@ey_tony , thanks for the anecdote, that's really re-assuring, that I'm not totally off-track with this upgrade idea for my friend, and that his rig might potentially be able to play semi-modern games @ 60FPS, if I drop in a Phenom II X6 and a 3GB GTX 1050 (I know yours is the 1060). Maybe he'll get 45-50 FPS where you get 60 FPS locked. Or maybe he'll get 60 FPS locked too.
Hello.
I hadn't realised that the GTX 1050 came in 3Gb size...over here in the UK it's either 2Gb for the regular 1050 or 4Gb for the Ti. The 1060 is available in 3Gb and 6Gb though the 3Gb version has one of its 10 cores disconnected but it only represents a few frames drop in performance in the real world . As I've said, I originally planned on just fitting a 1050 but after looking at performance figures relative to outlay, the 1060 3Gb stood out and was just a bit above my intended budget for a 1050.
I think you might find a fair difference in performance between the 1050 and 1060 3Gb which is why I went for the 1060 though I wouldn't know exactly how this would translate in real time figures. To be fair, in theory my rig shouldn't even begin to attempt to play these games at acceptable frame rates but what convinced me to give it a try was looking at some real-time performances on Youtube with combinations of my old Phenom and different GPUs which was the reason why I popped the card into my mobo in the first place.
Although I'd owned computers since the 1980s, I'd never previously owned a dedicated GPU as having never gamed during that time I'd always just used the onboard graphics to meet my needs.
I wasn't even sure if my mobo etc would accept it or if it would even run acceptably. The results actually took me by surprise to say the least.
My absolutely original intention to have a go at entry level gaming was to go down the Ryzen 2400 G APU route but after looking at the performance, it was clear it would only give an equivalent of roughly a GTX 1030 which while it would have enabled me to try my hand at entry level gaming, I realised that I'd soon need to add a decent GPU if I got into gaming as that APU would only be an entry point and in the end I decided to get the 1060 which is about as good as I'll need for the moment and build around that.
I'll go for a Ryzen 5 2600 + b450 as that is the system build which would give me a few years of future proofing but I'm really in no hurry even though the upgrade cost is not an issue and I could get it all delivered tomorrow.
For the moment, my rig is delivering smooth gaming performance on the popular games though I suspect they are not terribly CPU intensive, otherwise they wouldn't be so popular and any half decent rig should be able to play them. The fact that I'm getting decent performance is I guess all down to the GPU performance though I don't have much confidence that I could play such as Shadow of the Tomb Raider without an upgrade but for most other popular titles, it's more than adequate.
It must also be remembered that CPUs such as the Phenom x 4 which are now old hat to us, are still quite popular in less affluent regions of the world where such as a Phenom based computer is a prized possession. They struggle to afford their parts but most go for a 1050 or 1060 or AMD equivalent and they enjoy their gaming with equipment that many in the affluent West unfairly frown upon.
My advice for what it's worth is that if you're going to use an older CPU then try to find a used 1060 if you don't want to spend the money on a new one...the extra performance from the GPU over the 1050 is well worth the extra expense when combined with such as the 1090Ti and it should give a very satisfactory performance in most popular games and you can transfer it to another rig as you upgrade.