Best gaming desktop upgrade option

[KevetS]

Hi all,

My son has the desktop PC as below.
He mostly plays games on it, but has recently been saying that it's generally quite "laggy".
What would be the best option to improve his gaming experience?
RAM is a relatively cheap upgrade. Would doubling up make much difference. Or would I need to go the more expensive route... change of CPU, graphics card?
Would uninstalling some of the many installed games make any difference?
Any suggestions much appreciated.


Case
CORSAIR SPEC-DELTA RGB MID TOWER GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
AMD Ryzen 5 2600 Six Core CPU (3.4GHz-3.9GHz/19MB CACHE/AM4)
Motherboard
GIGABYTE B450 AORUS ELITE: DDR4, USB 3.1 - ARGB Ready
Memory (RAM)
16GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 2933MHz ~ (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
4GB AMD RADEON™ RX 570 - HDMI, DP - DX® 12
1st Storage Drive
480GB ADATA SU630 2.5" SSD, SATA 6 Gb (520MB/R, 450MB/W)
Power Supply
CORSAIR 550W VS SERIES™ VS-550 POWER SUPPLY
Power Cable
1 x 1.5 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
STANDARD AMD CPU COOLER
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless Network Card
WIRELESS 802.11N 300Mbps/2.4GHz PCI-E CARD
USB/Thunderbolt Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
Windows 10 Home 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence

 

[sck451]

The key thing is determining what is causing the "lag". (I doubt it's actually lag: that refers to network problems, rather than stuttering gameplay or low framerates.) The best way to do this is to run Task Manager while gaming and see what's running at full capacity. If the graphics card is running at full tilt, then that's the thing you need to upgrade. If it's not and the CPU is, you should upgrade the CPU. If it is the graphics card, turning the settings down (if they aren't at minimum already!) should improve things: this would be a useful test.

The RAM and CPU are almost certainly fine. Neither is top-of-the-line by today's standards, but they're hardly weak and won't be causing issues. Similarly the motherboard and storage.

My guess is that the most likely culprit is that the graphics card is now just a bit old: it's five years old now. Upgrading it is possible, though you may be limited by that power supply. You could have a Radeon 6600, I think, or an RTX 3050 and that might improve things for you, and I think both should work fine with a 550W power supply.

But the key thing is to work out what is causing the poor performance.

 

[KevetS]

Thanks for the reply.

Having run through a couple of games with my son last night, it appears that different components are lacking, depending on the game being played:

Minecraft is very CPU heavy, running between 95-100%. GPU at about 30%.

Playing Spellbreak shows CPU 25-30%, GPU at 100%,

RAM averaging 40% on both games.

My son does have game quality settings very high - obviously, reducing these makes it easier on the CPU & GPU.
We've tinkered with games and graphics card settings which has helped a little.
He's uninstalled 150GB worth games and other bits n bobs that he no longer uses. He says that that has improved things slightly - is that likely?

With games getting more sophisticated and components running at 100%, I guess I have to weigh up whether it's better to upgrade those components, or bite the bullet and buy a better spec system.

 

[Scott]

Looking at the system I would just eek out as long as you can and then plum for a whole new system. You could upgrade but I fear it would be a bit like Triggers broom to get anything meaningful. Unfortunately the base components of the system were lacking to begin with (Case & PSU being the main culprits). We always spec the foundations quite high so that you can get more years out of the system with upgrades.