My current PC has a Ryzen 5 3600, 16 GB of RAM, a 224 GB SSD, and a GTX 1660 SUPER with 6 GB of VRAM. It handles my current games well, but I'd like to upgrade so I can play demanding titles such as DOOM: The Dark Ages. I'm fine with using low or medium settings as long as I can stay around 60–120 FPS. I'm not very experienced with PC upgrades, so which component should I replace first, and what affordable options should I consider?
3 Answers
After upgrading the graphics card, a Ryzen 5 5600 or 5600X would be a sensible later CPU upgrade if your motherboard supports it. That should extend the system’s useful life and improve performance in CPU-heavy games. Also keep in mind that 224 GB of storage is quite limited, so adding a larger SSD may be worthwhile for modern games.
Before buying anything, check the game’s official system requirements and your monitor’s resolution. If by “ray tracing games” you specifically mean running ray tracing effects, inexpensive hardware may struggle, especially at higher settings. For a budget build, it’s usually better to disable ray tracing and prioritize a stable 60 FPS with sensible texture and quality settings.
Your Ryzen 5 3600 is around the minimum level for this game, so the graphics card is the main limitation. I’d upgrade the GPU first rather than replacing the whole computer. Depending on local prices, a used RTX 3060, RTX 2080, or GTX 1080 Ti could offer a noticeable improvement, although the RTX cards are generally preferable because they support newer features and ray tracing. Check benchmarks for the specific games and resolution you use before buying.
That helps a lot—I assumed the CPU and GPU were both far too weak. I’ll focus on comparing graphics cards first.
How can I tell whether my current power supply is strong enough for one of those graphics cards?