I inherited this PC about four years ago and haven't made any upgrades myself. Recently, gaming performance has gotten much worse, with FPS sometimes dropping to around 15, so I'd like to improve it primarily for gaming. My budget is about $500, although I can be somewhat flexible. The current parts are an AMD Ryzen 5 2600X, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti with 6 GB of VRAM, 32 GB of RAM, a 1 TB hard drive, and a 500 GB Samsung 860 EVO SSD. The motherboard is an MSI Tomahawk, though I'm not sure of the exact model. What should I check first, and which upgrades would provide the biggest improvement?
3 Answers
First identify the exact motherboard model, since “MSI Tomahawk” covers several different boards. You can find it in Windows by opening System Information and checking “BaseBoard Product,” or by looking at the motherboard itself. Many AM4 Tomahawk boards support Ryzen 5000 after a BIOS update. If yours does, a Ryzen 7 5700X3D would be an excellent gaming upgrade, assuming the price is reasonable. Update the BIOS before removing the old CPU, and check the board’s supported CPU list first.
Since you’re seeing drops to about 15 FPS, don’t immediately assume the parts need replacing. Check CPU and GPU temperatures and usage while gaming, clean dust from the case, update the graphics driver, and make sure the monitor is connected to the graphics card. Also check whether the FPS problem happens in every game. A failing or overheating component, background process, or corrupted Windows installation could cause severe stuttering.
For a gaming-focused upgrade, the CPU is probably the best place to start if your motherboard supports Ryzen 5000. A 5700X3D is the strongest practical option on that platform, while a less expensive Ryzen 5 5600 or 5500 can still be a noticeable improvement over the 2600X. Your 32 GB of RAM is already enough, and the GTX 1660 Ti may still be usable at 1080p depending on the games and settings. The 860 EVO is a 2.5-inch SATA SSD, not an NVMe drive; it’s slower than NVMe but should not by itself cause gaming FPS to fall to 15.
If the motherboard supports an NVMe drive, it could make Windows and loading times feel faster, but I’d prioritize diagnosing the FPS drops and upgrading the CPU before buying more storage.
I found out it’s an MSI Tomahawk, but I still don’t understand what the SSD model means or which details matter.