EDIT: Decided to get 16GB more RAM, a Ryzen 5 2600, and a Gen 3 Sabrent Rocket 1TB SSD. About $145 all-in. If there are still issues, then a GPU in the ~$150 used range is really the last upgrade for me on this platform, I think. Thanks all!
So, I am currently running an absolutely ancient Ship of Theseus desktop. I have fairly modest needs, looking to play games, lets say on the order of Starfield, at 1080P, medium-ish settings, and not dropping below 30FPS when things get busy on-screen. Something like Minecraft I'd like to run a touch more aggressively, but I know it has its own technical bottlenecks that make it more intensive than you might think (don't murder me... I still play Bedrock because I like vanilla survival and it runs well). I also do some light 3D CAD using paid-for software that I like, so some sort of legal-ish Windows partition or VM with some form of GPU acceleration would also be nice, but I'm okay with running Linux for most things.
Current specs:
- Gigabyte B450M mobo
- Ryzen 5 2400G as CPU only
- Radeon RX 580
- 16GB PC3200 DDR4
- Unholy accumulation of SATA III drives: a Lexar 250gb for Windows 10, a 120GB Samsung for a couple of games, and a 640GB 7200RPM drive for Linux and storage.
I have actually been able to get the aforementioned Starfield running at 50fps (inside and light load) and 20-25ish FPS (outside action) at a customized set of low settings that isn't too horrifyingly ugly, but (1) that's clearly about as good as it's going to get, and (2) it's probably contributing to my not playing it all that much. So, what would help, and is anything salvageable? Would prefer to keep the upgrades as cheap as possible while getting a noticeable improvement to tide me over for a couple more years of low-end gaming and CAD. I'm not targeting any specific number, just "better." If it helps, let's set a USD $300 cap on upgrades, but cheaper is better. I'm hoping that staying at the lower resolution will be helpful.
I'd say upgrade GPU. Buying a GPU is awful but it's by far the most directly responsible for gaming performance. I'd probably look for an RX 7600 or RTX 4060. Both of them should be around 300 dollars. Also be aware that games are starting to use more VRAM. Both of my recommendations above have 8 GB of VRAM, and that's already not enough for some games. If you have the extra money, it'll certainly be a good idea to spend a bit more to get a 16 GB card (or at minimum, a 12 GB card). Your best options there would probably be RX 7600XT or RTX 4060 Ti 16 GB. Both of those cards should be around the 400 dollar range.
Second priority would be upgrading your storage drives to SSD. Upgrading to SSD's should help with general snappiness, and plus they shouldn't be that expensive at this time. That should be around 100 dollars for 1 TB of SSD, or 50 dollars for 500 GB.
3rd priority is CPU. It's fine, but you might gett CPU bottlenecked in certain scenarios (especially after getting a GPU upgrade). An R5 5600 would be a slot-in upgrade, so you can keep using your other parts. Last I checked (which admittedly was a while back), they're a pretty good deal, at around 120 dollars.
4th priority is RAM. I'd actually say 16 GB RAM is fine for now, but RAM (and especially DDR4 RAM) is super cheap so you might as well upgrade your RAM if you've got the money.