JULY 2020 PCWorld 107games may start requiring more processing
firepower when the new consoles roll out at
the end of the year, but plenty of gamers are
still doing just fine pairing a high-end
graphics card with an older quad-core chip
(though they’re admittedly getting a bit long
in the tooth). Upgrading to a new graphics
card can pay dividends if your old one is
three or four generations old.
If you think your computer processor is
still up to gaming snuff, check out PCWorld’s
graphics card guide (go.pcworld.com/grgd)
for our recommendations on the best
options for any budget. If you have an
especially old CPU, upgrading to even a
lower-end modern chip could boost
performance, but swapping out an ancient
processor requires upgrading your
motherboard and memory, too, so it’s
probably not worth the effort over buying a
new PC.- SWITCH TO LINUX
Sometimes it’s just not worth putting new
hardware into an old PC. But that doesn’t
make it useless! If you still need to use your
aging laptop or desktop as an day-to-day
actual computer, installing an operating
system with a lighter footprint than Windows
can help you eke more life out of an aging PC.
Linux tends to run better than Windows
on less potent hardware. In fact, several
Linux variants are specifically designed with
ultra-minimalist requirements so they’re able
to run on old PCs—Puppy Linux (go.pcworld.
com/plnx), LXLE (go.pcworld.com/lxle), and
Lubuntu (go.pcworld.com/lbnt) come to
mind immediately. The transition from
9.