Looking for a cheapish graphics upgrade
Posted by handsfullofmush@reddit | buildapc | View on Reddit | 4 comments
What it says in the title haha
I bought my brother's old gaming PC when. He upgraded it to use for work and light gaming, started playing Baldur's Gate 3 without really looking into the system requirements (rookie mistake I know), ran fine for the first bit of the game but it's gotten more demanding as I've moved through it so I'm looking to upgrade.
Here are the specs, not sure if you need anything else!
Dell Optiplex 3050
CPU: Intel Core i5-6500 CPU GPU: Intel HD Graphics 530 Windows 10 1TB of storage 16 GB RAM
It doesn't need to be anything too heavy duty, just enough to load and play games on mid-range graphics settings. I'm pretty new to this so I'm not sure if it's even worth it to buy an upgrade for this pretty cheap machine, but I wanted to ask anyway!
Sleepykitti@reddit
it's not the GPU kicking your ass it's the CPU. BG3 is notably CPU intensive and this becomes more and more of a thing the further into the game you get and peaks when you finally get to the city. The 3050 is a bit weak but it's not your primary issue here.
Unfortunately this means you're stuck swapping out a lot of stuff. CPU/MB/RAM bare minimum and if you're in an optiplex this means a new case and PSU as well.
handsfullofmush@reddit (OP)
Oh really? Thanks for the advice! Might just have to take the hit and invest in a better setup!
Out of curiosity, when I look at the minimum requirements to run the game, it says my CPU is fine below recommended, but meets the minimum requirements), but that I have way less VRAM than the 4GB minimum and WAAAY less than the 8GB recommendation(128 MB fwiw), which is what made me think a GPU upgrade might help just enough to run the game
Sleepykitti@reddit
A 3050 should have 6 or 8gb of vram, do you have the cable for the monitor plugged into the card?
handsfullofmush@reddit (OP)
Honestly, I have no idea, I let my brother set the whole thing up for me, but I'll have a look after work!