Upgrade, in the right order

To upgrade an old gaming PC in 2026, replace the graphics card first, then move games to an NVMe SSD, add RAM, and change the CPU last. The ASUS Dual Radeon RX 9060 XT 16GB, £439.99 on Amazon UK at the time of writing (September 2026), is the best all-round first upgrade: Tom's Hardware's June 2026 GPU hierarchy measured 98.3 fps at 1080p Ultra against 61.5 fps for an RTX 3060 12GB, a 60% gain, and AMD rates the card at 160 W with a 450 W minimum power supply.

The order matters more in 2026: Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, Doom: The Dark Ages, Gears of War: E-Day and Ace Combat 8 require a ray-tracing graphics card. When the CPU is the measured limit, the strongest route for AM4 and older Intel PCs is a move to AM5: a Ryzen 7 7800X3D, a B650 board and 32 GB of DDR5 cost £880.44. The ladders below price three typical old PCs step by step, with a running total, to show where a new PC wins.

What should be upgraded first in an old gaming PC?

The graphics card should be upgraded first in almost every old gaming PC, because GPU speed, video memory and ray-tracing support decide whether a 2026 game runs at all. Steam's August 2026 Hardware Survey shows the typical machine: the RTX 3060 is the most common graphics card at 3.76% of users, 25.74% of GPUs carry 8 GB of VRAM, and 41.20% of systems run 16 GB of RAM.

1. Graphics card: the largest gain per pound, and the only fix for ray-tracing and VRAM limits.
2. NVMe SSD: faster loading and room for 150 GB installs.
3. RAM: 16 GB to 32 GB, most useful with an 8 GB graphics card.
4. CPU: last, and only when it is the measured bottleneck.

The power supply is checked alongside the graphics card. Every current card is ranked in best graphics card UK 2026.

Is the graphics card the bottleneck?

The graphics card is the bottleneck when it runs at or near 100% utilisation in game; if it sits well below that while the frame rate stays low, the CPU is holding it back.

• Overlay: AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition, the NVIDIA App and the Performance tab in Windows Task Manager show GPU utilisation in game.
• Resolution test: drop from 1440p to 1080p. A large frame-rate rise means the GPU was the limit; little change means the CPU is.
• VRAM:memory use pinned at the card's limit, with stutter, means the card has run out. PC Gamer's March 2026 tests found 8 GB cards filled "low-to-mid 7 GB+" in Cyberpunk 2077 with ray tracing.

At high resolution the GPU usually decides: TechSpot's May 2026 analysis found the Ryzen 7 9800X3D only 6% ahead of the Ryzen 7 5800X3D in Marvel Rivals at native 1440p, against 23% at 1080p.

Which graphics card is the best upgrade for an old PC?

The Radeon RX 9060 XT 16GB is the best graphics card upgrade for most old PCs: it doubles the VRAM of an 8 GB card, draws 160 W, and AMD's 450 W minimum PSU figure fits most power supplies already in the case.

Compare Electronic's measured-uplift table

An RTX 3050 owner doubles the frame rate with any of the three; an RTX 3070 owner gains 3% from an RTX 5060 but 100% from the Radeon RX 9070 XT. Tom's test PC used a Ryzen 7 9800X3D, so an older CPU narrows the larger gains in CPU-heavy games. The RTX 2060, GTX 1660 and GTX 1060 are not in Tom's current table, so no frame rates are quoted for them.

ASUS Dual Radeon RX 9060 XT 16GB - best all-round upgrade

The ASUS Dual Radeon RX 9060 XT 16GB costs £439.99 on Amazon UK at the time of writing (September 2026). AMD rates the Radeon RX 9060 XT 16GB at 160 W with a 450 W minimum PSU and 16 GB of GDDR6. Tom's Hardware measured 67.3 fps at 1440p Ultra, 13% ahead of the GeForce RTX 5060. Its PCIe x16 link keeps full bandwidth in PCIe 3.0 boards such as B450 and B365, where the RTX 5060's x8 link gets half. The RX 9060 XT 16GB suits owners of a GTX 1660, RTX 2060, RTX 3050 or RX 6600.

