Suggestions for a new upgrade path

[Steve1]

I've found myself in the lucky position of being a little bit flush and immediately thought about throwing it away on shiny new bits for my PC.

I've currently got my Phenom II x3 oc'ed to 3.4ghz, but it's been a few years now and may be time for an upgrade. My question is, now that AMD are no longer the VFM processor they were what sort of benefits/noticeable speed increases would I see if I made the jump to Intel - let's say an i5 2500k - or would it be cheaper to pick up a Phenom II x4 for £75 and oc and still see similar improvements (if any)?

Obviously a switch to Intel would also need a motherboard so I'd be looking at a total budget of roughly £250.

PC's mostly used for a lot of new games and quite hefty photoshop work.

My other two big temptations are buying an SSD (got a Samsung 830 128gb in checkout for £80 but can't quite press purchase) and treating myself to a nicer case along the lines of a Fractal R3. The loudest thing in my case is easily the KFA2 560ti when gaming and not sure how much that would be dampened in real life by the R3.

Look forward to your thoughts.

[kalniel]

SSD will be the biggest improvement in how fast the PC feels day to day and will help photoshop (but not gaming). Swap to a better phenom if you need more photoshop/gaming capability - does your motherboard take an X6?

[Willzzz]

Well you could definitely afford a 2500k + MB for £250, maybe even a 3570k if you don't need many features on your MB. That would last you for a good number of years before you needed to upgrade again.

SSDs are getting pretty cheap now, really going down in price recently. Scan has some awesome offers recently, but they seem to have expired now, still £80 for the Samsung isn't bad

Yeah I like the R3 too, although planning to get the slightly cuter mini version.