Upgrading a PC but don't know anything on how to get started

ellexo8

Hi! Im looking to upgrade my pc built, I built it from one of those budget PC builds videos. I don't know pretty much anything about pc's but I am learning. My PC now is slow and barely can run some games.

CURRENTLY, the PC I have specs are: Ryzen 3 3200g, B450 Bazzoka Max WiFi, 8gb DDR4-3200, 500 GB 2.5" SSD, 500 W 80+ Bronze, and a MicroATX Mid Tower case. No graphics card :(

I want to play games like Valorant, Minecraft, apex, Dead of daylight, Overwatch, and edit/record videos. My budget is $500-600. Thank you!

chemerik

I see three things that could make a big boost to your performance in that budget.

1) Add a graphics card 2) Add more ram (to 16 GB) and 3) add an NVME drive.

Since you want to edit videos, you'll want an NVIDIA card and can afford an RTX 1650 (several in the $210-220 range at the time of writing) or RTX 3500 (EVGA is $330 at the time of writing). Either should play the games you listed fine though you should get a somewhat better experience with the 3500 (asuming you also upgrade the RAM). Another card to consider is an AMD RX6600 at $330 right now. That card will be a slightly better gaming card than the RTX3500 but not as fast/efficient with videos. And don't be fooled by the AMD RX6500 or RX6400 series cards - they don't have an encoder and the PCIe lanes are limited to 4, meaning it would be a terrible video editing card and super slow in your PCIe 3 slot (it's still slow in a PCIe 4 slot).

For the RAM, the DDR4-3200 (hopefully CL16 or better) is a good speed. If you currently have that as a single stick and can get another of the same model at a good price, that's the cheapest upgrade. Otherwise, 2x8 DDR4-3200 CL16 kits from reputable brands are almost always on sale for $65 or less.

Last, getting NVME speed can really help boot speeds and help a little during editing and gaming. You'll want more storage if you're editing videos anyway. Since your MB is limited to PCIe 3 anyway there is no benefit to getting an expensive one. Going for a budget 1 TB NVME at PCIe 3 is about $90. I would put this as lower priority than the items above, but is the final upgrade I see that would make a significant difference.

I'd also say that's about the most I'd put into upgrading your set-up before starting to consider just saving a little more for a new computer. But, it should get you a good 1080p gaming experience and the ability to do light video editing work.