I received a prebuilt PC a few years ago and want to improve its performance in demanding games such as Cyberpunk 2077 and The Last of Us. My current parts are an Intel Core i5-11400, GTX 1650 4GB, ASUS PRIME H510M-K motherboard, and 16GB of DDR4 memory. I also only have around 400GB of storage left, which is becoming difficult to manage. I'm new to building PCs and can spend about €600 eventually, although I'll need to upgrade one part at a time. Should I prioritize the graphics card, add an SSD, or make another change first?
2 Answers
It sounds like you mean about 400GB of drive space, not memory. Additional storage is an easy quality-of-life upgrade, especially for large modern games. Your motherboard only has one M.2 slot, so check whether it is already occupied. If it is, a 2.5-inch SATA SSD is usually the simplest add-on, though it is a little slower than an NVMe drive. Storage will help with capacity and loading times, but it won’t significantly increase your frame rate, so the GPU should still come first for gaming performance.
The GTX 1650 is the biggest limitation for those games, so upgrading the graphics card should give you the most noticeable improvement in performance. Before buying one, check what power supply is installed and whether the case has enough room. With around €600, you could potentially upgrade the GPU first and then add storage later rather than trying to replace everything at once.
My current budget is about €600. I can spend more over time, but I can’t afford to upgrade every component at once.