advice!

One can reasonably expect to get a lot of life still out of the Core i7-920. Especially if you overclocked it. So I wouldn't worry about any thing main system-wise.

The GPU is the first thing on the list I can immediately say to upgrade. If you don't see yourself buying another computer within a year, I'd say drop $500 on a GTX 680 or a HD7970. Otherwise, go a little lower, like a GTX 560 Ti Core 446 or something if you can't wait for the midrange parts from either company.

Thanks! So basically the rig is good except for the GPU. That's easier to stomach. Is there any advantage or worth to adding more RAM (or switching it out completely) and/or adding an SSD? I see folks using the SSD as more or less a boot drive.

I really appreciate the opinion. No need to spend money where it's not needed.

You won't see much of a performance benefit by adding more RAM unless you have a habit of not closing programs you open. An SSD works well for system level stuff since it could increase responsiveness and anything else you don't have to patience to load.