Upgrading an old gaming PC while prices are crazy

Don’t rebuild. Upgrade.

RAM is the worst buy in PC hardware right now. Tom’s Hardware tracked DDR5 kits up as much as 500% in 12 months, and GPUs still sell above MSRP. If your current CPU and DDR4 memory still run your games, keep them. Upgrade the parts you feel.

The order that pays off

1. Storage. Moving from a hard drive or SATA SSD to NVMe is a cheap, obvious win in load times. A Gen4 drive like the SN7100 needs an M.2 2280 slot that supports NVMe. Some older boards’ M.2 slots are SATA-only, so check the manual. In a PCIe 3.0 slot it works at lower speed. See the SSD guide.
2. Graphics card. The biggest jump in frame rate. Check your power supply first. ASUS recommends 750W for its RX 9070 XT, and it needs three 8-pin cables.
3. Everything else only when a game demands it.

The three paths

• Small: a 2TB Gen4 NVMe SSD.
• Medium: the RX 9060 XT 16GB. Tom’s Hardware’s hierarchy puts it at 67.3 fps average at 1440p ultra. 16GB of VRAM keeps newer games comfortable.
• Big: the RX 9070 XT, at 116.5 fps in the same chart, or the RTX 5070 if you want DLSS and can live with 12GB.

When to wait

If your card still hits your target frame rate, wait. Tom’s Hardware tracks street prices against MSRP. When the markup shrinks, that’s your moment. See which graphics card to buy.

ASUS Prime Radeon RX 9060 XT OC Edition 16GB

Our lowest-MSRP route to 16GB. Built for 1080p, fine at 1440p with sensible settings.

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