Start with the Software: Free Performance You May Already Be Leaving Behind
Before spending anything on hardware, there is often meaningful performance available through software optimisation. A gaming PC that has not been properly configured, cleaned up, or updated is frequently running well below its potential.
Update your graphics drivers. This is the single most important software action for gaming performance and the one most often neglected. GPU manufacturers — Nvidia, AMD, and Intel — release driver updates that include performance optimisations specifically for newly released titles, as well as bug fixes that address stuttering, crashing, and visual artefacts in existing ones. Running drivers that are several months old means you may be missing significant performance improvements that cost nothing to access. Use GeForce Experience for Nvidia cards or AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition for AMD GPUs to check for and install the latest drivers.
Set your power plan to High Performance. Windows defaults to a Balanced power plan that throttles CPU performance to conserve energy. For gaming, switching to High Performance in Power Options removes this throttling and allows the CPU to run at full speed whenever games demand it. The difference is most noticeable in CPU-bound games where frame rates are limited by processor speed rather than GPU capacity.
Close background applications before gaming. Task Manager frequently reveals a surprising number of processes running in the background — browser windows, cloud sync services, update processes, chat applications — all consuming RAM and CPU resources that could be serving your game. Creating a habit of closing unnecessary applications before launching a game is free performance that compounds across every gaming session.
Disable Windows Game Mode’s Xbox Game Bar if you are not using it. While Game Mode itself can occasionally help, the Xbox Game Bar overlay consumes resources and can interfere with some titles. Disabling it through Windows Settings removes a layer of background processing that serves no purpose if you are not actively using its features.
Check your storage. Games loading slowly is often a storage problem rather than a CPU or GPU problem. If your gaming drive — particularly an older HDD rather than an SSD — is heavily fragmented or nearly full, both load times and in-game streaming performance (where assets are loaded from storage during gameplay) suffer significantly. Our blog on SSD vs HDD covers the performance difference in the context of gaming and other demanding workloads.
Thermal Management: The Silent Performance Killer
One of the most consistent causes of gaming performance that degrades over time — or that was never as good as the hardware should allow — is thermal throttling. Modern CPUs and GPUs are designed to reduce their clock speeds when temperatures exceed safe limits, sacrificing performance to protect the hardware. A gaming PC that runs hot is a gaming PC that is deliberately slowing itself down.
The symptom of thermal throttling is often described as “good for the first ten minutes and then stuttery” — the hardware runs at full speed until temperatures build up, then pulls back. If this matches your experience, thermal management is likely the cause.
Clean the cooling system. Dust accumulation inside a PC case restricts airflow and insulates components, raising operating temperatures significantly. A thorough cleaning — removing dust from heatsinks, fans, radiators, and intake/exhaust vents — can reduce temperatures by ten to twenty degrees Celsius in heavily accumulated cases, which translates directly into sustained full-speed performance during long gaming sessions. Our computer maintenance service covers professional cleaning for gaming PCs, including cases where dust has accumulated in difficult-to-reach components.
Check your CPU and GPU temperatures during gaming. Tools like HWMonitor, MSI Afterburner, or CPU-Z allow you to monitor temperatures in real time during gameplay. CPU temperatures consistently above 90°C and GPU temperatures consistently above 85°C indicate a cooling problem worth addressing. Normal gaming temperatures for most modern hardware are 70–80°C under sustained load.
Replace thermal paste on older CPUs. Thermal paste between the CPU and heatsink degrades over several years, losing its ability to efficiently transfer heat. On a gaming PC that is three or more years old, replacing the thermal paste is a low-cost intervention that can meaningfully reduce CPU temperatures. Our cooling system repair service covers thermal paste replacement as part of broader cooling system work.
Consider fan replacement or upgrade if fans are running louder than usual, making grinding noises, or not spinning at the correct speed. A failing CPU fan is a direct path to thermal throttling and potential hardware damage. Our laptop fan replacement service covers fan-related repairs, and desktop fan replacement follows similar principles.
RAM: Capacity, Speed, and Configuration
RAM is a frequently overlooked gaming performance factor, particularly in 2026 when modern titles regularly request 16GB and some benefit from 32GB.
Check how much RAM you have and how it is configured. 8GB of RAM is increasingly insufficient for modern gaming — not because games always exceed 8GB on their own, but because the operating system, background applications, and game assets together frequently push past this threshold, causing the system to use the paging file (essentially using storage as slow virtual RAM) which produces severe performance degradation and stuttering.
16GB is the current practical minimum for a smooth gaming experience on most titles, and 32GB provides comfortable headroom for streaming, content creation alongside gaming, and the most demanding open-world titles.
Dual-channel configuration matters as much as capacity. Two 8GB sticks running in dual-channel mode consistently outperform a single 16GB stick, because dual-channel doubles the memory bandwidth available to the CPU. If you have a single RAM stick, adding a matching second stick in the correct slot configuration (check your motherboard manual) is often the best-value RAM upgrade available.
