I'm trying to decide what upgrade would make the biggest difference for gaming at high frame rates. I don't need to run everything on ultra settings, but I want to avoid major frame drops during intense scenes. My current system has an Intel Core i5-6402P, 16GB of DDR4-2400 memory, an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 6GB, and an ASUS H170-PRO/CSM motherboard. Should I upgrade the processor, motherboard, graphics card, or memory first?
2 Answers
The biggest improvement is probably a newer CPU and motherboard together. That processor is from an older platform and can hold back minimum frame rates, especially in CPU-heavy games. A platform upgrade would also give you a better path for future upgrades.
Adding more RAM probably won’t solve this by itself. Sixteen gigabytes is still enough for most games, so extra memory is unlikely to stop large frame drops unless you’re actually hitting the limit. Check your CPU and GPU usage while gaming before deciding, but the older processor and platform are the more obvious upgrade targets.
Would moving from a DDR4 motherboard to DDR5 make a major difference, or is DDR5 only a small step up from DDR4?