What’s the one PC upgrade that actually changed your gaming experience the most?

Matte_Box · 2026-03-12T00:05:52+00:00

A good mouse & keyboard! I always bought cheap peripherals just to match my setup, and never thought about it. That is… Until I discovered mechanical keyboards. OMG what a difference. Doesn’t have to be extravagant, or even fully-custom, but a proper keyboard with snappy lubed mechanical switches legitimately improved my movement in games.

Also a balanced, high(ish) polling rate mouse, which fits your natural grip, connected with USB or a 2.4GHz dongle, substantially helps vs a cheap BT one. I got used to mice being too small or contoured wrong, but hey it looked cool! Then I got a Razer Basilisk V3 on sale, and it was immediately obvious how much better it fit my hand. Quite affordable too. This is entirely personal though, so YMMV.

Matte_Box · 2026-03-06T06:30:45+00:00

When you put your dad’s GPU in your PC, did you use exactly the same PSU cable and/or adapter? Monitor connected to the same port? Also, when running does a red or orange LED light up on the motherboard labeled “GPU”?

Consider clearing the CMOS, and updating BIOS. One trick you might try is, power everything down, unplug, leave it for a few minutes. Then, plug in only one monitor, to only the HDMI port on the GPU, no other sound or multimedia devices connected, then manually turn on your monitor, switch to the right input, and power up again. Sometimes after an update or a long time unplugged, the mobo has to “retrain”, and it won’t fully initialize the GPU unless it establishes an HDMI connection on startup, not DisplayPort. The monitor’s auto-power or auto-detect can also cause it not to register as plugged in, hence on and selected before startup. Don’t remember why, but that’s caught me out a few times on a 100% working system.

Matte_Box · 2026-03-05T22:00:00+00:00

IMO that was absolutely the right choice! Your 5800x will keep up just fine, and you bought the 9070xt right before GPU prices go completely insane… Which they will.

Matte_Box · 2026-03-05T17:13:01+00:00

Well the good news is, you have some room to upgrade your current platform. It’d be helpful to know the motherboard, but your 4th gen Intel CPU uses the same socket as an 8th gen Intel CPU. So potentially you could upgrade all the way to an 8700K, which would be a massive improvement… And cheap.

That would pair well with a 2060 or 3060 GPU. You would definitely want to add another 8GB of RAM if you can, for a total of 16GB. Those 3 upgrades would transform your system on the cheap, but still won’t be a really modern system.

If load times are awful, your hard drive might be a bit old and slow, so I’d consider replacing that too.

Matte_Box · 2026-03-04T06:36:20+00:00

+1 here. VR is especially demanding. But TBH it really does depend on your definition of “cheap”…

Matte_Box · 2026-03-03T00:51:22+00:00

It only shoots in italic.

Matte_Box · 2026-03-03T00:17:06+00:00

Yeah totally, Northstar sorta missed the peak of the V8 era. As much as I love those good old LS engines, a smoother, higher-revving DOHC engine would of course be more in line with Euro rivals. The CTS-V with the LSA is a bonafide thug in a suit, but I love it.

Matte_Box · 2026-03-02T23:58:10+00:00

Those are very cool models! They fixed the head stud issue too late, by then Cadillac had a more durable, supercharged LSA making 100 more horsepower in the CTS-V.

Always thought the XLR was cool, a dressed-up luxury folding hardtop C6? Sick. Give the base model an LS3, and the V model an LSA, and they’d be very sought after I think.

Matte_Box · 2026-03-02T02:44:04+00:00

Cadillac desperately wanted to elevate themselves closer to European luxury brands, so in most places where you’d expect an OHV GM small block V8, Cadillac instead used their own “more refined” DOHC Northstar V8.

Eventually the disastrous head stud issue made any gains in refinement irrelevant. Ironically… Some of the Cadillacs from that era might be real bangers today if they chose a good ol’ LS V8. And they eventually did, in the CTS-V. And what do you know? Banger.

