Please correct me if I am wrong on anything below, and please weigh in with your own suggestions.

My current pc:
i5 3750K 4.3 MHz (OC - throttles down to 1.6)
AMD Radeon HD 7950 3 GB VRAM 1100 MHz (OC - throttles down to 300 MHz)
2X Acer 1600 X 900 monitor - I only game on one at a time
An SSD
1TB HDD for storage
8GB RAM

So, I care about performance but not super high quality monitor or sound. I use generic headphones.
I'm an enthusiast but not rich. I don't usually buy the newest but a year-old at a lower price
I like my builds to last 5-6 years. This current one will be 4 years old Spring of 2016.
I like gaming, and even though I like old stuff, I like the Batman games and Dragon Age games and Skyrim and some other shiny ones.
I like to do Fold at Home for Science-type stuff, too.
I only have two programs outside of games that actually use my CPU to its potential, but it's pretty cool when those tasks take minutes instead of hours.

My understanding is that summer of 2016 the new 14/16nm architecture video cards will begin to be released. And later in 2016 the new 10nm Intel CPUs will begin to be released.

So, I should be good to plan on starting my next build shopping Spring of 2017, right? That'll give the newer techs some time to settle in and get good drivers, come down a bit in price, maybe even get the first "tock," right?

Right now the most demanding game I have is TW3. I turn off all the fancy stuff - hairworks etc - and so far my performance is fine. The only other high-demand game on my horizon is the new Batman game, which seems to be killing everybody - but I should be fine if I just turn off lots of stuff, right?

My plan/hopes for the future build are a comparable unlocked CPU - a solid 2nd-tier GPU, 16 GB DDR4 RAM - and probably the same size monitor and same shitty headphones.

I'm good, right?

my suggestion is you can only plan for 2-3 years. Unless you have unlimited resources to build a very powerful pc which gonna last (in terms of capability) 5 years or more.


Intel Core i7-6600K
Mobo : Asus Maximum VIII Hero
GeForce GTX 980 Ti or Titan (SLI?)
16gb Performance Ram (its cheap, why not)
Add another 1/2 TB Hdd or NAS
Use your current monitor.

And tbh i dont even know if this spec gonna last 5 years.

My suggestion would be to get a great pair of headphones. No cheap or gamer stuff, go for hifi stuff.

Here if you are interested in details.

I would maybe upgrade your current setup with more ram but otherwise you should be good for at least another 2-3 years for most games with your setup. Most games still don't use more then 2 cores, very rarely 4 so your setup should be fine for some time. Witcher 3 is a graphical beast and for that you need a top of the line graphic card. More ram is always good though looking at Planetary Annihilation Titans that needs minimum 16GB of ram for marginably normal singleplayer performance.

At the end the new Intel processors are only marginably better in comparison to the old Hasswel line so there is no rush to upgrade.

Another good tip for getting a bit more performance from your rig at the some-several years old stage is to do a thorough "dusting" of it. Turn it off, turn off the power supply, open up the case and clear out/off the air intake + outtake spots, not just the in+out fans, but little spots and holes and areas where dust can accumulate over time. Dust off the power supply fan, carefully dust off the CPU fans and air vents for it(I use cottoms swabs), and if your graphics card has a fan with it, give it a careful wipe too.

Of course some people just like to use compressed air, but I find a little dusting works well/is helpful too. Give it some good blows and let it "air out" the dust for some minutes after finishing, give some final blows, turn it on if you can with the case open and let it run "open" to really vent itself for a few, then seal it back to its normal state. It always feels quite good when I do that!

aahhhhhh!!!

The system you want to upgrade... would practically be my upgrade.

Hooray for Good Old Games with low system requirnments.

Excellent!

I think the issues that might be most frequent to face when upgrading the ram are: 1.) space on the mobo, and 2.) CPU ability to utilize/handle the upped RAMmage. It seems like you'll be good to go!

Another point on upgrading your PC at whatever point you do: the thing also need to pay attention is the power supply and keep it powerful enough for all the hardware you have. Especially if/when you upgrade graphics cards and the CPU, because when added to other hardware installed it can start to take a lot of power and might be a concern. Do you know your current wattage?