I recently inherited my cousin's 8-year-old PC and have made a couple of upgrades already—I've added more RAM, upgrading from 8GB to 16GB DDR4, and I installed a 1TB NVMe SSD. However, I'm unsure about what to do next. Here's what I'm working with:
- GPU: GTX 1060 6GB
- CPU: Intel Core i5-8500 3.00 GHz
- RAM: 16GB DDR4
- SSD: 1TB NVMe
I'm new to PC upgrades and want to know if those upgrades were good decisions. I feel like more needs to be done since the hardware is old, but I only have a budget of $300 and want to upgrade once each year as I'm a student. What do you think should be my next steps?
3 Answers
You made solid upgrades with the RAM and SSD, so good job there! For gaming, the next step would ideally involve getting a new CPU and GPU, but with your setup being quite dated, even a newer GPU paired with your current CPU may not offer the best performance. I'd suggest checking how much wattage your power supply provides, since upgrading the GPU could require more power.
Lens lighting here—if you can only spend $300 now, focus on a reasonably priced GPU that won't break the bank.
Upgrading the GPU is pretty straightforward; it just slots into a PCIe port on your motherboard and connects to the power supply. However, if you're looking at CPU options, be aware that your motherboard's socket limits your choices. You might find that the newer GPUs could be bottlenecked by your old CPU, significantly limiting their performance. A used low-end GPU like a 6600XT or possibly an RTX 3060 could be good options.
With your $300 budget, the best upgrade right now might be to get a new GPU, like a 5060 or 9060 XT 8GB. That should improve your gaming experience significantly. The RAM and NVMe SSD upgrades you already did were great moves—they'll really help speed up general usage. Just keep in mind that your motherboard might limit future upgrades, so consider saving up for a platform upgrade later if you want to go further down the line.
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