Question Quick upgrade or build new system question!

[baddaysbasil]

So I am assuming that if I got a more modern GPU (thinking RX 6600 or one step above that) for this system:

that I'd be bottlenecked by my low-core CPU and my DDR3 graphics (plus a stock prebuilt-PC motherboard whose stats I can't even locate!)

I had upgraded this system to the current card (the RX560, which has served me really well considering the price I payed for it pre-GPU-price-inflation of recent years) for relatively cheap and was really happy with it.

But really, when it comes to upgrading, I barely know what I'm doing. Can anyone at a glance if upgrading makes any sense at all?

My ultimate plan is to build a new 1080P gaming PC, and if it made sense to upgrade the card now and then save for more components to make the entire system up-to-date in a few months, I'd do that. If this makese no sense, let me know!

I appreciate any advice at this point!

 

[JohnBonhamsGhost]

But really, when it comes to upgrading, I barely know what I'm doing. Can anyone at a glance if upgrading makes any sense at all?

you don't mention case, power supply, storage, etc...
so i will guess that these are also lower quality items.

donate this thing to someone or somewhere that would appreciate it
or just keep it a s a simple multi-media system.

you want to build a new modern system with up-to-date hardware.

now you just need to include what your plans for this system may be;
certain games with certain visual settings,
encoding video or audio, etc..?

 

[geofelt]

To test if you could benefit from a gpu upgrade, run this simple test:
Run YOUR games, but lower your resolution and eye candy.
This makes the graphics card loaf a bit.
If your FPS increases, it indicates that your cpu is strong enough to drive a better graphics configuration.
If your FPS stays the same, you are likely more cpu limited.

I am guessing that your cpu is abysmally slow and that there are no significant cpu upgrades available for your motherboard.

What are the rest of your specs?
Do you have a budget?
A graphics upgrade may well involve a psu change.

 

[baddaysbasil]

To test if you could benefit from a gpu upgrade, run this simple test:
Run YOUR games, but lower your resolution and eye candy.
This makes the graphics card loaf a bit.
If your FPS increases, it indicates that your cpu is strong enough to drive a better graphics configuration.
If your FPS stays the same, you are likely more cpu limited.

I am guessing that your cpu is abysmally slow and that there are no significant cpu upgrades available for your motherboard.

What are the rest of your specs?
Do you have a budget?
A graphics upgrade may well involve a psu change.

I definitely get better FPS on lower graphics settings in pretty much every game that I play currently except those that are not graphically intense.

You mention guessing my CPU is very slow-- Is there a benchmark that I can run to test this?
Also you asked about other specs...such as...?

As far as the power supply, I'll open my case soon and figure that part of it out-- I figured to ask the general question about upgrading before I got into that, but it's good you bring it up as it may be a very limiting factor on whether to just build a new PC or not... I am not even sure I have the appropriate connectors available from my current power supply if I need a connector for a new GPU....I'll look into that this evening, most likely!

 

[geofelt]

One reasonable test is to run the cpu-Z bench for your a8-7600.
You should see a single thread rating near 253:

CPU-Z Benchmark for AMD A8-7600 (1T) - CPU-Z VALIDATOR

Best CPU performance - 64-bit - March 2025

valid.x86.fr

That is abysmally slow.
Do you have a budget?
A $115 i3-12100 will score more like 647.
You would need a lga1200 motherboard <$100, and 16gb of ddr4 ram for $40.

 

[baddaysbasil]

One reasonable test is to run the cpu-Z bench for your a8-7600.
You should see a single thread rating near 253:

CPU-Z Benchmark for AMD A8-7600 (1T) - CPU-Z VALIDATOR

Best CPU performance - 64-bit - March 2025

valid.x86.fr

That is abysmally slow.
Do you have a budget?
A $115 i3-12100 will score more like 647.
You would need a lga1200 motherboard <$100, and 16gb of ddr4 ram for $40.

Thanks for the info--it seems like I'm leaning toward just saving toward an entire new build already; my budget for a new build would probably be around $700-$800. My hope was that I could instead get away with just getting a new GPU and being happy for a while and then sticking it into a newer build later.

But I'd rather spend for something entirely new rather than take a half-measure, mostly because with this prebuild Lenovo I probably wouldn't be able to re-use most of the parts anyway.