Is this a good PC?

by **Poetry in Motion** » Sat Sep 22, 2012 10:02 am

I went in blind with my PC setup, as a novice how hard would it be to upgrade my current graphics card, Radeon7450 to a newer one (suggestions?) on a HP Pavillion.

by **Sonikku** » Sat Sep 22, 2012 10:34 am

Installing a video card is fairly simple, my only worry would be what kind of bizarre packed in sardine can that HP prebuilt would be to navigate on the inside. (I opened up a Dell once and it was so unbelievably packed that I didn't think they made cases that small for a personal build) Definitely open the case and take a look before you order anything.

What do you want to do with it? How much is your budget? What are the other specs of the machine? Namely, the power supply. If it's some trash low cost 250 watt thing HP tosses into their budget systems to lower the cost of mass producing, you might be pretty limited in what card you can run. The radeon 7750 might be the best you can do short of gutting the power supply as it takes all it's power out of just the socket without need of additional power connectors. But without looking at the specs of the machine, I could not say for sure.

AnimeGamer183 wrote:
The logic here is that you could buy 2 AMD processors for the price of 1 Intel one in the i5 series, and the AMD will have a six core (like the one I am getting for my gaming PC, and this is why I ultimately decided on the AMD CPU) , so even if the AMD one goes down and its out of warranty, or whatever the case may be, its still cheaper and more efficient to get the AMD CPU. if your Intel fries and its out of warranty, having fun forking out all that money over again.

If you're building a pc for gaming though, do you really want to give up 30% to as much as half your cpu's gaming performance on a similarly priced cpu just on the off chance oneof it's cores one day fails? http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/363?vs=434 (marks are being conservative, AT doesn't yet have benches of newly released Intel Ivy Bridges for similar prices) I have never known a processor to fail that correctly had it's prongs straight and installed into it's socket along with it's heatsink properly. Even if a core were to fail, for arguments sake, what would your gaming system need with 4 cores? Much less 5, or 6? Most PC games today utilize dual cores. A small handful like Battlefield 3 might utilize 3. Sometimes having a few fast cores is more important than having six slower ones. I guess I don't understand the panic of not having enough cores when your niche of gaming would under utilize them.

by **Poetry in Motion** » Sat Sep 22, 2012 11:07 am

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?objectID=c03381126&lang=en&cc=us&taskId=135&contentType=SupportFAQ&prodSeriesId=5258508&prodTypeId=12454

Medieval 2 and Company heroes on high is a blitz but Shogun2 , Empire and Napoleon are a slugg.

by **Sonikku** » Sat Sep 22, 2012 11:21 am

Thanks for the link. Sadly, that thing only has a 300 watt psu. Being a generic brand, it may not even be able to consistently live up to that figure. About the most you can do short of gutting the power supply will be about a Radeon HD 7750. It should be enough for Shogun, depending on your resolution and settings.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/GPU12/486

by **Poetry in Motion** » Sat Sep 22, 2012 11:25 am

oh piss!

Thanks my mate, I will see what I can do.

Piss!

by **AnimeGamer183** » Sat Sep 22, 2012 12:28 pm

I think I am going to get the AMD eight core processor 8150 as well for my upcoming build, it just seems so worth it for $50 more. Only thing is I heard the 8 core tech isnt quite there yet and having 8 cores isnt even really needed and probably not as well done as it will be in the future. Still, it just seems better. Thoughts?

btw rigz, my next set up

by **Sonikku** » Sat Sep 22, 2012 12:56 pm

AnimeGamer183 wrote: I think I am going to get the AMD eight core processor 8150 as well for my upcoming build, it just seems so worth it for $50 more. Only thing is I heard the 8 core tech isnt quite there yet and having 8 cores isnt even really needed and probably not as well done as it will be in the future. Still, it just seems better. Thoughts?

btw rigz, my next set up
CPU

AMD FX-6200 3.8GHz Six Core Processor

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6819106010

Motherboard

ASUS Sabertooth 990 FX

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813131736

Ram

G Skill Ripjaw series 8 GB (2 4 gig sticks) X2 (for 16 gigs of ram total)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820231314

Graphics Card/GPU

XFX Radeon HD 7950 3GB 384-bit

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814150616

Hard Drive

OCZ 120GB Solid State Drive

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820227706

Optical Drive/DVD Drive

ASUS DVD Burner

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6827135204

Power Supply

Corsair Enthusiast series 750W

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817139021

Computer Tower/Case

NZXT Phantom Black and Green color scheme

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6811146079

Mouse and Keyboard

Cyborgs R.A.T. 7 gaming mouse

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6826201005

Razer Black Widow Ultimate 2013

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6823114026

Computer Monitor

ASUS 24" full HD monitors with speakers (I will eventually get another one of these for a dual monitor setup)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6824236049

As I outlined in my previous post, if you're building a machine mostly for gaming, tons and tons of additional cores don't necesarily help you as most of them will go under utilized. I can't necessarily say the same for OP however if he's big on rendering and stuff.

