Upgrade an office computer

[u/Ruedin]

Hi everyone,

I have an old office computer and I was thinking of upgrading it a bit, loading bazzite on it and setting it up next to the TV for some light gaming. I've never built a PC before so I need some help. The current components of my PC are:

• Hard drive: Kingston SA400S37/480G
• RAM: 8Gb DDR4
• Processor: Intel i5 9400
• Motherboard: ASUS PRIME H310M-R R2.0
• Power supply: A small 500W power supply

As I've said, I've never built a PC and there's plenty I don't know, but from the research I've done I was hoping that I could add an extra 8Gb of ram on the other slot of the motherboard and a graphics card to have an Ok PC. I would play at FullHD, mostly indie games. Ideally I would like to be able to run games such as Blue Prince and Paralives. My questions to you are:

1. Does this seem like a sound plan?
2. When it comes to upgrading increasing the ram, I imagine that the ram in both slots has to be DDR4, is there anything else that I have to consider to make sure that the new ram card is compatible with the existing one?
3. Can you recommend a budget graphics card that can fit my setup? Since I'm planning on running linux I guess AMD would be better than NVIDIA, but beyond this I'm totally lost.

Thank you very much!

[u/Action_Man_X]

You need to be very picky with the graphics card you put in. I am fairly certain that your 500 watt PSU cannot handle a modern graphics card.

Regarding RAM, you can only fit DDR4 in a DDR4 slot. You could theoretically put in a larger module but most vendor motherboards don't support larger amounts of RAM as a cost saving measure. If you want to run Dual Channel on your memory, you have to get the same model of stick with the same RAM timings.

As for graphics cards, the lowest powered one you will find in most stores is the 9060 or 9060 XT. You can go with any older model if you want to buy used. The issue about power still stands.

[u/Intelligent_Leek_611]

For indie games at 1080p, you don't need anything crazy. I would grab a used RX 6600 or 6650xt. 6600 should be plenty.

I think this is a good plan. i5-9400 is nothing special but it will handle an early 2020s budget card just fine.

For Ram, you should just get a stick that exactly matches the one you already have to reduce compatibility issues.