Enable XMP or EXPO in the BIOS. Most gaming RAM is designed to run at speeds above the JEDEC default (typically 3200MHz or higher), but only reaches these speeds when the XMP (Intel) or EXPO (AMD) profile is enabled in BIOS settings. RAM purchased for its 3200MHz or 4800MHz rating is often running at 2133MHz by default until this setting is activated — a straightforward BIOS toggle that is genuinely free performance. Our laptop RAM upgrade service covers RAM installation and configuration for those who prefer professional installation.
Storage: The Upgrade That Changes the Experience
If your gaming drive is a traditional HDD, upgrading to an SSD is the single hardware upgrade that changes the day-to-day feel of using a gaming PC most dramatically. Load times that took two or three minutes drop to fifteen or twenty seconds. Windows boot times fall from minutes to seconds. Game asset streaming during open-world traversal becomes seamless rather than the source of visible pop-in.
An NVMe M.2 SSD provides significantly faster performance than a SATA SSD for game loading, though both are a dramatic improvement over HDD. For most gaming workloads, a mid-range NVMe SSD in the 1-2TB range provides ample capacity and performance without needing to spend on the fastest available options.
If your gaming PC already has an SSD but is running low on free space — less than 15-20% of total capacity — performance can degrade as the drive has less room for the temporary files and write operations it needs to manage. Either deleting unused games or upgrading to a larger drive resolves this. Our SSD upgrade cost guide covers what the hardware and installation costs look like in Melbourne, and our computer upgrades service handles the full upgrade and data migration process.
GPU: The Most Direct Path to Higher Frame Rates
The graphics card is the component that most directly determines gaming frame rates at any given resolution and quality setting. When software optimisation, thermal management, and other upgrades have been addressed and gaming performance is still insufficient, the GPU is typically where the performance ceiling lies.
Before upgrading the GPU, it is worth understanding whether the current GPU is the bottleneck. If CPU usage is consistently at 90-100% while GPU usage is at 60-70% during gameplay, the CPU is the limiting factor rather than the GPU — upgrading the GPU in this situation produces little improvement. Tools like MSI Afterburner can show both CPU and GPU utilisation simultaneously during gameplay, making it straightforward to identify which component is the bottleneck.
If a GPU upgrade is warranted, the relevant considerations are the resolution you play at (1080p, 1440p, or 4K), the frame rate target you are aiming for, and the games you predominantly play. Our GPU repair services cover situations where an existing GPU is malfunctioning rather than simply underpowered — artifacts, driver crashes, or display output issues that suggest a hardware problem rather than a performance limitation.
For GPU hardware faults — visual corruption, random crashes during games, or a GPU that is no longer detected — our graphics card repair service provides diagnosis and repair before you consider replacement.
CPU and Motherboard Considerations
CPU upgrades are less frequently the right answer for gaming performance than GPU upgrades, because most modern CPUs above the budget tier provide sufficient performance for gaming when paired with adequate RAM and a good GPU. However, on older platforms — systems running on Core i5 or i7 7th/8th generation Intel or first/second generation AMD Ryzen — a CPU upgrade can remove a meaningful bottleneck, particularly in CPU-intensive titles.
The practical limitation is that CPU upgrades often require motherboard and RAM changes as well, since newer CPU generations typically require different sockets and memory standards. What starts as a CPU upgrade can become a full platform upgrade, at which point the cost-benefit calculation changes significantly.
Our CPU replacement upgrade service covers CPU upgrades including compatibility assessment, installation, and BIOS updates — important for ensuring the new CPU is correctly recognised and configured.
Consider a Custom Build if Your Current Platform Is the Limiting Factor
For gaming PCs that are genuinely reaching the limits of what upgrades can achieve — particularly older systems where the platform itself (CPU socket, memory standard, PCIe generation) is holding back modern components — a custom build may deliver better value than incremental upgrades to aging hardware.
Our custom build PCs service covers the full process of specifying, sourcing, and building a gaming PC matched to your performance requirements, resolution targets, and budget — with the advantage of professional component selection that avoids the common mistake of creating a new bottleneck by over-investing in one component while under-investing in another.
When Performance Problems Are Hardware Faults Rather Than Limitations
Not all gaming performance problems are about the hardware being insufficient — some are about hardware that is partially failing. Stuttering that occurs despite otherwise adequate specs, frame rate drops that happen at irregular intervals, crashes in games that other users with similar hardware run smoothly, and audio or visual glitches during gameplay can all indicate hardware faults rather than capacity limitations.
The most common hardware fault presentation in gaming PCs is an overheating GPU that is not failing completely but is throttling aggressively, or a RAM stick with errors that cause intermittent crashes. Our gaming computer repairs service diagnoses and repairs gaming PC hardware faults across all component types, distinguishing between what needs repair and what needs upgrade.
Contact Computer Cures to discuss your gaming PC’s current performance and what the most effective path to improvement looks like for your specific setup.
