Help with upgrading PC

[The Frozen One]

I built a pc late 2012 with the following specs

i5 2500k processor
8gb ram
1tb hdd (no ssd) and i had a 750 mb hdd sitting so i attached it there too
radeon hd 6870

i installed win 8 a few months back and it's PAINFULLY slow .. not sure if my PC has something to do with or the copy i installed has flaws in it.

but anyways, my pc can still play games like BF4 and watch_dogs...Watch_Dogs gives me problems here and there but the framerate sits at a solid 30FPS .. But whenever i play games like this, the fans are running like crazy, i would like it to be quieter... a lot quieter.

so where should i start? a new processor or new graphics card?

 

[MeachTheMonster]

Put it in rice

 

[The Frozen One]

Put it in rice

why not just dump it in the garbage?

 

[Ciggavelli]

Something is definitely up. Win 8 should make it run faster than win 7. You probably have a bad copy. Get a legit version and try it out again.

 

[Tunez]

i5

 

[Tha Gawd Amen]

Get an SSD

 

[daze23]

a PC with those specs should not be "painfully slow" with win 8

something could be up. try running malwarebytes

 

[Liquid]

it should not be painfully slow. Either the HDD is dying or something is up

 

[acri1]

Yeah, based on specs it shouldn't be that slow.

Run a chkdsk on it to make sure the hard drive is ok, and if that checks out I'd start running virus/malware scans. I'd also run a registry cleaner.

Edit: If it's still slow after all that I'd open Task Manager and check Memory/CPU usage to see where the bottleneck is (if there is one). If CPU usage is fine and the fans are still loud...you might just need a new fan.