Graphics card upgrade for a tornado R3

natwool · 12 Dec 2023 at 21:41

Hi,

My son has a Tornado R3 Gaming PC - AMD Ryzen 3, GTX 1650, 512 GB SSD at the moment and really wants to upgrade the graphics card. Please can anyone give me some advise on what graphics card is best any help would be really appreciated he would like this for Christmas and I don’t want to get it wrong

Goody_GTI · 12 Dec 2023 at 21:46

Hi,

Firstly welcome to the forum!

I’d say there are a lot of parameters here:

- what’s the specific cpu
- how much ram does it have / speed
- how powerful is the power supply and does it have the pcie plugs

The first two above could bottleneck a powerful graphics card, and the power supply could prevent it from running at all

Also what sort of games does he play and at what resolution?

Stick with Nvidia or would he consider AMD?

Budget?

natwool · 12 Dec 2023 at 22:19

Goody_GTI said:
Hi,

Firstly welcome to the forum!

I’d say there are a lot of parameters here:

- what’s the specific cpu
- how much ram does it have / speed
- how powerful is the power supply and does it have the pcie plugs

The first two above could bottleneck a powerful graphics card, and the power supply could prevent it from running at all

Also what sort of games does he play and at what resolution?

Stick with Nvidia or would he consider AMD?

Budget?

Thank you so much for getting back to me on this,
I’m not sure on all the information you’ve asked so I’ve just taken the specifications from the website I purchased the pc from I hope it helps.

RAM

- 8 GB DDR4 (3200 MHz)
- 64 GB maximum installable RAM

PROCESSOR
AMD Ryzen 3 4100 Processor
- Quad-core
- 3.8 GHz / 4.0 GHz
- 6 MB cache

MOTHERBOARD
ASUS PRIME A520M-K

We are not sure on the power supply or if it has a pcie plug.

He said he dosnt want a AMD & he plays Fortnite and Valarent.

Budget in total for everything I would say around £500 give or take.

Thank you again.

Goody_GTI · 12 Dec 2023 at 22:33

I’d say you want at least 16gb ram, you’re better off just buying a new dual channel kit like the below:

Team Group Vulcan Z T-Force 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 PC4-25600C16 3200MHz Dual Channel Kit - Grey

Order Team Group Vulcan Z T-Force 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 PC4-25600C16 3200MHz Dual Channel Kit - Grey now online and benefit from fast delivery.

www.overclockers.co.uk

Then you could go for an RTX 3060 12gb model, something like this:

MSI GeForce RTX 3060 Ventus 2X OC 12GB GDDR6 PCI-Express Graphics Card

Order MSI GeForce RTX 3060 Ventus 2X OC 12GB GDDR6 PCI-Express Graphics Card now online and benefit from fast delivery.

www.overclockers.co.uk

OR an RTX 4060ti:

Zotac GeForce RTX 4060Ti Twin Edge 8GB GDDR6 PCI-Express Graphics Card

Order Zotac GeForce RTX 4060Ti Twin Edge 8GB GDDR6 PCI-Express Graphics Card now online and benefit from fast delivery.

www.overclockers.co.uk

I wouldn’t go much crazier as the cpu will be a bottleneck

Also double check the PSU, pop the side off the case and you’ll be able to check how powerful it is

TrojanWhore · 17 Dec 2023 at 22:31

Had a look around online and what I saw suggests it's likely a 450w power supply (although can't see anything on what connections it has or the quality of the unit).

I'd definitely recommend going to 16GB RAM as well as a GPU upgrade - the 3060 is a decent shout if it has to be nVidia, ~~but an AMD card such as a 6700XT would be better value in my opinion.~~ scratch that, 6700XT would likely be a bit too power hungry for a 450w!

The motherboard will also support a CPU upgrade (possibly requiring a BIOS update) and a Ryzen 5 5500 (£99) would provide a decent improvement in that department for relatively small outlay (although just the GPU and RAM would be a good starting point)

pastymuncher · 18 Dec 2023 at 11:04

With the pc seemingly featuring the cheapest components I suspect the PSU to be the same so take the side panel off and you should see a label on the side of the psu. Please tell us the make and model so that people can make a informed suggestion for upgrading your graphics card. As above, 8Gb of memory just isn't enough these days sp ideally needs to be increased to 16Gb. A quad core cpu is going to struggle with a lot of games especially at 1080p where more load is on the cpu so that could do with replacing as well. That's the problem with these entry level "gaming pc's", they have a very basic spec and when it comes to upgrading them you basically have to replace everything.