Upgrading a PC, especially a gaming rig, has become harder than ever. Prices are at an all-time high, value-for-money is nearly impossible to find, and availability is suffering due to supply constraints. In these troubled times, if you're considering an upgrade, you might be looking at multiple options. Assuming you already have an SSD and enough RAM on your PC, the list will be small — a new CPU or graphics card.

Either of those components can be more important than the other, depending on the kind of user you are. However, I'm willing to bet that most of the people reading this will benefit much more from a new graphics card than a new processor. Besides, upgrading the GPU is simpler and should be the component that you try to get hold of first, considering the less-than-ideal market conditions.

5 It has the biggest impact on gaming performance

Keeping priorities straight

It's no secret that the graphics card is the single biggest determinant of your PC's gaming performance. Over the years, more and more underlying calculations involved in demanding games have been shifting to the GPU. Today, much of the heavy lifting required to run your ray-traced, AAA titles is done by the graphics card. The CPU is an important piece of the pipeline, just not as important as it was earlier.

You can see this in action as modern games underutilize multi-core CPUs due to parallelization and overhead challenges. This is not to say that upgrading your CPU won't boost your FPS at all — AMD's Ryzen X3D chips are a clear example of the opposite. However, the improvements from upgrading to a new graphics card will generally be higher.

And if you're rocking a really old GPU, say, an Nvidia GTX or AMD RX 5000 series card, even a modern budget GPU will feel like a day-and-night upgrade. If you're playing on a 1080p display, your performance will still be linked strongly to the CPU, but I'm guessing you're upgrading your GPU either because you've already moved to 1440p or are planning to buy one soon. In that case, the graphics card should be the number one item on your wishlist.

4 You will gain access to the latest features

Software is becoming as important as hardware

The FPS is just one department where you'll realize massive gains; even the software stack has come a long way. Like it or not, the age of brute-forcing generational improvements with hardware alone is behind us. You can already see it in action with Nvidia's RTX 50 series and their "fake frames". AI-generated frames might not be equivalent to traditionally rendered ones, but they're quickly becoming the future. AMD is following suit with its RDNA 4 GPUs, and Intel will likely follow.

Upgrading to one of the newer graphics cards will allow you to access many of these software features, such as DLSS, FSR, and XeSS. By leveraging upscaling, frame generation, frame smoothing, and latency reduction techniques, modern GPUs overcome a lot of their hardware limitations. Even budget graphics cards like the RTX 3060, RTX 4060, RX 7600, and Arc B580 have access to many of the latest software trickery available on higher-end GPUs.

Technologies like DLSS and FSR are game-changing for budget GPUs, making the latest titles more accessible to a wider user base. If you currently have, say, a GTX 1660 Super or RX 580, an upgrade will instantly unlock access to these technologies and more that are in the works. AI-based frames are just the latest innovation in the long line of software tricks designed to aid hardware. They might have their issues, but they aren't going anywhere.

3 It is simpler than upgrading the CPU

A new CPU could lead to a new motherboard and RAM

Even if you conclude that upgrading your CPU will still help you realize significant gains, the process of upgrading your GPU is way simpler. Replacing a graphics card is as simple as taking your old one out and installing the new GPU in its place. Swapping your CPU takes some more effort and can be complex, depending on your CPU cooler and the need to update your BIOS.

However, that's not even the most important factor going into your decision. A CPU upgrade can easily become a full platform upgrade if you're upgrading from something several generations old. This means you'll have to get a new compatible motherboard and possibly a new memory kit as well. Not only will this become costly, but the investment won't reap the results you can get from upgrading your GPU instead.

Many gamers are still comfortably running AM4 systems with Ryzen 5000 CPUs since the jump to AM5 doesn't offer as big a performance boost as you can get from a GPU upgrade. Besides, Intel's 13th and 14th Gen Core CPUs are best avoided due to instability issues, the Arrow Lake CPUs are slower than the previous generation in gaming, and AMD's Ryzen 9000 series offers no real gains over Ryzen 7000. Running an older CPU for a few more years is perfectly fine.

2 A CPU upgrade won't make as large a splash

Your PC experience might not feel too different

Another reason to upgrade your GPU instead of the CPU is that upgrading the latter will most likely not feel as significant an upgrade. Sure, you will have the satisfaction of being on, say, the AM5 platform, but your day-to-day experience will probably not change at all. Outside of gaming, there's very little to gain from upgrading from, say, a Ryzen 5 3600 or Core i5-12600K to a Ryzen 5 7600. Unless you're a big productivity user, the gains won't be tangible.

Coming to gaming, a newer CPU will increase your FPS, but game-changing upgrades such as jumping from no ray tracing to ray tracing will still be out of reach. Besides, all the extra horsepower of a new CPU will be of little use if you retain your older/budget GPU since the tremendous gains you'll see in gaming benchmarks will likely be on a system with a modern high-end GPU. A budget GPU will be the bottleneck in most scenarios.

Upgrading to a new GPU instead will help you extract a bigger and more tangible impact on your PC experience. Your older CPU, provided it's not ancient, will be able to keep up with your new graphics card — not becoming a significant bottleneck, if that's what you're worried about. Even the Ryzen X3D CPUs need a high-end GPU to stretch their wings and deliver the gaming performance they're known for.

1 The GPU will be your most expensive upgrade

It deserves to be your first priority

The graphics card is almost always the most expensive upgrade you'll make to your gaming PC. Before you consider upgrading anything else, try to do your GPU research and lock in the model and the deal you're going for since this process will be the most time-consuming for the GPU. You'll need to assess which games you'll play the most, which resolution you're targeting, which features make the most sense to you, and which brand you'll opt for.

Considering the ongoing string of paper launches, overpriced listings, and supply constraints, you'll have to spend weeks or months hunting for the right listing. Most GPU manufacturers have more or less erased the budget segment, and a GPU upgrade will cost you more than ever in this market. So, make sure you are not dividing your attention away from the GPU upgrade to focus on other components. Once you've finalized the graphics card, you can move to other upgrades, such as a new PSU or SSD.

While you're doing your research, there are other things to note before investing in a new GPU — how much VRAM you need, whether any new cards are coming out soon, how capable your current power supply is, and whether you need to look at pre-owned GPUs. In the world of PC hardware, GPUs have the most hype surrounding them. Whether you like that or not, it's simply because gamers always have a new GPU on their minds.

This could be the year for budget and mid-range GPUs

Nvidia's high-end RTX 50 series GPUs might have impressed many consumers, but they might not be the ones moving the most units this year. Most gamers are waiting for AMD's midrange RX 9000 and Intel's next few Arc Battlemage GPUs before finalizing their GPU upgrade. Nvidia's cards might still come out on top in terms of raw performance, but the value champions might emerge from Team Red or Team Blue. The GPU market in 2025 might look exciting after a long time.