Question about choosing a graphics card upgrade

bilshi

New member
I am looking to upgrade my year old Gaming PC as it is sluggish when playing games like Forza Horizon 3. Seems that a graphics card upgrade is the way to go but unsure which one to go for given a budget of about £120. Also unsure if I can keep the current graphics card when adding a new one. And whether I would also need to look at any other upgrades that would be needed along with the graphics card e.g. RAM.

Did some googling and found this graphics card - Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4 GB GDDR5 128 bit Graphics Card (GV-N105TOC-4GD) which seems similar to the pcspecialist upgrade option of the 4GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GT 1650 HDMI.

This is the spec for my PC.

Case
PCS CYCLONE GAMING CASE (Red LED Fans)
Processor (CPU)
AMD Ryzen 3 2300X Quad Core CPU (3.5GHz-4GHz/10MB CACHE/AM4)
Motherboard
ASUS® PRIME A320M-K: Micro-ATX, AM4, USB 3.0, 6GB/s
Memory (RAM)
8GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 2400MHz (1 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GT 1030
1st Storage Drive
1TB SEAGATE BARRACUDA SATA-III 3.5" HDD, 6GB/s, 7200RPM, 64MB CACHE
Power Supply
CORSAIR 350W VS SERIES™ VS-350 POWER SUPPLY
Power Cable
1 x 1 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/Wired Networking
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
Genuine Windows 10 Home 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media
Windows 10 Multi-Language Recovery Image - Unlimited Downloads from Online Account
Keyboard & Mouse
CoolerMaster Devastator III Combo Keyboard and Mouse
 

Oussebon

Multiverse Poster
Also unsure if I can keep the current graphics card when adding a new one
You can't. You can't use them together in gaming, and even if you could they wouldn't both fit in the motherboard.

You should be very, very wary of upgrading it - especially if money is something you are careful with / you don't have much of.

Here's why:
You could buy an R5 2600 CPU. It's a very solid budget-ish gaming CPU and will be much more futureproof than the R3 2300x. But, it's the same generation as the one you have, and you could have bought it when you first bought the PC.
You could upgrade the RAM - ideally with faster RAM (2 x 8gb 2933MHz). But again, you could have bought that when you bought the PC.
You could add a GTX 1050 ti. But again, it's the same generation as your GT 1030 and you could have just bought one instead when you first got the PC
You could upgrade the PSU to enable a more powerful GPU. If you had a 550W PSU for instance, you could buy an RX 570 which you can get for £120 and is way more powerful than a GTX 1050 ti. But, again, you could have just bought a 550W PSU instead of the 350W PSU when you bought the PC.

I'm assuming you couldn't afford all that stuff when buying the PC, which is fair enough, but it means that if you upgrade half the PC to stuff that was already available when you bought the thing, you are paying twice over for everything. That's probably even worse than really bad finance terms.

My advice:

Don't buy a GTX 1050 ti.

If you want a better graphics card, save up a tiny bit more and get a GTX 1650 for £135. Maybe one will be even cheaper on Black Friday? It's 25-30% better for gaming than a 1050 ti, so gives a lot more bang for your buck, and will last you longer before you find it too slow It's also a newer architecture, so will see better support going forward.

Don't do any other major upgrades for a very long time. Save up money so when you do upgrade / buy a new PC, you buy something that will last quite a few years before you find yourself needing to change it.
 

bilshi

New member
...
If you want a better graphics card, save up a tiny bit more and get a GTX 1650 for £135. Maybe one will be even cheaper on Black Friday? It's 25-30% better for gaming than a 1050 ti, so gives a lot more bang for your buck, and will last you longer before you find it too slow It's also a newer architecture, so will see better support going forward.
...
Thanks for the response. Was looking at either the 1650 or the 1660. And indeed will hold out till Black Friday just in case. Did buy the pc for 'upgrade-ability' and made that clear to PCS at the time so hopefully its still got a year or two left in it.
 
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