I recently built a system with a Ryzen 7 5700X, GeForce RTX 5060, 1TB NVMe SSD, and 16GB of DDR4 memory. I tried running a newer Halloween-themed game at 1440p using high or cinematic settings, hoping to maintain at least 60 FPS, but the performance was much worse than expected and I refunded it. I'm now wondering whether this PC can handle other modern games at high settings. Would moving to 32GB of RAM help with frame rate and graphics quality, or am I misunderstanding what these components are capable of?
3 Answers
You can’t upgrade this system from DDR4 to DDR5 by changing the memory sticks. DDR5 requires a compatible motherboard, and usually a newer CPU platform as well. If you do need more memory, look for a reasonably priced 32GB DDR4 kit instead. That may help with stuttering or multitasking, but it won’t turn a GPU-limited game into a 60 FPS experience.
More RAM probably won’t improve your frame rate unless the game is actually running out of memory. High graphics settings usually put the greatest load on the GPU, so the RTX 5060 is more likely to be the limiting component than the Ryzen 7 5700X. Check your RAM usage while playing; if 16GB is not nearly full, upgrading won’t make much difference.
Before buying anything, check the basics: resolution, GPU usage, RAM usage, temperatures, and whether the game has upscaling or ray tracing enabled. At 1440p on high or cinematic settings, the GPU can be fully loaded even when the CPU is fine. Try 1080p or lower a few demanding settings and see whether performance improves significantly.
I was playing at 1440p and didn’t check GPU utilization at the time. I’m completely new to PC gaming, so I’ll monitor that before upgrading anything.