A little background info, I bought my computer from micro center in early 2012 so I could play swtor. I paid a little over 1000 for the computer and a Asus monitor ( the joy of working but living at home with no Bills 
), few upgrades ( graphics card,power supply and fan? I think that’s it). I havent touched it since. I have a little extra cash thanks to a bonus and I wanted to know what upgrades I can make that’s the best bang for my buck. I want to try and keep it around 500 but no more than 8 if I can help it. Thank you for any help
<Edit: Intel core i5-3470 cpu@ 3.20ghz
8gb ram
AMD radeon HD 7700
Acpi fan?>
Please post your current specs.
A 2012 computer… Knowing no more than that, I am hesitant to suggest spending any significant amount to upgrade.
What model is your computer? What cpu is in your computer? What graphics card? What operating system? How much memory? What type of drive, HDD or SSD?
I can tell you: A SSD (solid state drive) is light years better than a HDD (hard disc drive). 8 gigs of RAM is enough to get by, 16 gigs is better. A GTX 1650 needs one 6 pin power lead from the PSU, and Yes , the GTX 1650 is faster than the previous generation GTX 1050 Ti, but it’s also roughly the same performance as a high-end GPU from nearly five years ago. (a quote from 2019)
for eight hundred you can build a new budget PC from scratch that will outperform any updates to a 2012 unit. You can recycle the case and the HDD as a second storage drive to save some cost.
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I did this. Put a Ryzen budget build in my old case, re-used my PSU and HDD.
nice! in the OP’s situation I would be hesitant to re-use the PSU they have without first knowing the make and model but even if it was a quality unit from 2012 (I highly doubt it if it was in a pre-built PC), it would be time to start looking for a new one sooner rather then later.
Thankyou. It did work out well. A big improvement, coming from my first gen. i7 and gtx560.
Op says: few upgrades, graphics card,power supply and fan? so, idano… Ahh… now i see Op has edited post. ok… bbs.
You need to decide to: get by with what you have, with some upgrades, or:
build something new and much better. Either one will require a small bit of computer knowledge.
If you want to keep what you got and upgrade… Get a Solid State Drive (SSD), and transfer your operating system to it, or do a fresh install. Very powerful upgrade.
… Buy a used or refurbished or renewed Intel core i7 3770 processor, and use it to replace your i5. As it is, you have 4 cores, 4 threads. The i7 has hyperthreading, giving you 4 cores and 8 threads. The i7 also has a higher base and turbo frequency. Amazon has them for about120-140 dollars, alot of money, but it will be a noticeable upgrade. For about 160 or so dollars, get a GTX1650 Super graphics card. About a six/fold improvement. Possibly overkill, idano. Well, there’s the GTX1050, for maybe 130.00, a 4X improvement. The SSD will be around 60 dollars for a 512 gig good quality drive.
so, the SSD, the 1650, and the i7 = 360.00 …
Thank you for all the advice on what to get. I’ll definitely start getting a shopping cart together
Or…Should you decide to not put money into your aging system, but instead, take it on faith that you can Build a computer with the money you have, well here is a list of parts to make it a good one.
motherboard-- Gigabyte A520M S2H (AMD Ryzen AM4/MicroATX/4+3 Phases Digital PWM/Gigabyte Gaming GbE LAN/NVMe PCIe 3.0 x4 M.2/3 Display Interfaces/Q-Flash Plus/RGB Fusion 2.0/Motherboard)
Basic, but enough, and supports next Gen Ryzen. 70.00
Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 DRAM 3200MHz C16 Desktop Memory Kit. Fast Ram. 66.00
AMD Ryzen 5 2600 Processor with Wraith Stealth Cooler - YD2600BBAFBOX
The 3600 would be better, but this has a cooler and is 60.00 less.–149.00
PNY GeForce GTX 1650 Super 4GB Single Fan Graphics Card VCG16504SSFPPB
There’s better… for considerably more money. This card well worth 150.00
Western Digital 500GB WD Blue SN550 NVMe Internal SSD - Gen3 x4 PCIe 8Gb/s, M.2 2280, 3D NAND, Up to 2,400 MB/s - WDS500G2B0C
Good stuff, good price–59.00
So, graphic card, SSD, CPU, RAM, Motherboard = 496.00 plus tax.
Re-use your old case, possibly your PSU. Or not, so 560.00, say 600.00 after tax, and you still need a copy of Windows…