I bought an HP OMEN 35L prebuilt with a Ryzen 5 8400F, 16GB of DDR5 memory, an RTX 5060, and a 1TB SSD. I believe it has an 850W power supply. It currently works well for 1080p gaming, but I would like to move to 1440p. What should I upgrade first, and are there any likely bottlenecks or other parts I should keep an eye on?
3 Answers
The RTX 5060 should be able to handle 1440p, especially with adjusted settings and upscaling. I would not rush to replace it until you see a specific game or frame-rate target that it cannot meet.
If you eventually want a major performance jump, upgrade the graphics card first. Something around an RX 9070-class card would be a substantial step up for 1440p. The Ryzen 5 8400F also has a relatively small cache and can be a weaker AM5 gaming processor, so a CPU upgrade could become worthwhile later, particularly for high-refresh gaming. Also check temperatures under load, since some prebuilt cases and coolers have limited airflow.
A 27-inch 1440p monitor with a 165–240Hz refresh rate and adaptive sync is probably the best first upgrade. Use the current graphics card for a while, then replace it only when it no longer gives you the performance you want.
That makes sense. I’ll probably start with the monitor and see how the RTX 5060 performs before changing anything inside the PC.