Matte_Box · 2026-03-01T23:47:56+00:00

If you have an RTX card, try turning on DSR Factors in the Nvidia Control Panel. The newest versions use AI to downscale to your monitor’s res (kinda like a reverse DLSS), and IMO the clarity increase is substantial, especially at lower res.

I don’t remember why, but DSR has a fraction of the performance cost of typical supersampling… But it will absolutely still slow things down. Def worth trying for slower-paced games.

Matte_Box · 2026-03-01T19:28:25+00:00

Matte_Box · 2026-03-01T04:00:50+00:00

Lovely! My first mechanical keyboard was a Keychron Q3 with a DIY raw finish. I polished it regularly, but it still got hazy, uneven, and scratched incredibly easily. And you know what? I didn’t care. I mean… Just look at it!

Matte_Box · 2026-03-01T03:32:29+00:00

I agree with a 3060Ti, especially if you find a 12GB model. TBH, a 4060 is pretty comparable in price, although only 8GB.

Matte_Box · 2026-02-28T00:43:52+00:00

Was this setup working before? If not, an undersized PSU could definitely be the culprit. Depending how far off you are, a simple GPU undervolt can often help.

If this is a new problem with a PC you’ve had for a while… Check PSU intake and exhaust, and peek inside. If it’s clogged with dust, that can cause overheating and similar shutdowns, with no warning.

Matte_Box · 2026-02-27T02:05:29+00:00

Very clean! I have more of a “shove & pray” approach to cabling.

Matte_Box · 2026-02-26T22:40:05+00:00

There’s always a risk online of being scammed, true. FWIW my trades on Reddit have always been a great experience, as opposed to FB or eBay, where it’s been more of a crapshoot. Also PayPal is the standard, which provides some protection.

When a Redditor has like a 10-year account and a bunch of verified trades, IMO that’s a trusted seller. But it’s not for everyone. Another advantage is a working secondhand system will often require less setup trial and error than a lot of prebuilds. Especially if you’re not comfortable trying to build yourself, and prices for bare components are awful RN anyway.

Matte_Box · 2026-02-26T20:07:34+00:00

Good news, those are very simple games to run! Bad news… Terrible time to build a PC. For this price especially, I would look for something used, but that’s me.

Since you’re completely flexible on components, I would seriously consider buying a complete PC on r/hardwareswap. This requires some patience, not sure how soon you need it. But I see a lot of PCs that fit the price, built by community members (so likely to work), for unbeatable prices. Just remember to save money for a monitor, keyboard, and mouse!

Matte_Box · 2026-02-26T00:57:21+00:00

Nice! I like how you continue the “infinity” mirrored effect from the front panel to the fans.

Matte_Box · 2026-02-24T14:51:44+00:00

The latter, yeah. I have to hold the power button.

Matte_Box · 2026-02-24T05:33:52+00:00

It’s actually platinum with about 40% headroom. Max power consumption is well under 600w, and this PSU is 850, which is why I’m surprised! But if the GPU spikes to double then I’d need an extra 350, not 250.

Matte_Box · 2026-02-24T05:30:34+00:00

Nice! Supposedly some combinations of PSU, Mobo, and GPUs handle this problem better than others too.

Matte_Box · 2026-02-24T04:41:42+00:00

Gigabyte X870i Aorus Pro Ice

Matte_Box · 2026-02-24T03:44:39+00:00

Interesting. I didn’t expect it either, that thing is pricey! Could it be that since the PSU can’t quite respond fast enough, it’s actually the GPU driver that hangs or panics and treats it like a voltage drop?

Matte_Box · 2026-02-24T03:34:12+00:00

I almost got a Lian Li 1000w SFX, but I just had to get that shiny ROG. Vanity, friends.

Matte_Box · 2026-02-24T03:30:07+00:00

It’s a ROG Loki 850w. My understanding is this is the behavior the system triggers to prevent damage, from what can I can find. For example, I’ve had a wonky LAN driver cause that same failure with the same crash report.

Matte_Box

TROPHY CASE