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How well would this PC run newer games at decent settings?
I bought a decent gaming PC a few years ago and was going to upgrade the motherboard, power supply, processor and RAM, but I'm afraid I'll buy the wrong thing since I don't know much about PC's, so I'm looking for a prebuilt PC that would be able to run modern games at decent settings without a problem. If I can't find a very good one I'll probably just risk buying upgrades to my current PC and trying to do it myself.
A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, the man who never reads lives only one.
We will always remember your sacrifice, Louisoux!
Comments
The integrated graphic card on that PC, Intel HD 2500, is made for running Windows, web browser and Office. For modern PC games it's way too slow. In addition, the power supply on that PC is so bad you couldn't probably install any good dedicated graphic card on it without first swithing the power supply. Don't buy that.
Dismal. Intel HD Graphics 2500 is the lowest end graphics you can get in a modern desktop, excluding nettops. If you're on a severe budget, you can get integrated graphics with around triple the performance and much better drivers for about the same price. And if you want to turn settings up a ways, you'll need to expand your budget to make room for a decent video card.
Speaking of which, what's your budget? And are you capable of assembling a computer from parts but merely don't know what parts to get? Or will you need to pay someone else to screw things together for you, which adds around $100 to the price tag?
I already have a decent enough graphics card for now so I don't need to worry about upgrading it yet.
My budget is around $400, and I can probably upgrade the computer myself I just don't know how to tell if a new motherboard would be compatable with parts I already have on my current computer.
The main two things I need for my PC is a new motherboard and a new processor, I can wait to upgrade everything else later. My friend also told me that Windows 7 is linked to my processor so when I replace my processor I'll need a new copy of Windows too.
So motherboard, a prosessor and a new Windows preferably 7 since I'm not a fan of Win8 with a $400 budget. ^^
A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, the man who never reads lives only one.
We will always remember your sacrifice, Louisoux!
Don't buy a cheap junk computer and try to upgrade it. Sometimes the only parts worth salvaging will be the optical drive and memory. If you buy a $400 cheap junk computer and try to upgrade it to a respectable $500 computer, the upgrades might easily cost $300-$400 because you have to replace so many things.
Exactly what parts do you have in your current computer? You might be better off upgrading the one you have now. List everything, whether you want to keep it or replace it.
Processor: AMD Athlon II X2 240 (2 CPUs) , 2.8 GHz
Graphics card: ATI Radeon HD 5700 Series
Power Supply:Max output 480w (I'm going to replace it soon but I am going to wait until I pick out a processor and motherboard before I get one)
Motherboard: Biostar A785GE (PCI Express 2.0)
http://www.biostar.com.tw/app/en/mb/introduction.php?S_ID=446#dl
RAM: Two 2 GB sticks equaling 4GB (no idea how to tell what type of plug they fit in. If you really need to know I'll take them out and check to see what they have written on them)
Case: The case is a huge Alienware Dracula case so there should be plenty of room.
Looks a lot like this one but the same size.
http://datorfixarna.com/catalog/images/CA-X-CS602BK.jpg
A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, the man who never reads lives only one.
We will always remember your sacrifice, Louisoux!
Your memory is DDR2, that's the only type your motherboard supports.
If you want you could get some extra speed just by switching the processor to fastest one supported by your current motherboard. It would be cheap. If you want to have faster CPU than that, then you'll need to buy processor + motherboard + DDR3 RAM.
Your motherboard has one IDE slot. If you switch motherboard it's better to make that the IDE slot is not used by your hard disk or DVD drive. It shouldn't be, but if it is it'll be really hard to find a new motherboard that has IDE slot. Likely both your hard disk and DVD drive use SATA if you bought them at the same time or later with that computer, and then they'll be supported by any new motherboard.
These are motherboard with the processor, RAM and heat sink attached.
this removes the scariest parts of building a pc, fitting the processor and messing about with the bios to get the timings right.
Buy a 600w or so power supply from a decent supplier like say corsair.
Resuse your video card for now with a plan to upgrade later. (hence the better power supply)
Keep your old hard disk as either your primary or secondary drive. Windows 7 will let you reinstall if you have the drive present on your system, it not Li.key to the processor as your friend says, it creates a special partition on your drive and links to that.
Motherboard bundles wise go for I5 3570k with 8gb ddr3 if you can afford. However if you get a much cheaper deal on a i5 2500k board go with that, but you will have less upgradability
I've never thought of looking for bundles. Found that I5 3570k bundle for $411 which is right in my budget.
It's perfect, thank you. ^^
A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, the man who never reads lives only one.
We will always remember your sacrifice, Louisoux!
Thank you everyone. ^^
A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, the man who never reads lives only one.
We will always remember your sacrifice, Louisoux!
Be careful about bundles. Sometimes you can get two part combinations and be fine, but larger combo deals usually have at least one cheap junk part in them, and often several. By the time you toss out that part and replace it because it's garbage, you've spent more by getting a bundle than you would have by buying the parts separately. Link a bundle before you buy it so we can see.