I'm not very experienced with PC hardware and would like advice on upgrading my roughly five-year-old computer. The only part I've replaced so far is the graphics card. My current build has an RTX 2060, a Ryzen 3 3200G, an ASRock A320M-HDV R4.0 motherboard, and two 500GB hard drives. I'm away from the computer at the moment, but the memory should be DDR4 because that's what the processor and motherboard support. I'd like to play older games at 1440p and newer titles such as Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, Pragmata, and Marvel's Spider-Man 2 at stable 60 FPS, ideally above 1080p, though 1080p is acceptable. My maximum budget is €1,100, or roughly $1,250. Should I upgrade the existing AM4 platform, or replace the motherboard and move to DDR5?
3 Answers
Your system uses DDR4, not DDR2 or DDR3. The simplest upgrade path is to stay with the current motherboard platform: move to a Ryzen 7 5700X or, if the BIOS supports it and your budget allows, a Ryzen 7 5800X3D. Add 32GB of DDR4-3200 or DDR4-3600 memory, preferably as a 2x16GB kit, and replace the hard drives with an NVMe M.2 SSD for much faster loading. Check the motherboard’s BIOS support before buying a CPU.
For a major gaming improvement, the RTX 2060 is likely the part to replace after the CPU and memory. A used RTX 3080 or Radeon RX 6800 XT could be worthwhile at around €300–€500, depending on local prices and condition. Either option should be paired with a reliable power supply of at least 750W. Sell the old components afterward to recover some of the cost.
Switching to DDR5 would mean buying a new motherboard, CPU, and memory, so it usually gives worse value when you already have an upgradeable AM4 system. A platform change makes sense only if you want a newer long-term build and can afford to spend a substantial part of the budget on those three components. For this budget, upgrading the existing platform with 32GB of DDR4, a stronger Ryzen 5000 processor, an NVMe SSD, and then a faster GPU is more practical.
That clears up the memory confusion, thanks. I’ll check the BIOS version and supported processors before choosing the CPU.