how old is the computer?

I'd ultimately suggest video card upgrades, or memory upgrades

It's about 3-4 years old now. I updated the journal with the specs and stuff Dx

I'm one of the one's that says go to windows 10. But do a clean install.... upgrades always are wonky...

I'd recommend going for a new video card. The Nvidia GTX1070's are pretty fantastic. But to ensure that you have enough power, I'd recommend going with a new power supply as well, unless you've already got 600+ watts.

For an upgrade, a graphics card will give you the most bang for the buck. Your CPU may still be the bottleneck, but with more applications using the GPU for acceleration, it's an easy drop-in replacement. Budgets are all over the place, so the best starting point is how much you can spend. $100 may be good or bad depending on what you're replacing.

Memory is cheap, but anything beyond 8GB is unlikely to be of benefit. If you have less than 4GB, upgrade that first.

If you want to replace a lot of stuff, here's a helpful site for getting a good balance of parts for your budget: Logical Increments

I'll definitely take a look at that website. My budget can stretch to $500-800 depending on the part that needs replacing ^^; System specs have been updated in the journal as well

Definitely look into a new video card, leave the rest alone. In the $200 range, the new video cards released just last month are amazing, since they finally upgraded to new lithography after a long stretch. Any new GPU will be a big bump in performance. CPU tech hasn't changed much over the last 5 years, and the i7 you have is pretty good (I still have an i5 3570K and it's holding up pretty well). 8GB of memory will serve you just fine, assuming it's fast memory.

I'm an nVidia guy, so I haven't followed the latest AMD tech. I'll be in the market for an nVidia 1060 next year. My CPU will likely stay the same unless I can verify my license for Win7 will still work on a new CPU/Mobo. I hate calling Microsoft and begging them to let me use my own computer.

I'd like to recommend looking into SSDs if you don't have one, because they're way cheap now and the performance bump from an HD is extraordinary. I have a 256GB boot drive (Samsung 840) and 3TB storage drive. Transferring an existing Windows install to a new drive can be a pain, though. Best leave that to a professional. :)

Humm.. easiest way for us to tell what you should upgrade, is if we knew your system specs.
And you mentioned wanting to play "modern games" question is there if ya just want to be able to run em at ok settings or if you want to max out everything ^^

Running them at, at least 60 fps with medium to high generic graphics would be awesome ^^; right now I get about 15-30 with what I have currently.

Updated the journal with my PC specs as well ^^;

I'm a bit of a goof as well should have asked if you have a budget ^^

You can throw out some numbers and products. Maybe I can work towards a goal or something? =3

From the looks of it you got a 1GB vid card, so seems like that is the main thing to upgrade (3-4gb card is enough), I admit I'm not a pro at comps, and I dun know much about intel cpu's but that seems decent, as does the ram. Might want to swap to Win7 or Win10 as well. Win8 was perhaps not the "best" OS they ever done so.. But alas I'm sure others here can give better suggestions, but its just what I spot with my lil knowledge ^^

Your rig is pretty decent as it is, and it does not need much. Your CPU is still really good, and windows 8 is perfectly fine. My recommendation would be to pick up a new GPU and some RAM. For GPU, go with either a GTX 10xx or two RX 480's in crossfire , if your MoBo supports it. for RAM, I'd future-proof again with 16GB of moderately-fast RAM.

Im not a speed freak when it comes to PC's I so I'm not against telling you to go with a cheaper option, but ymmv.