If you’re still relying on an old office monitor you bought from Currys five years ago, this is definitely an update worth making. Resolution, refresh rate and response times … Far Cry 6. So which models do we recommend? “1TB NVMe drives, such as the WD Black SN850 are impressive and can have a massive impact on loading times and just using Windows for that matter,” says Dexter. Also, you’re not just looking for memory capacity, you need to check the data transfer speed too, measured in MB/s – a SATA drive will manage 560MB/s while a new PCIe NVMe SSD will operate at anywhere between 35 MB/s. If that means nothing to you, a site like PCPartPicker will help you decide which type of SSD your motherboard is compatible with.
The industry is now moving away from the old Serial ATA drives toward PCIe-based SSDs using NVMe communication drivers.
If you’re somehow still solely relying on a hard disk, or want to upgrade from an older SSD/HDD combo, now is your chance – prices are quite good, and a fast SSD will greatly improve loading times, both in booting games and loading new levels while you play.
I recommend Corsair Vengeance or HyperX Predator kits, or at the budget end, I used the Crucial Ballistix RGB in my first home build. Check the speed of the ram you buy – usually given in MHz – it’s debatable how much effect this has, but 3200MHz is a good guide if you’re buying new. For this year’s releases, 16GB is becoming the recommended requirement, but even 32GB is going to become more common. Upgrading your system memory is the most cost-effective way of improving gaming performance, allowing for faster, smoother frame rates. Whatever you go for, make sure it’s compatible with your motherboard and GPU and remember to apply thermal paste before attaching the cooler! If you’re an Intel gamer, the Core i5 10400F or 10600K are excellent workhorses.
I’m a big fan of the AMD Ryzen models, having built a PC around an AMD Ryzen 5 5600X this year, and PC Gamer currently recommends the Ryzen 9 5900X. As Dexter explains, “Its ray tracing isn’t quite as strong as Nvidia’s, but it manages to put up a good fight elsewhere, and overall, it’s a strong offering.”Īlthough the graphics card is the heart of a games machine, you’ll want an up-to-date CPU to get the most out of it. They were arguably overpriced at launch, but in the current state of things they aren’t that bad.” The AMD equivalent of the 3080 is the Radeon RX 6800 XT. The previous generation cards are still decent. It’s expensive, but it’s such a leap in performance it feels like an investment that will last you for years.”Ĭhris Wilson agrees on the RTX 3080 but adds, “For most people running games at 1440p resolution, a 3070/3070ti should be more than enough. “It’ll handle anything you can throw at it and even let you play at 4K properly, with everything tuned high. “At its intended £649 retail price, there’s nothing out there that can really touch it,” he says. According to Alan Dexter, senior hardware editor at PC Gamer, however, the standout card this winter is the GeForce RTX 3080. I’m using an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060, with 12GB of ram, G6 memory and HDMI 2.1 support and it has given me blistering performance on games such as Flight Simulator 20, Metro Exodus and even Cyberpunk 2077, at 1440p. You want something that can support 4K monitors and two key features: ray tracing, which creates realistic lighting and reflection effects, and DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling) which uses AI to improve visual detail and frame rates. Here are some tips …īlistering performance … Cyberpunk 2077. However, if you’ve made up your mind to improve your ageing set-up, there are options out there. Eventually the bottom has to fall out of this current disaster.” Intel is rumoured to have a serious GPU out early next year and they are likely to price it aggressively to try and gain some market share. “The suggestion for most people would probably be to wait it out. “There are GTX 1080Ti cards listed on eBay for over £500 – that’s a four-year-old GPU for half a grand,” says Chris Wilson, design director at Cardboard Sword. Manufacturing and distribution problems, together with skyrocketing demand, have seen prices soar, especially for high-end graphics cards.
There’s just one problem: this is probably the worst, most expensive time in recent memory to boost your processing power. Blockbusters such as Halo Infinite, Battlefield 1942 and Forza Horizon 5 will all support demanding visual effects such as ray tracing, so it seems like the perfect time to invest in new kit.
W ith the autumn video game release schedule now in full swing, the thoughts of many PC owners are turning to hardware upgrades.