For others however, PC gaming cannot be replaced and it looks like we’re moving toward upgrade season – the latest news comes from Nvidia and the hopes that the pricing for the new cards could be the next-gen console killers, but if you’re looking to upgrade your PC there may be better places to start.
Storage ¬– It has been long known that the biggest bang for your buck upgrade available has been for storage – changing from a traditional disc HDD to even a 2.5” SSD will net a huge performance gain, but there has been plenty of movement since then with the introduction of the M.2 form factor and NVMe drives, and as pricing continues to fall for even the bigger storage options and faster storage becoming more consumer friendly, this should be the first place to look.
Motherboard and CPU – The GeForce RTX 3000 series is very compelling, with the 3080 releasing at a very affordable $699, but if your motherboard and CPU can’t properly utilise the card, then it’s a $699 paperweight. The longevity of CPUs has been praised by many but with gaming in mind it is often because gaming architecture hasn’t changed enough in the past decade to warrant upgrading here too often. If your storage is sorted, perhaps look to your CPU and motherboard as the next potential to ensure they’re suitable for what you’re doing.
Display – What’s the point in having a top of the range GPU if you’re not going to see how it performs? It’s often forgotten that certain cards are made to perform well at certain breakpoints, if you’re looking for 4K gaming at 60fps, your requirements are going to be very different from someone looking to play at 1080p for 240fps. Identify what you’ll be doing most and consider changing display before your card, and if you’re one of the latter users another of the biggest bang for your buck upgrades can definitely be found in a 120-240hz monitor.
If this is just the start of changes coming to rival the next generation consoles however, it’s certainly going to be a continued year of excitement for PC gamers – we’re already expecting big things from AMD and the Ryzen series, storage continues to become more available and improved, and even optional extras such as capture and network cards are starting to deliver much more. It’s easy to focus on the trophy pieces such as a flashy new GPU, but there are plenty of upgrades elsewhere that can deliver much better performance for your requirements at a much lower price point to start.