Many PC gamers enjoy the customizability offered by building your own computer. However, it can be tricky to know where to start, and if you’re not careful, you may well end up with something far too expensive. So, if you’re on a tight budget, how can you ensure you make the most of your machine? Manufacturers are always touting the top of the range products. With some graphics cards costing more than £1000, you may feel like there is no hope of putting something together yourself; however, there are actually a few small tricks that you can use to invest in relatively cheap pieces of hardware that will seriously upgrade the power of your machine and turn it into a gaming legend.
SSD
If you have a slightly old computer which has a mechanical hard drive, you can see some pretty instant results for around about £50 when you swap it out and instead use an SSD. This clever piece of kit will seriously speed up the performance of your computer and make it much more responsive. Of course, if you can afford to spend a little bit more still staying well under £100, you can get an even more capable device. One word of advice that we do have is it’s better to stick with something named, rather than going for a product that either has no name or is a little-known brand this way you can avoid potential pitfalls of it not quite being up to the job.
Stack Up the Storage
Many games involve some rather large files needing to be saved between uses, but the excellent news is that storage is relatively cheap. For example, on Amazon, a 1TB hard drive can cost you as little as £40, or you can upgrade to 3TB for nearer £80. Alternatively, you could have a look at a hybrid drive, and again these do not have to cost the earth if you shop around and take advantage of things like Black Friday Deals. There is plenty of information on the Internet showing you how to swap out your hard drive where needed. Of course, we do advise that you ensure everything is backed up to a safe location before you start messing around, just in case anything happens to go wrong.
Mega Multitasking
Of course, as any gamer knows, you need to be running multiple tasks at any one time. If your PC is struggling with this capability, then it is certainly time to upgrade. One of the most common causes is going to be the RAM, that is to say, the memory of your computer. Operating systems themselves take up large chunks of storage, and yet it still seems to be one of these things that manufacturers insist cost a lot of money. Computers with 4GB of ram can still feel quite slow, so again this is one for the Boxing Day type sales keeping your eye on a good ram deal as very often you will find 8GB available for the bargain price of around £60.00. Again, you want to be looking for names you can trust like Corsair and Kingston ask no brand hardware can often be the cause of many problems and you’re looking to improve the performance of your PC not make it worse. A word of warning there is more than one type of RAM available, and it does depend on what your PC needs, so buying the wrong thing will leave you stuck. There are tools available on the Internet that you can download and discover the type of RAM your computer needs.
Old CPU?
Sometimes the problem of a slow PC can be traced back to the CPU. However, this is not relatively as easy a fix as some of the other solutions. To replace the CPU, it’s very likely you will need to change the motherboard, and this is where it starts to get expensive, particularly with AMD powered systems. So, it’s always worth pricing this out and comparing it with the cost of starting a game. This option will set you back over £100, and in some cases reaching up to £200 so you need to be sure it’s worth your while.
The Graphics Card
Clearly, the graphics display is an integral part of the gaming experience. Graphics cards are known to be rather expensive, but manufacturers actually seem to be coming on board and trying to help here. Nvidia makes the GeForce range of graphics cards, and they have some budget options that are pretty awesome for many different gaming needs. This budget level will set you back about £130, but it is certainly worth considering. Biggest showing the only consideration when it comes to graphic cards is that some of the more powerful models have a different six-pin power connector than what you will have inside of a primary computer. So again, before you start taking things apart and upgrading, you need to make sure you have checked that everything is going to be compatible.
Finally, if you are looking for help, there are plenty of social media groups with other like-minded individuals who have been there and done that and are more than happy to help newcomers get started. They will also be able to help you with the physical hardware replacement of each item, and probably have some better ideas about how to ensure you can get the best from your PC without having to spend a fortune.
