Newbie- need assistance in choosing what to upgrade.

TMGC

I am very illiterate when it comes to PC building- so please bear with me!

Currently running on 8GB of ram- so Im first looking into upgrading that first, to 16gb. (as it seems to be the cheapest first move) Does brand matter? Im overwhelmed with the possible selections.

Id love some insight as to what should be next upgraded. My specs are as follows:

- Bought as a prefab from MicroCenter ~2019, Powerspec brand

- Intel Core i5 7500 processor

- 8gb of Ram. DDr4, 2400Hz their product number is GKE400UD51208-2400AH (No clue what any of that means lmfao)

- Motherboard is LGA1151 B250 (whatever that means)

- Nvidia GeoForce GTX 1050Ti is my video card.

Am I missing anything? any other specs that need to be known? I appreciate any and all advice- thank you!

Ian

Greetings, what's the specific model of PowerSpec that you currently have? Model number is a singular letter followed by 3 numbers.

Julia_V

The Ram manufacturer shouldn't matter as long as it is DDR4 and also 2400MHz. If the motherboard has 4 slots, you can add more ram to the PC. If the motherboards has only 2 slots, I would get a kit of ram that is 2x8. This new kit of ram would be DDR4 and 2400MHZ, ideally.

Shoan041

If your goal is to upgrade your computer a little at a time, I would recommend looking for a 2x8GB kit that is 3200Mhz or 3600Mhz with CL16 or CL18. Then, replace what you have with it, that way when you are ready to upgrade to another CPU and Mobo it won't bottleneck your system for the newer parts. Intel is not very picky when it comes to RAM brands like Ryzen is, so you shouldn't have to worry about that too much, but I would stick with Corsair, G. Skill or Crucial. TeamGroup is a bit newer to me, but I have seen great success with compatibility for Ryzen and Intel. Some of the kits of RAM that we sell are specifically marked to work with a certain brand of CPU, but that doesn't necessarily mean it won't work with both.

magarity

The B250 chipset motherboard will only run memory at 2400, so faster memory will work but you can't take advantage of it. Meaning don't sweat 3200 vs 3600. So just get whatever 2x8GB DDR4 pack is a good deal.

You don't mention an ssd or hard drive. Do you need more storage?


A GTX 1650 graphics card would be a really good upgrade from a 1050 while not being more than that CPU can handle. Something like this: https://www.microcenter.com/product/606265/asus-geforce-gtx-1650-dual-overclocked-dual-fan-4gb-gddr5-pcie-30-graphics-card
But you need to check that your power supply has a spare 6 pin PCIe aux power cable available.