PC Master Race

Yeah it’s worth a shot to start with an SSD worst case if it doesn’t work well then you’d have a ssd for the next system.

most newer games are expecting an SSD install, and a lot of them are beginning to straight up require one, because the current Xbox and Playstation come with them standard and you haven't been able to run games off HDD at all on them for years. I ran up to this with Starfield, barely ran at all on a fast HDD. Hopefully your board supports a nvme but even if not, a SATA SSD would offer significant improvement.

Definitely get an SSD. Honestly I'm surprised it's that recent and doesn't have one.

It'll give a small boost to load times, but a nvme SSD can at least be taken with you when you eventually upgrade the mobo/CPU/RAM combo. A 2TB drive can be had for £120 or so.

I've got more or less the same setup myself as your PC and it's getting very creaky on newer titles. I honestly just use my PS5 for those atm.

I think I'd update the mobo/CPU/RAM first if I had your exact setup, but the GPU wouldn't be far behind. You could run games with task manager open to see if you're maxing out your CPU or GPU and take it from there. Depending on the games you play, it could be worth doing the GPU first.

Just make sure your PSU supports it, as those newer GPUs can be hungry.

It doesn't have to match, but it'll all run at the rate of the slowest stick. I just added a note about your PSU too, so check the bottom of my comment if you didn't see it already.

I usually leave mine on game mode for day-to-day stuff because the mouse latency is unbearable otherwise. However when watching a movie or TV show, I'll swap it back over to cinema mode to smooth out frames and reduce artifacting.

That GPU shortage absolutely blew. I used a 1650 the whole time, just sitting on my hands waiting for something to be vaguely affordable. Ended up snagging an RX 6600 right at the very very end of the shortage- caught it on a steep sale and paid $220 for it, and my exact model is $200 now so I did pretty good I think lol

If the most resource intensive thing you're looking at is BG3 @ 1080p/60fps, you definitely won't need to spend a few grand. Now is a great time to build. You can get pretty great price/performance at the moment.

Here's a link to a build, I'd suggest buying the SSD in that list, and replacing your hybrid drive. You can keep the hybrid as a spare, if you want, but you don't have to. If that solves your issue and gets you the performance you want, cool.

If it doesn't solve your issues, you can just buy the rest of the parts in the list and build a new PC. It's a PCPartPicker link for the UK, so it'll tell you the best places you can order each part in your country. Alternatively, you can buy a prebuilt- probably wanna aim for $1000 USD or so for a prebuilt. I can't really help you with that, not my thing.

If you do end up building your own there's an extremely helpful very long Linus Tech Tips video that breaks down how to assemble the whole thing.

Ok, I think I have a better idea of your situation now. So your computer is starting to feel a little weak when it comes to gaming? We've all been there before.

I'm not against investing a few grand

If it's too soon to be chasing the whole rig

Depending on how easy/difficult it is for you to spend a couple grand, you might simply be best off buying a new PC at this point. If you're gonna keep the 55" TV hookup and your mouse/keyboard/controller/speakers, then you could find even a cheap prebuilt tower for under $1000 easily, and if you wanted to spend more, you could do that too if you want your build to stay relevant longer. Pretty much anything you might buy today, even stuff considered mid or entry level, will give you a noticeable improvement over your i3 and 1070.

Of course, the cheapest way to go would be to build the whole thing yourself, though it's entirely understandable if you just want to go prebuilt again so you don't have to worry about that stuff.

If you want to be more frugal, your best most effective single part upgrade would be a new SSD, preferably an NVME of good quality. Think in the $80-$200 range. If your motherboard doesn't have an NVME slot (possible, though unlikely) then a standard SSD is good too and would be a little cheaper.

For the rest of your system:

Upgrading your processor is probably not a cost effective solution. If you wanted a newer processor, you'd need to buy a new motherboard too (Google motherboard sockets for a full explanation). Depending on the type of motherboard, you might have to buy different memory too - I just upgraded to a new motherboard and I had to buy fancy (and expensive) new memory for it since my old DDR4 is no longer supported for it.

1070 is probably good for now, even though it is older. My 1080 handled BG3 just fine, as a point of reference. If you're ok with not playing at max resolution ultra super mega detail, just ride it out. GPU pricing has been effed since all the crypto bros made the prices skyrocket in 2021. Ride that 1070 until it dies, then buy something that is midrange today in a few years when it will be even cheaper.

Depends on a few variables. But the pattern is the same, track on a graph both temps and usage of your CPU (might as well do GPU as well) and if you see one of two things:

First frame rate drop and then come back look at the graph, did usage drop and thermal drop and once temp got to a given level performance came back. To fix start with blowing everything out with canned air and ensuring all the fans are working. Fix any that aren't and see if that helps. If it doesn't help and it's the CPU look into redoing the cooler on the CPU.

Second thing you might see is performance is better and then drops and sustains at the lower level once thermals hit a given level. This is most common on mobile devices like a laptop but has been seen on pre-built PCs from some vendors (Dell, CyberPower, most often) in which case upgrading the cooling after the above.

In the end this is unlikely but start looking at the least expensive route first (like this) and then look into upgrading.

As the other responses point out mix-matching RAM speeds isn't a good idea, most mother boards will just run both sets at the lower speed and it's not a problem just not optimal. Some custom boards (Dell most often) aren't smart enough for this and it'll introduce extra stuttering.

In the same app you can track ram usage, if the stuttering is worse when you use more than half than less than half this is most often the cause and replacing RAM so they're both the same speed (preferably from the same company) is the most frequent fix.

Upgrading the GPU is probably next if the above isn't the issue or doesn't get you the performance you want. If you do make sure your PSU can handle the extra draw. Pre-builts (Dell mostly) often put in PSUs that are just powerful enough barely run what's installed and things will start to fail if you exceed it's power output.

Most pre-builts are just fine, don't let elitists convince you otherwise. A few are known for taking shortcuts but most are just fine.

Good luck!!

Yeah if you're going for trying to get the most bang for your buck, you could consider getting a match set of either 4x8 gig or 2x16 gig ram, an i7 8700 flavor CPU, and upgrade the graphics card from your 1070 to a 3070 or even a 4060, and put in a nice two terabyte SSD

That would probably run you in the neck of $500.

If it's helpful and you want to stick with prebuilt I saw a $900 computer at Costco that had an i7 14700, 32 gigs of ram, a 512 gig SSD and a 4060 in it.

If 900 is too much, consider going to your local pawn shops. A lot of people have been all floating their 10th and 11th gen computers with 3070s in them and I've seen them for sale for sub $500.