I bought an inexpensive prebuilt last year with an ASUS Q87M-E motherboard, Intel i7-4770, GTX 1660 Super, 1TB Samsung SSD, and 400W power supply. I want to upgrade it into a mid-range system for high-FPS 1080p gaming in titles like Fortnite and Valorant. I'm considering an MSI PRO B550M-P motherboard, Ryzen 5 5500, and 650W power supply while keeping the GTX 1660 Super for now. Is this a sensible upgrade, or would there be a better budget-friendly graphics card to pair with it?
3 Answers
The Ryzen 5 5500 and 16GB or 32GB of DDR4 can sometimes be found together in bundle deals, which may reduce the cost. A quality 650W unit is enough for the current GTX 1660 Super, though a 750W model gives you more room for a future graphics-card upgrade.
Keeping the GTX 1660 Super is fine for competitive 1080p gaming, especially with the Ryzen 5 5500. If you want a major graphics upgrade without spending too much, a used RTX 3060 Ti is considerably faster, while an RTX 3070 offers another step up. Just make sure any used card and power supply come from a trustworthy source.
Remember that the Ryzen 5 5500 uses DDR4, while your current i7-4770 system uses DDR3. You’ll need a new motherboard, processor, and RAM, so this is essentially most of a new PC rather than a simple upgrade. Selling the existing system and starting fresh could make more financial sense.
That’s a good point. I’ve been considering selling the whole system and waiting a bit before building, especially since I’d need to buy DDR4 RAM as well.