ASUS Dual GeForce RTX 5060 OC - cheapest sensible upgrade

The ASUS Dual GeForce RTX 5060 OC costs £374.99 on Amazon UK at the time of writing (September 2026), £65.00 less than the RX 9060 XT 16GB. NVIDIA rates the GeForce RTX 5060 at 145 W with a 550 W PSU and 8 GB of GDDR7; Tom's Hardware measured 59.8 fps at 1440p Ultra. DLSS 4.5 with up to 6x frame generation is its strength and 8 GB its weakness: TechSpot's Forza Horizon 6 test found the 16 GB RTX 5060 Ti 56% faster than the 8 GB version at 1080p with ray tracing. The RTX 5060 suits buyers with a hard £400 ceiling.

ASUS Prime Radeon RX 9070 XT OC - the big upgrade

The ASUS Prime Radeon RX 9070 XT OC costs £668.99 on Amazon UK at the time of writing (September 2026); AMD's UK launch price for the Radeon RX 9070 XT was £569.99. AMD rates it at 304 W with a 750 W minimum PSU and 16 GB of GDDR6. Tom's Hardware measured 116.5 fps at 1440p Ultra, 73% more than the RX 9060 XT 16GB. It needs a CPU to match: TechSpot found a Zen 2 Ryzen 7 3800X only becomes GPU-limited in Spider-Man 2 with ray tracing at around RTX 5060 Ti level, so the RX 9070 XT suits Ryzen 5 5600X-class PCs. The head-to-head is in RTX 5070 vs RX 9070 XT.

Can a GTX 1060 or GTX 1660 still run new games in 2026?

A GTX 1060 or GTX 1660 still runs some 2026 releases at minimum settings, but not games that require hardware ray tracing, and the GTX 10 series no longer gets Game Ready drivers.

• Ray-tracing GPU required: Indiana Jones and the Great Circle (minimum RTX 2060 Super or RX 6600), Doom: The Dark Ages (a ray-tracing GPU with 8 GB), Gears of War: E-Day on 6 October 2026 (RTX 2060 or RX 6600) and Ace Combat 8 on 2 October 2026 (RTX 2060 or RX 6600 XT), per Steam.
• Still listed as a minimum:the GTX 1060 for The Blood of Dawnwalker, Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy and the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 beta specs; the GTX 1660 for WARDOGS, Onimusha: Way of the Sword and Phantom Blade Zero. WARDOGS targets "1080p Low @ 60fps (Upscaled)" at that tier.
• Drivers:NVIDIA ended Game Ready drivers for GTX 900 and GTX 10 cards in late 2025, with quarterly security updates through October 2028, per its July 2025 statement quoted by Tom's Hardware. The Turing GTX 16 series was not included.
• Upscaling: no DLSS on GTX cards; FSR and XeSS work.

The GTX 10 and GTX 16 series still make up 4.70% and 5.92% of Steam GPUs (August 2026). Game-by-game detail is in WARDOGS PC requirements and Minecraft PC requirements 2026.

How much does it cost to upgrade an old gaming PC?

Upgrading an old gaming PC for 2026 games costs £649.98 to £963.97 at September 2026 Amazon UK prices: £699.98 for a 2019 Intel PC, £649.98 for a 2020 AM4 PC and £963.97 for a 2021 AM4 PC, with each recommended step priced in order.

PC A: 2019 Core i5-9400F and GTX 1660

LGA1151 tops out at 9th-generation Core chips, so a real CPU upgrade means a new board, and the six-thread Core i5-9400F sits below Doom: The Dark Ages' 8-core, 16-thread minimum. PC A should stop at step 2 or 3: step 4 takes the total to £1,023.93, £225.94 more than a new Ryzen 5 5500 and RTX 5060 gaming PC tower at £797.99.

PC B: 2020 Ryzen 5 3600 and RTX 2060

The Ryzen 5 3600 is now the minimum CPU for Phantom Blade Zero and Silent Hill: Townfall, but PC B should stop at step 2 unless the frame rate stays low after the graphics card upgrade. The AM5 move with the AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3Dcosts £670.45 more than the DDR4 step (£880.44 against £209.99) and is the only route here that meets Doom: The Dark Ages' 8-core, 16-thread minimum. The 7800X3D ships without a cooler, so the £26.90 Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE covers PCs whose current cooler does not fit.

