Upgrade time: five components that will speed up your old computer

Affordable, high-quality, battle-tested SSD from Patriot, in our opinion, is an perfect option for a qualitative leap in the performance of your computer. It stands out for the record low "dollar per gigabyte" and the maximum speed indicators available to the SATA 3 bus: an average of 460 Mbps for linear writing and 530 Mbps for reading. This is almost 4 times faster than the average hard drive.

Therefore, after a regular hard drive, the operating system's boot speed and responsiveness will pleasantly surprise you and there will be no way back. To a possible question from the audience, why "256, not 500 GB"? the answer is quite simple. Such an SSD is good precisely as a system disk on which there is a Windows, some kind of working software package, a couple of online toys or a conditional FIFA. For everything else, it is better to use the remaining hard drive so that in case of OS problems and reinstalling it, everything else does not fly off. And it is even better to buy a second HDD for it in a pair and organize a RAID array. Then there will be a lot of space, and the speeds of this storage will grow well.

Other advantages of the Patriot P200 include a low-cost, but well-tested SM2258XT controller, a low level of heating and a competent cache allocation, thanks to which, when copying large data arrays, the speed indicators sink by only 2 times, and not 3 or even 4, as with some inexpensive SSDs with artisanal controllers. Also, this drive has pretty good indicators of the total number of I/O operations per second by the standards of this class: 90K IOPS for reading, 80K for writing.

If you already have a regular SATA SSD for the system, and the soul requires something more modern, then a relatively inexpensive NVMe SSD from Kingston A2000 will be an excellent option, which provides a linear speed of up to 2000 Mbps and costs a little more than a regular SATA SSD with a bandwidth of 500 Mbps.

In terms of price and performance, the Fury Black memory bars from the Kingston gaming division have almost no equal. It costs literally 5-10 bucks more than the cheapest eight–digit bar that you can find, but for this tiny overpayment you will really get an excellent memory from one of the most reputable brands on the market, with increased operating frequency and a bunch of other small advantages.

Our copy of Fury Black starts out of the box at a frequency of 2666 MHz with CL16 timings. If the bar already available in the computer works at a lower frequency, then Fury Black will adjust to it and it will just be a good option from the category installed and forgotten. If you completely upgrade the RAM, then pleasant surprises are waiting for you. Namely, Samsung's B-die chips, which enthusiasts love so much. Therefore, with proper perseverance and overclocking skills, the regular 2666 MHz can be easily heated up to 2993 – 3200 MHz. Some reviews claim that they were able to squeeze all 3466 MHz out of it, like one of the older HyperX Fury Black models. But that's how lucky you are. And it's not a fact that it will work stably. Anyway, this is a good increase in the speed and responsiveness of the system.

Plus, Fury Black uses a stylish and compact black radiator, which, if necessary, will cool the chips during overclocking, but at the same time will not create any problems with installation in a loaded case with a large-sized cooler or a pair of video cards. And it looks much more presentable than absolutely cheap gaming memory, which is wrapped in ordinary foil with the company logo instead of radiators.

Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER GAMING is a mid―level card based on a full-fledged 12-nm Turing core, which, unlike the usual GTX 1660, uses cooler GDDR6 memory, giving it a serious advantage over its predecessors.

In terms of price per FPS, this is one of the most profitable options on the market. According to our somewhat superficial calculations, for every 1 FPS on Ultra, you will give only $5.05.Even the old RX 580, which still pulls any modern toys, is slightly behind in this regard. Therefore, it is not surprising that the GTX 1660S does not get out of the gaming tops and it is recommended in every second build. She confidently handles with any large-low-cost projects with ultra/high graphics settings and Full HD resolution. 6 GB GDDR6 may become a bottleneck of this card in the future, but if you do not raise the resolution, then the impact of video memory on the gameplay will not be too critical.

If we talk specifically about the SUPER GAMING version from Gigabyte, then there will be compliments again. Gigabyte graphics cards have recently been particularly loved by customers, offering an optimal ratio of price, performance and quality. This version boasts factory overclocking, a high-quality element base, which is important for its longevity, and a quiet but efficient cooling system. However, because of the three coolers, the card turned out to be quite massive. Well, the enhanced power subsystem allows you to turn around during overclocking. Literally on the spur of the moment, with an increase in the power consumption limit, we managed to squeeze out an additional 7-8% of the core and memory. The price for this was increased gluttony. If you decide to take one, then it would be better to take the power supply not for 450, but for 500 watts.

Not the newest, but still pulling absolutely everything processor, which continues to be in the top sales. And this is despite the release of new more advanced models from AMD codenamed Matisse.

The reason for success is simple. For its $150 Ryzen 5 2600 offers the user 6 physical and 6 virtual cores with a boost up to 3.9 GHz and a decent cache reserve of 16 MB. For the average person who likes to play the conditional Witcher, works with tables or runs demanding highly specialized software for working with a variety of photo, audio and video content (i.e. Adobe Photoshop, DaVinci Resolve or Ableton Live), the available performance is enough for the eyes. In many ways, it was precisely because of the incredible success of the Ryzen 5 2600 that Intel had to move away from its manta "6 cores is a lot". No, not much, just right.

In addition, it starts up without problems on old motherboards with an AM4 socket, and on newer versions. It has modest power consumption and more than adequate operating temperatures. A nice bonus to all of the above is a very good overclocking potential. With high-quality cooling and a motherboard that is friendly with overclocking, this processor can be accelerated to 4.3 GHz. And this is also a plus of 10-12% to the productivity actually for free. Intel found an adequate answer only in 2020 in the form of the i5-10400, but the price tag is much higher there, so it should be compared rather with the Ryzen 5 Matisse 3600X.

MSI B450-A PRO MAX is one of the most successful boards that came out on the B450 chipset and which are sharpened for Ryzen processors of the latest generations. Someone might object, hey, why do you need a B450 when the B550 came out? Maxim Potashov answers. Firstly, it's about the price. Yes, the B550 is a newer chipset, but objectively it does not give any special advantages over its predecessor. Secondly, this particular board from MSI supports Ryzen Matisse processors "out of the box". That is, no BIOS updates are required from the user. It is equally important that, thanks to the increased capacity of the UEFI chip, processors on the Zen, Zen+ and Zen 2 architectures work as they should, preserving all functionality.

The board is more focused on working systems, but this does not prevent it from becoming the foundation for a strong gaming computer without frills. There are also four slots for DDR4 memory modules with a maximum frequency of 4133 MHz, a set of expansion slots includes a pair of PCI-E 16x in case of installing two video cards in Crossfire mode, 6 SATA slots and one M.2 for installing a compact SSD. However, they stuck it right under the graphics card slot, where it's already hot. Much more interesting is the fact that here we have virtually the same element base that was used in the cooler B450 TOMAHAWK and MPG X570 GAMING PLUS boards. It is not surprising that it handles well with overclocking simple processors like Ryzen 5 1600.

Given the adequate price, full support for all released Ryzen generations and full-format size, the MSI B450-A PRO MAX can be the beginning of an impressive upgrade. Start the story with a simple Ryzen 3 1200 and a graphics card left over from an old computer, and a year later install a full-fledged Ryzen 5 Matisse 3600 and a graphics card of any size like the excellent Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER GAMING. And this is not the ceiling, it officially supports the 16-core monster Ryzen 9 3950X. Well, 4 slots for RAM will make it possible to add RAM as needed, without overpaying for the increased volume bars. Almost its only disadvantage is that knowledgeable people are buying it up like hot cakes, so you should not postpone the purchase for a long time.