A question that is often asked, perhaps more than anything else for new and experienced gamers alike, is where should I start when looking to upgrade my gaming system and what will give me the best bang for my buck in terms of a performance upgrade. For the most part, it’ll ultimately come down to what you’re using your gaming system for – if you’re sticking to games that have lower system requirements or essentially none like growing genres in online betting and gambling for example with hard rock casino bonus code finding growing use on these sorts of platforms then you may be better off saving, but if you’re going for the latest AAA titles on ultra-settings running at 4K, it’s a very different story. There are some general rules of thumb that may help you out though, with some options being more budget friendly than others.

The first place to look is at your monitor and is more often than not one of few big-ticket items that are neglected when it comes time to upgrading. You may have been able to splash out on a big 40-inch display with all the bells and whistles but going a little smaller can give you a huge performance increase, particularly if you’re into the more competitive side of gaming. Getting a 144hz or 240hz monitor, as both are more readily available than the older 120hz displays, can drastically improve the way games play, and once you change to a faster refresh rate monitor, you’ll never want to go back. That doesn’t mean you have to compromise on size as bigger displays with faster refresh rates are becoming available, but also at additional expense too.


After your monitor, it’s time to look at storage – whether you buy a pre-built system or you build yourself, a solid-state drive is always a must have and they have only improved over time too – if you’re running some slightly older hardware, getting a brand new SSD or investing in your very first one will give you a huge performance increase too, and costs are dropping very quickly so you might be able to grab a larger capacity one on a budget too – but certainly keep an eye out for deals like Prime Day, as you could grab yourself a great bargain.

Finally, often the more expensive option and requires some tweaking too, but a CPU upgrade and if needed a motherboard upgrade too. Many will look towards the graphics card, after all better looking games require better built cards right? What’s more often the case is that the CPU is the bottleneck as most games are more processing heavy on your CPU chip than on your graphics chip, so this may certainly be a better place to start particularly if you’re struggling to source a new GPU with the ongoing shortages that the market has been seeing over the past few years due to the growing cryptocurrency mining craze. You may need to splash out on a new motherboard too, but at least it provides future upgrading options with more ease.