PC C: 2021 Ryzen 5 5600X and RTX 3060 12GB

The Ryzen 5 5600X stays: it is the recommended CPU for Ace Combat 8 and Phantom Blade Zero. Where the PSU is already 650 W, the Gigabyte Radeon RX 9070 GRE Gaming OC saves £223.99 against the RX 9070 XT plus PSU, for 86.6 fps instead of 116.5 fps at 1440p Ultra.

Which upgrade gives the most performance per pound?

From an RTX 3060 12GB, the Radeon RX 9070 XT buys extra frames most cheaply, at £8.97 per extra 1440p frame, against £17.32 for the RX 9060 XT 16GB and £20.95 for the RTX 5060. Each figure is the Amazon UK price divided by the gain over the RTX 3060 12GB's 41.9 fps in Tom's Hardware's 1440p Ultra average.

Small upgrades add few frames to a card that already manages 41.9 fps. The RX 9060 XT 16GB wins on fit instead: no new PSU, and a better match for the older CPUs in PC A and PC B.

Is 16 GB of RAM enough in 2026?

16 GB of RAM is still enough for most games in 2026, and 32 GB is the upgrade to make after the graphics card and SSD. TechSpot's January 2026 test found 16 GB matched 32 GB in 12 of 13 games; Mafia: The Old Country needed about 20 GB.

• 8 GB graphics cards change the answer: moving an 8 GB RX 9060 XT from 16 GB to 32 GB of RAM improved its 1% lows in Spider-Man 2 by more than 60% in the same test.
• Autumn 2026 specs: Ace Combat 8, Silent Hill: Townfall and Star Wars Zero Company recommend 32 GB.
• DDR4 is the cheap route: the Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4-3200 32GB costs £209.99, and the Patriot Viper Venom DDR5-6000 32GB CL30 £429.99. OC3D tracked a 32 GB DDR5-6000 kit at £79 on Amazon UK in September 2025; the causes are in the RAM shortage explainer.
• Matched kits: adding the Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4-3200 16GB (£142.99) to an existing 2 x 8 GB pair saves £67.00, but four mixed modules do not always run at their rated speed.

Does an SSD upgrade help games?

An NVMe SSD speeds up loading, not frame rate, and the PCIe generation barely matters: Tom's Hardware's August 2026 test of 11 games found "no observable differences between PCIe generations".

• Loading:Hardware Unboxed's tests for TechSpot found Ratchet & Clank loads in 1.3 s from NVMe and nearly five times slower from SATA; Kingdom Come: Deliverance II took over four minutes from a hard drive.
• Requirements: most autumn 2026 releases require an SSD, Doom: The Dark Ages requires NVMe, and Ace Combat 8 needs 150 GB, so 2 TB is the practical minimum.
• Price: the Lexar NM790 2TB (£259.99) and Kingston NV3 1TB (£129.98) both cost 13.0p per GB. Lexar rates the NM790 at 7,400 MB/s with a 5-year warranty; an older PCIe 3.0 slot slows it, with no practical effect on games.

The drive shortlist is in best NVMe SSD for gaming UK 2026.

Should the CPU be upgraded, and what about AM4?

The CPU should be upgraded after the graphics card, and only when it is the measured bottleneck; for AM4 and older Intel PCs the strongest route is a move to AM5 with the AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D, which costs £880.44 with an MSI PRO B650M-A WiFi and 32 GB of DDR5. TechSpot's April 2026 test measured the 7800X3D 20 to 24% faster than the Ryzen 7 5800X3D, which TechSpot's 2026 re-test put level with the Ryzen 5 9600X.

• Board: the MSI PRO B650M-A WiFi (£151.45) is Micro-ATX with a PCIe 4.0 x16 slot and Wi-Fi 6E, per MSI; the ASUS TUF Gaming B850-Plus WiFi (£189.00) adds PCIe 5.0 to the graphics card slot and one M.2 slot, for £37.55 more.
• Memory is the biggest cost: the Patriot Viper Venom DDR5-6000 32GB CL30 (£429.99) is 48.8% of the £880.44 total, and DDR5-6000 CL30 matches TechSpot's AM5 test bench.
• BIOS: both boards have a BIOS flashback button, which updates the BIOS with no CPU or RAM fitted.

