Graphics card upgrade - advice please

[Ady2009]

I am not a gamer myself but my 13 years old son is starting to show an interest and I hope I could get some advice from some of you.

The specs of his current desktop PC are,
Intel DQ77CP motherboard with 1xPCIe 3.0 x16 slot
Core i5 3450 processor (old but still very good apparently)
12Gb RAM
350W PSU
Win 10 Home
23.6 inch LED monitor (1920x1080 Full HD Resolution)
On-board graphics - here is the problem!

The games he would like to run on it are,
War Thunder
Subnautica
Jurassic World Evolution
Minecraft

It is quite an old PC now but apparently has still quite good specs. I do not want to throw a lot of money at it due its age but would like to make it suitable for him to play games on. I was thinking about buying a grapics card such as a 1050 or the newer 1650. Any advice or better alternatives please?

Would these still work ok on a 2012 era motherboard?

 

[iamtheoneneo]

Mobo will be fine but id be worried about that psu especially as your build sounds like something Currys would have sold and a 1650 will be pushing 100w on its own.

So 1650 is a good choice but grab at least a 450W PSU from the likes of Corsair too.

 

[Calpol]

It's a terrible time to buy a graphics card. Basically there are none. None of the new generation and none of the previous gen from either OEM. Even the 2nd hand stuff is fetching higher pricing. Agree with the comment around a PSU. 350W is too low to run an independent GPU. If you can find a 1650 Super it will cost about £170 at present therefore I'd be tempted to go 2nd hand and get a new PSU of 500W (decent brand name preferred ie Corsair, Seasonic). For 2nd hand CPU to run the titles you mention at 1080p you could consider Nvidia GTX 1060 3gb, AMD RX 570 4gb - can be found for c£120 on a well known auction site. I think that would get you a good start into light gaming and then if the habit builds then at least you have a PSU that can take a better card should that be required.