PC GPU died, need help with what to go for next

[Dhalmel]

Thanks for the tip, I'm also wondering how much of a difference would it be to use a SSD over a 7200rpm hard drive for gaming. Was thinking of just using a SSD for games, and the other for internal storage.

It honestly depends on the game, and how the data is cached and if it's done poorly it can still be slowish on a SSD. (Deus EX: HR release build anyone?)

With my Crucial M4 most games take maybe 10 seconds at most to load maps/levels, sometimes instant.

So YMMV from game to game, but you will definitely see differences in how responsive the OS will be. One thing I can say is to make sure you connect your SSD to your the SATA 6.0 Gbps ports that is running from the motherboards chipset for speed and performance.

Avoid old SSDs that use the earlier Sandforce controller revisions, in my opinion avoid Sandforce completely unless you get the recently release Intel variants.

You should go to overclock.net for more information regarding SSDs, there's just alot to learn about the different controllers, speed, and reliability from SKU to SKU.