More chips are ranked in best CPU for gaming UK 2026 and boards in best motherboard for gaming UK 2026.

Will the power supply cope with a new graphics card?

A power supply copes when its wattage meets the card maker's figure and it has spare PCIe power leads for the card. The figures run from AMD's 450 W for the Radeon RX 9060 XT 16GB to 750 W for the Radeon RX 9070 XT.

• Wattage:the rating is on the PSU's side label. NVIDIA asks 550 W for a 145 W card and AMD 450 W for a 160 W card, so each figure carries its maker's own margin.
• Connectors:count the 8-pin PCIe leads the card needs against the PSU's spare leads. Some GeForce RTX 50 cards use a single 12V-2x6 connector, defined in the ATX 3.1 standard.
• Replacement: the Corsair RM750e is a 750 W, 80 Plus Gold, fully modular ATX 3.1 unit at £84.99, enough for every card here. A PSU of unknown make is worth replacing on principle.

Does an old gaming PC need Windows 11?

An old gaming PC needs Windows 11, or at least TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot, for a growing list of 2026 games; Windows 10 security updates continue through Microsoft's consumer Extended Security Updates programme to 12 October 2027.

• Anti-cheat: the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 beta specs and Battlefield 6 require TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot.
• Windows 11 as a minimum: Onimusha: Way of the Sword, Ace Combat 8 and Silent Hill: Townfall.
• Windows 10: support ended on 14 October 2025. ESU enrolment is free with Windows Backup or 1,000 Microsoft Rewards points, or a one-off $30, and covers security fixes only. 22.90% of Steam users still ran Windows 10 in August 2026.
• Hardware:Windows 11 needs TPM 2.0 and a supported CPU. Microsoft's list starts at Intel's 8th-generation Core and AMD's Ryzen 2000 series, so all three example PCs qualify once firmware TPM (Intel PTT or AMD fTPM) is on.
• Licence: a platform swap can void a Windows licence tied to the old board; the Microsoft Windows 11 Home digital licence costs £119.00.

When is it better to buy a new PC than upgrade?

Buying a new PC is better once an upgrade needs a new CPU, motherboard and RAM at the same time as a graphics card. The AM5 move (£880.44) plus a Radeon RX 9060 XT 16GB (£439.99) comes to £1,320.43, £522.44 more than a complete Ryzen 5 5500 and RTX 5060 gaming PC tower at £797.99 with 16 GB of DDR4 and Windows 11, though the tower has a six-core CPU and an 8 GB card.

• Prebuilts undercut DIY at entry level:Tom's Guide reported in December 2025 that "It is now cheaper to buy a pre-built gaming PC than building one yourself", because system builders use RAM and SSDs bought before the price rise.
• Stop signs:a quad-core CPU outside Microsoft's Windows 11 list, a board with no M.2 slot, or a PSU and case that also need replacing.

What should UK buyers check before upgrading?

• Consumer Rights Act 2015: faulty goods can be rejected for a full refund within 30 days, and claims go to the retailer, not the manufacturer. Test each part inside that window.
• Physical fit:compare the card's length in the maker's specification with the case's GPU clearance.
• Drivers: remove the old GPU driver before fitting a card from a different maker, such as GeForce to Radeon.

Verdict: how to upgrade an old gaming PC

Upgrade in this order: graphics card, NVMe SSD, RAM, then CPU, checking the power supply with the graphics card. The ASUS Dual Radeon RX 9060 XT 16GB at £439.99 is the best first upgrade for most old PCs, the ASUS Dual GeForce RTX 5060 OC at £374.99 the cheaper option, and the ASUS Prime Radeon RX 9070 XT OC at £668.99, with a £84.99 Corsair RM750e, the pick for Ryzen 5 5600X-class PCs. When the CPU is still the measured limit, the AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D with an MSI PRO B650M-A WiFi and 32 GB of DDR5 is the CPU route at £880.44. Once the graphics card, CPU, board and RAM all need replacing, a new PC is the better buy.