I'm planning to upgrade my PC in November to improve gaming performance at 1080p and 1440p. My current build is an Intel Core i5-12400F, RTX 3060 Ti 8GB, 16GB of DDR4-3200 memory, a 1TB Samsung SSD, a 500GB Crucial SSD, an Antec VP650 Plus power supply, and an MSI PRO B660M-G DDR4 motherboard. I'm considering switching back to AMD with a Ryzen 7 7700, moving to DDR5, and possibly buying a Radeon 9070 XT. Since I'll be purchasing parts gradually, should I upgrade the graphics card first and keep the rest for now, or replace several components together? I prefer a clean build without RGB, and I'm open to other suggestions.
1 Answer
Your i5-12400F is still a perfectly capable gaming CPU, so I wouldn’t replace the platform first. The RTX 3060 Ti is the part most likely to limit performance, especially at 1440p. Upgrade the graphics card now if you want an immediate improvement, then consider a CPU, motherboard, and DDR5 upgrade later. Also, don’t buy DDR5 until you’re ready to replace the motherboard, since your current board only supports DDR4.
Would upgrading only the graphics card now and replacing the other parts later be a sensible approach?