Can I Upgrade?

[Mich113]

I have a HP Pavilion Power Gaming Desktop Computer, AMD Ryzen 5 1400, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060, 16GB RAM, 1TB hard drive, 128GB SSD, Windows 10 (580-148, Black).  Looking to get better gaming and streaming performance.  I have about $400 to upgrade currently.  Looking for suggestions on what to upgrade (motherboard? CPU? Both?  Something else?).  Thanks.  

[old_geekster]

@Mich113 , welcome to the forum.

I have reviewed the Product and Motherboard Specifications pages.  I believe that the best upgrade for your money would be to the AMD Ryzen7-1700 (Summit Ridge) 3.0 GHz, 8 cores/16 threads (Pavilion Power chassis only).  It is faster, but more importantly, it has 8 cores/16 threads.  The Ryzen 5-1400 has only 6 cores/12 threads.  My "Rule of Thumb" for upgrading the processor was at one time, "If I couldn't double the speed it wasn't worth the money".  Now, however, the number of cores and threads definitely makes a difference.

Another upgrade that you could think about for later is a better video card.  However, this upgrade would most likely require a power supply unit (PSU) upgrade, also.  The PSU in your computer is only 300W.  Most of the newer cards require at least 400W to run properly.  I always recommend a PSU with at least 100 to 150W more than the card requires.  This gives you some power for peak needs.  In gaming this is very important.

One last suggestion would be a larger M.2, SSD.  This will give you more free space and possibly increase the speed.  I like Samsung products because they seem to work better with HP BIOS/UEFI.

Please click the Thumbs up + button if I have helped you and click Accept as Solution if your problem is solved.

[Mich113]

I will look into those options.  Thank you so much for your response and suggestions!  Much appreciated.  

[old_geekster]

You are welcome, @Mich113!  I am always glad to help.