I've just got a very (rare for me) windfall, and I've decided to spend some on keeping up to date.

My current system is a Q9550 with 4gb of DDR2 and a GTS 250. It's still respectable but it's starting to get left behind by modern games. It also suffers with a weak PSU and slow HDD, not to mention no room for more memory.

So, I have two options;

1) Bang in a new PSU, video card, hard drive and possibly better cooling for an overclock on the CPU. This will be cheaper and will be a welcome bit of oomph, but that's this system pretty much topped out and won't be as future proof as...

2) Build a new system! A good Sandy Bridge system would be a solid foundation for a couple of years. Plus I could sell my current system and get a bit of a return.

Let's say I have a bit over £600 at my disposal. I only use my PC for playing games, so I'd just want pure speed. Any suggestions for potential builds or any other advice?

I'll have a go at this later after work.

Here are suggestions for various builds.

Budget
Mid range
High-end
Extreme

Please don't ask about the builds, I'm just re-posting them.

I have almost the same as the budget build except a GTX 460, and I must say even that build is great, I can play everything in 1920x1080 high with atleast 4xAA So if you've got more to spend, build up on that or go for the mid range.

I would be tempted to upgrade in steps really (depends if you are the type that can hold onto cash, or the type that it burns a hole in your pockets), you are most definitely gpu limited so as a first wave of upgrades you could go for a new GPU and PSU and see if that gives an acceptable boost in performance.

If you are running no overclock at present then I would put on a decent tower cooler and get an extra boost in performance that way. This benchmark http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/50?vs=288 shows that on slightly older games you are missing out on a potential 20fps gain at stock speeds.

This would give you time to sell your old video card and get funds for a potential mobo/cpu/ram upgrade 6 months or so down the line.

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For £600 cash I would go for a very similar spec to what irpax posted

Just briefly looking at scan.co.uk and bearing in mind that I have not built a sandy bridge based pc yet so not read much on component reviews I put the following in my basket.

Intel i5 2500k unlocked

1gb MSI GTX560 Ti Twin Frozr

650w Corsair TX PSU

MSI P67A-GD53 (Some people hate MSI, I have been fine for years with them. Whatever you choose should be down to your preference. Most mid-range boards are fine for a modest overclock these days - just read lots of reviews before purchase)

4gb Corsair xms DDR3 (I know you could get 8gb however most games still will not make use of it due to amount of 32bit systems in operation)

1TB Samsung Spinpoint F3

Artic Cooling Freezer 13 PRO

That totalled £603.50.. You could quite easily shave off a few pounds shopping around and picking alternatives out.

I think the idea of a staggered upgrade is a pretty good idea, thinking about it. A new hdd, psu and gpu along with some modest cpu cooling leading to a even a modest overclock to say, 3.4 ghz would keep me going for at least another 12 months, probably longer if the consoles continue to hold game reqs back.

By then the new Ivy Bridge cpus would be out and I could carry over half this system to a new mobo. Not a bad idea!

I might go with this, this, this, and a decent cooler like this. comes to around £335 - bearing in mind I can carry all this over to a new system.

Yeah, theres no real reason for upgrading it all in one go.

All good choices. You will of course need a fan for that heatsink if you do not have a spare one lying around.

i dont think he does KED, you know bolt, hes quite a ....passive.... guy

How little you know of my proclivites Bo.