Hello, all! A friend pointed me out to this site and told me I could look for help upgrading my system. Long story short, I'm on a very extreme budget, but I want to give PC a legit trial. Unfortunately I just have a pre-built pc, but I would like to upgrade it. Mainly because I don't want to drop a lot of money on something I might not be into. Any help would be appreciated!
Is this the one you've got?
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?cc=us&lc=en&docname=c02628380#N101
Also, how big is this extremely small budget?
That's the exact one
So no more than $450
It's generally difficult to upgrade OEM systems, especially HP ones, as they usually include stuff like locked down CMOSs, and non-standard mounts and parts. Fortunately they've gotten a bit better over the years, and with your system in particular, it should be pretty easy.
This is the upgrade guide and information page that you should refer to directly.
As I can see, you should already have an AMD Athlon II X4, which is already a decent budget processor. However, for future reference, you could go all the way up to a Phenom II X6. Here's a comparison of the performance between the top three available processors. As you can see, you could go up quite a bit in performance versus the Athlon which scores 3353.
But I would focus first on getting a graphics card. You should be able to support just about anything with a max TDP (power consumption) of 95 watts. I would personally recommend something like the GTX 650 Ti, which I've personally used and which would be a great starting budget card at $89.99 on Newegg currently.
Ah, I see. Should have known that. lol How about the ram and PSU? Would that need to be changed at all?
You can use the CPU, RAM and hard drive from your current computer and put them together with these components http://pcpartpicker.com/p/D3RXZL
If you did get a graphics card for your current computer which required 6 pin connectors, then I'd recommend getting a new power supply as well.
Sounds good. Thanks for the advice.
Go FM2+ instead of AM3/AM3+ since AMD is focusing on FM2+. The next gen Carrizo chips will be FM2+ most likely so the upgrade path is clear.
Beef up the RAM. That motherboard is a standard 9.6" x 9.6" MicroATX formfactor so we can swap out that board with a better AMD board. The best MicroATX boards for AMD are currently the FM2+ socket which is good since it is inexpensive and will give similar performance to the current chip. This is what I can come up with while sticking to the $450 budget and keeping some of the parts. This is assuming the PSU can be replaced of course. The CPU is a nice FM2+ Quad core clocked at 3.8GHz. Intel has a higher IPC but not a good Quad at this price point so AMD is fine. The RAM is good Mushkin at 1600Mhz and is an 8GB kit you can run at Dual Channel. The Motherboard is an exact 9.6x9.6 just like the original motherboard. The GPU is a nice R9 270X with 4GB of VRAM for your higher textures allowing you to run games like WoW at High-Ultra and get good frames. You should also be fine running most modern games at higher settings. Just turn down the Anti-Aliasing since that is a performance killer. The Power supply is a good quality with ample power.
Here is a benchmark of the card running BF4 in DX11 mode.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCORXVA8GJ4&src_vid=xvZh9gM1xhk&feature=iv&annotation_id=annotation_3485420205
Here is a benchmark of the card running BF4 in Mantle mode:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvZh9gM1xhk
www.youtube.com/watch?v=hW_Qo8twZw8
PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/Y2v7dC
Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/Y2v7dC/by_merchant/
CPU: AMD Athlon X4 860K 3.7GHz Quad-Core Processor ($84.29 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-F2A88XM-D3H Micro ATX FM2+ Motherboard ($75.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: Mushkin Silverline 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($66.99 @ Newegg)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon R9 270X 4GB Dual-X Video Card ($179.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Corsair CX 600W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($39.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $447.24
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-01-24 07:08 EST-0500
Thanks for the suggestion. But I do have another question. Say if I do use these parts. Will my OS carry over or would I have to install a fresh one since my computer is pre-built?
just reinstall the OS. It should be fine. If it bitches at you call Microsoft and explain that you had to replace the motherboard.
You can get the key from your OEM machine and do a fresh install in windows.
It is highly recommended if you are upgrading the motherboard since there will be a whole lot of conflicting drivers.
i would get a used amd 280 for about $100 and new powersupply for around $50 and upgrade to 8GB of ram and save the other $250 for a platform change when you get more money
or he can stick with AMD since if the stuff from CES about the new AMd Carrizo(sp?) line is true, then there will be a massive improvement and it uses the FM2+ chipset so yeah. Upgrade path is there.