Poetry in Motion wrote: oh piss!

Thanks my mate, I will see what I can do.

Piss!

Before you order anything though, be sure to open the case and see what you're dealing with. If you're unsure about fiddling with a computer, it might not be worth it if you have to navigate nightmare cabling and have to remove other things just to get to the card. Also make sure your motherboard and case would have room for a 2 slot card where the long pciexpress16 socket is. Here is what I would suggest

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814102969

It won't require any additional power connectors, so it should work with even the crappiest of power supplies. Do be sure to download the latest drivers from AMD just before shutting the machine down to install the card however, the ones on the disc are quite poor.

by **Poetry in Motion** » Sat Sep 22, 2012 2:15 pm

yeah I'd do more harm than good and more than likely void my guarantee, oh well here's to getting ripped off by some brainy act computer tech, gonna have fun when I roll up with "chump" tattooed on me head

by **Sonikku** » Sat Sep 22, 2012 5:24 pm

It's not a bad system, really. An i5 is a pretty respectable CPU, far better than the Pentium G630 I got recently when trying to repair my machine and my system runs all my games on high or ultra. It also has 8 gigs of ram versus my systems 4gb, which should be fine for gaming and easily expanded upon if you ever wanted to do any photo editing/rendering. A 2TB harddrive is also tons of space. It also has Windows 7 which is better than 8 in my opinion and the integrated audio panel looks more robust than most. The only thing it's lacking really is a dedicated video card. I looked up the radeon 7450 and it sounds like it's regarded as being so low powered so as to be little better than integrated video for gaming. Seeing as how you have a i5 processor, you almost might better use it's HD4000 integrated video over a card so archaic.

by **Poetry in Motion** » Sun Sep 23, 2012 12:26 pm

so would you say all I need is an upgraded card? Feel cheated as my PC dude I was buying it off obviously used my lack of knowledge to shift this system, would it be something that is commonly requested, swap this card for this? what would you recommend and what prices would I be looking at? and what do you mean about the HD4000?

by **silent killer** » Sun Sep 23, 2012 3:48 pm

What Sonniku means is the onboard video is about equal to the video card, thus making it an unneccesary drain.

by **Sonikku** » Sun Sep 23, 2012 4:53 pm

Poetry in Motion wrote: so would you say all I need is an upgraded card? Feel cheated as my PC dude I was buying it off obviously used my lack of knowledge to shift this system, would it be something that is commonly requested, swap this card for this? what would you recommend and what prices would I be looking at? and what do you mean about the HD4000?

Your intel i5 processor's built in graphics would roughly put it on par with the lackluster card they put in. As for all you would need to upgrade, yes. A radeon 7750 should be all you would need to turn that into a basic gaming machine. Anything higher end and you will need to replace the 300 watt power supply as well. Before you feel cheated though, just how much did you pay for that machine?

by **Poetry in Motion** » Sun Sep 23, 2012 6:40 pm

well along with keyboard speakers and monitor £750, I feel 'm about to be put in the stocks and pelted with silly things.

by **MiTT3NZ** » Mon Sep 24, 2012 4:35 am

Wow, your setup ain't much better than mine, and that cost £175. Where the hell'd you get it from man?

by **Poetry in Motion** » Mon Sep 24, 2012 4:39 am

local computer dealer. I've been dealt.

Is this a good PC?

Re: Is this a good PC?

Re: Is this a good PC?

Re: Is this a good PC?

Re: Is this a good PC?

Re: Is this a good PC?

Re: Is this a good PC?

Re: Is this a good PC?

Re: Is this a good PC?

Re: Is this a good PC?

Re: Is this a good PC?

Re: Is this a good PC?

Re: Is this a good PC?

Re: Is this a good PC?

Re: Is this a good PC?

Re: Is this a good PC?

Who is online