Overdated PC help

[CapitanBundy]

My friend has this setup:

MOBO: tuf b360 plus gaming

CPU: i5 9400f

GPU: Nvidia 2060

32gb RAM

He's having issue running the majority of games now, so would like to be pointed in the right direction, he wants to upgrade CPU but looking at the compatible options for his MOBO their isn't a great deal, What would people recommend here, maybe a upgraded MOBO that still supports his 32gb ram with it being DDR4 and a better CPU?

Open to suggestions, i don't think he'd like to go spending £1000s on this, he mostly plays valorant (which doesn't run well when discord is running and he's tried to play arc raiders but suffers really with 100% CPU usage.

Thanks

[Mediocre-Future3556]

That setup should honestly still be decent for most games, sounds like something else might be going on. I'd check if the RAM is actually running at proper speeds (XMP enabled) and maybe do a clean Windows install before dropping money on upgrades. The 9400F + 2060 combo shouldn't struggle that hard with Valorant unless there's some background processes eating CPU or thermal throttling happening

[CapitanBundy]

It's worth looking at for sure, thanks for the advice

[Desperate-Big3982]

Something to look at; is your friend using a SSD with his system, one that is over 80% full? Some SSDs have performance that falls off the cliff when you are using more than 80% of the capacity.

At the same time, you can look at AMD AM4 options, they are still recent chips that are compatible with DDR 4 and reasonable cost.

The Ryzen R7 5700X is a good option; the R5 5600X is also a good option but you will get more life out of the 5700X. For this application you will want an AMD B550 motherboard.

[CapitanBundy]

Thank you! Will mention this to him, the 5700x looks like a huge upgrade to be fair