Should I upgrade my current PC or build a new one for around $750?
Asked by
MellowCedar42
I bought my gaming PC in early 2020 and am wondering whether it makes more sense to upgrade it or start over. My current parts are a Ryzen 5 3600XT, GTX 1660 SUPER, 32GB of Kingston Fury DDR4 memory, a 1TB Kingston NVMe SSD, a 480GB SSD, and an ASUS PRIME A320M-K motherboard. I'm unsure about the case and power supply, but the case is approximately 37 × 21.5 × 43.5 cm. My budget is around $750, €670, or 5,000 DKK. I'd prefer to reuse the RAM and storage if possible, but gaming performance—especially a stronger graphics card—is my priority. I live in Denmark, so prices and availability from Danish retailers should be considered.
Answers
You probably don’t need a complete rebuild. The AM4 platform can still perform well with a newer Ryzen 5000-series CPU, although the A320 motherboard has fairly modest power delivery. I’d avoid the highest-power chips and check the motherboard’s supported CPUs and BIOS versions first. Your 32GB of RAM is enough for gaming, even though 2400MHz is on the slow side, and both SSDs should be fine. Also, the listed Kingston drive is probably 1TB rather than 10TB. The most important missing detail is the exact power-supply model and wattage, since that determines which graphics cards are safe to install.
Reply to this answer
A graphics-card upgrade would give you the biggest gaming improvement. A card such as a 16GB 9060 XT could provide strong 1080p performance and reasonable entry-level 1440p performance, but only if your power supply has the required capacity and connectors. A 16GB 5060 Ti is another option, although its price may not be as attractive. After changing from Nvidia, remove the old drivers with DDU or perform a clean Windows installation to avoid driver issues. If money remains, consider a BIOS update and a Ryzen 5 5600X or another suitable Zen 3 processor as a mostly drop-in CPU upgrade. However, if the graphics card alone would consume nearly the entire 5,000 DKK budget, waiting for a better-priced card may be wiser than stretching the budget.
MellowCedar42: Those graphics cards are quite expensive here, and I’m concerned about whether my current CPU and power supply could support one. Buying one would leave me with only about 400 DKK, so I may need to choose a cheaper card or upgrade in stages.
Reply to this answer
Add your answer
Answers are reviewed before publication.
MellowCedar42: You’re right—the Kingston drive is 1TB. I’ll check the exact RAM speed and power-supply details before choosing parts. Thanks for suggesting a parts-price comparison tool for planning the upgrade.