My PC has started struggling to maintain good frame rates in many games released over the past several years, even after lowering the graphics settings. I bought this prebuilt during the pandemic and don't know much about choosing or upgrading components. It was advertised as capable of running nearly any game at maximum settings, so I'm wondering whether adding or replacing something—especially the RAM or graphics card—would make the biggest difference.
My current hardware is:
- CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 3700X
- Motherboard: ASRock B450M/ac
- GPU: Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER Windforce OC 3X 8GB
- Memory: 16GB total, two 8GB Crucial Ballistix DDR4 modules rated at 3000 MT/s, currently reported at about 2666 MT/s
- Storage: 1TB ADATA SX6000LNP NVMe SSD
- Operating system: Windows 10 Home 64-bit
Would upgrading the graphics card be the best option, or could memory speed, capacity, drivers, temperatures, or another component be limiting performance?
3 Answers
Before replacing anything, monitor CPU and GPU usage, temperatures, clock speeds, and RAM usage while playing the games that perform badly. If the GPU is near 100% usage, upgrade the graphics card or lower resolution and GPU-heavy settings. If the CPU is maxed out while the GPU is underused, the processor or a background process may be the limitation. Also make sure graphics drivers are current, the games are installed on the SSD, and the system isn’t overheating.
The graphics card is the most likely upgrade target. An RTX 2070 Super is still usable, but newer games can be demanding enough that it no longer delivers high settings or frame rates consistently. A newer midrange card such as a used RTX 4060 or a current equivalent could help, especially if you sell the old card to offset the cost. Before buying, check benchmarks for the specific games and make sure your power supply and case have enough capacity and airflow.
The memory reading is easy to misinterpret. DDR4-2666 normally appears in monitoring software as roughly 1333 MHz because DDR transfers data twice per clock cycle. Your RAM is running a little below its advertised 3000 MT/s rating, but that alone probably isn’t the main reason for poor performance. You could enable the memory’s XMP profile in the BIOS if it is stable, but a GPU upgrade is likely to produce a much larger improvement.
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