Need advice on upgrading for Ark: Survival Evolved

[LauraE112]

Ark is in alpha and they are still working on optimization and performance, and after a patch recently my computer runs it a bit better, but it's still not great. I run it on low-medium and my FPS is less than great. I'm looking to spend a couple hundred max to upgrade so I can run this game better. Here are my specs

Motherboard: Asus M5A99X EVO
CPU: AMD x4 965 3.5 GHz
Video Card: Radeon 5700 HD
PSU: Corsair TX750
RAM: 8GB

My video card is very old and outdated so I'm assuming updating that will be a big performance boost, but how is my CPU? My motherboard is newer so I am hoping that is ok, and I believe my PSU is plenty powerful. Please recommend specific parts, like which exact video card would be best for under ~150$. Any help is appreciated, thank you!

 

[jsgrant31]

Straight from the dev...

Game Optimization + Specs

It doesn't require a top-tier video card but it does require 4 GB system RAM currently. However, if you have a mid-to-low graphics card you will definitely have to reduce graphics to make the game not look as good as it can be. But yeah it has a TON of configurable video options so you can pretty much get it to run on any video card down to like a $100 budget card.

That said, we plan to optimize, optimize, optimize as we head through Early Access. You can never be too optimized, and we're quite good at that 😉

For Max settings at 1080p, I'd recommend a GeForce 980 or equivalent graphics card. 3.0 Ghz CPU and 8 GB system RAM.

For Min settings at 720p, I'd recommend any DirectX 11 compatible graphics card with at least 1 GB video memory, 4 GB system RAM, and a 2.5 Ghz CPU.

Upgrade GPU first, CPU second.