Recomendations Upgrading for better gaming performace?

You really can’t go wrong with any brand of RAM or SSD and buying the “best” hardware doesn’t always yield better performance. You can go to crucial.com and run their system scanner to view RAM and SSD upgrades for your machine. I would recommend at least 16GB of RAM and maybe a 1TB SSD. Keep in mind, your laptop uses a 2.5” form factor when it comes to hard drives so you don’t have to use a crucial SSD in there. But adding an SSD won’t necessarily improve game performance, just bootup and load times for programs and games.

I bought a Samsung 970 EVO SSD. I just wanted the faster and bigger storage. It might help with the loading times in games, but not a lot beyond there.

About RAM: I have 16GB (pre-installed) and the RAM is never a bottleneck for me. If you want to upgrade to 16GB, go for 2x8GB. It’s a bit faster than the same RAM in 1x16GB.

The GTX 1050TI is great for some gaming, but don’t expect the highest of performances. I too have had to drop the settings of games to somewhat lower settings.

You could look into how your laptop is performing during gaming when it comes to heat. If the components get hot, the performance goes down. I’ve put my laptop at a small elevation to allow for more airflow and it helped me a lot.

Or, just clean the inside of the laptop. Dust prevents good airflow and that heats up the components as well.