PC Upgrade Checker: What to Upgrade and What Will Fit

How to Read Your Plan

Cheap fixes come first. Moving Windows off a hard drive or adding a second memory stick costs far less than a new processor or graphics card, and both fix problems a faster chip can't.

Then comes the one step that raises your frame rate most. It might be the processor, the graphics card, or both together when each would hold the other back. Each frame rate is for a typical game at High settings.

The picks aim at your monitor. A 144 Hz screen shows at most 144 frames each second, so the checker suggests the slowest part that reaches it instead of the fastest one on sale. Check what your screen can use with the refresh rate calculator.

• Fits your board: a processor that drops into the motherboard you have.
• New board: a processor that needs a new motherboard, and often new memory too.
• Value pick: a cheaper card that still adds at least 30% more frames.
• Enough for your monitor: the slowest card that fills your screen.

Find the Parts in Your PC

Open Task Manager, choose the Performance tab, and click CPU, Memory, Disk, or GPU to see each part. The Memory page shows how many slots are used, which is your stick count. The Disk page shows whether a drive is an SSD or an HDD.

The power supply is the one part Windows can't see. Its wattage is on the label attached to the unit, usually on the side facing the case window or the back.

Check What Fits Before You Buy

Speed is only half the answer. A new part also has to match your socket, memory, power supply, and case. The table shows which chips each socket takes and the fastest gaming chip for it in our model.

BIOS support. A chip that fits the socket can still need a BIOS update before it will run, since the motherboard firmware sets up the processor at startup. AMD's AM4 chart shows older 300 series boards got Ryzen 5000 support only through selected beta BIOS updates. Intel's 8th and 9th Gen chips share a shape with 6th and 7th Gen but need a 300 series board.

Memory type. DDR4 and DDR5 are not backwards compatible, so AM5 and LGA1851 boards need DDR5. LGA1700 boards were made in separate DDR4 and DDR5 versions, so check which one you have. Plan a new kit with our RAM calculator.

Memory sticks. One stick costs frames. In TechSpot's tests, a single 16 GB stick ran 12% slower than two at 1080p. For capacity, 32 GB is now the most common amount in the Steam Hardware Survey, just ahead of 16 GB.

Power supply. Each card maker lists a minimum, such as NVIDIA's 750 W for an RTX 5070 Ti, based on a PC with a Ryzen 9 9950X. The checker uses the maker's figure, or a bigger one from our PSU calculator method when your processor draws more. On a battery backup, check it can still carry the new card with the UPS calculator.

Plugs and space. Faster cards need more power cables. NVIDIA's RTX 5080 guide calls for one 16-pin cable or an adapter on three 8-pin plugs. Measure the room for a longer card, and make sure your fans can cool new parts with the airflow planning tool and our guide to improving case airflow.

Signs of the Part Holding You Back

Run the game or app that feels slow, then watch the Performance tab. Intel explains how usage shows whether the CPU or GPU limits your frame rate.

Low FPS can also come from settings, frame caps, or heat, so rule those out with our guide to low FPS causes. New to the parts themselves? Start with our parts of a computer guide.

Upgrade Order by What You Do

The checker plans for gaming. For other work, this order usually holds.

A faster drive gives quicker boots and game loads, but frame rate comes from the processor and graphics card. That is why storage sits last for gaming and first for an office PC still running a hard drive.

When a New Build Makes More Sense

If your plan says new processor, board, and graphics card, you're replacing the core of the PC. Price a full build too, since a new case, power supply, and SSD may cost little more. PCPartPicker compares prices and flags parts that don't work together.

The Compare routes tab in Computer Info Bits Pro puts a new platform next to a drop-in upgrade, with your own prices and the cost of each extra frame. Want to know if a game will run afterward? Try the system requirements checker.

How the Checker Works

It uses the same part scores and game factors as our FPS and bottleneck calculators, which we test against thousands of published benchmark results. It finds the frames your graphics card can draw and the frames your processor can prepare, and the lower one is your frame rate.

Graphics card picks come from NVIDIA's RTX 50 and AMD's RX 9000 cards, the current generation from each. From 1440p up they skip 8 GB cards, because TechSpot's 1440p tests found the 16 GB RX 9060 XT up to twice as fast as the 8 GB model in games that fill its memory.

The tool covers desktops, since a laptop's processor and graphics chip can't be swapped. Frame rates leave out ray tracing and frame generation.