Would This PC Be Acceptable For High Setting Solid Gameplay?

[Benmc20]

 

 

 

Use NVIDIA card =>950, works much better than AMD cards in Fallout 4, and pretty much every game.

Not true : i have a rather old Core i5 2400, 8 GB of DDR3 RAM, 2 HDD of 500 GB (7k2 RPM, one for the OS+SWAP, the other for games) and a AMD Radeon 380x Sapphire Nitro edition. All at maximum, zero lags, totally fluid. Ah and i'm on Windows 7 Home Premium (10 sucks !).

 

The one you posted in your first link is not bad at all.

 

What is your budget? And in which country do you live? I will give a look, and check what can be a good option for you.

 

US

$1500

 

If you can afford the tower you've link above, og, it's a good choice. Your actual CPU and PSU are too weak.

The biggest myth is that you need 1Kwatt to power up hardware like i5 and 970-980. That's not the truth as newer hardware targets for lowering power consumption. When you really need the 100% efficient 700-1000Watt mostly for hi-end SLI/Crossfire configurations with OC'd i7 on LGA2011 platform.

True : my PSU never pass beyond 250 watts (at 230V), the recommandations are just for insurance that all will work fine with the wors PSu you've can get (i don't recommand this !). Go for a good Seasonic PSU.

 

 

 

My current CPU and PSU or the one in the link?

Also with my current system what would be a good card to put into my PC as a substitute until I can get a whole new PC? I know I need at least 1GB VRAM to play Skyrim again.

 

You can go with tis one : http://www.materiel.net/carte-graphique/gainward-geforce-gt-730-2-go-ddr3-passive-105852.html (sorry french website but the recommanded wattage is indicated).

 

...

 

 

 

 

My current CPU and PSU or the one in the link?

Also with my current system what would be a good card to put into my PC as a substitute until I can get a whole new PC? I know I need at least 1GB VRAM to play Skyrim again.

 

Go with a basic GTX 960 with 2Gb.

You can run Skyrim 1960x1080 at 60 FPS with ENB.

 

Something like this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127844, that is $ 190.

 

Save money for when you can do a full new PC.

Putting a 980 on your current PC is not the best option.

 

It may not be possible in fact by lack of PCI-E cords.

 

Edit > For those curious (and not afraid of french ), you can see my actual gaming computer here (first at top).

[Wired]

 

Putting a 980 on your current PC is not the best option.

I disagree as the new gtx 1080 and so on won't be any more powerful. They just have lower TDP. OP said he has $1500 to spend on the new rig.

[Darkening Demise]

 

 

...

 

My current CPU and PSU or the one in the link?

Also with my current system what would be a good card to put into my PC as a substitute until I can get a whole new PC? I know I need at least 1GB VRAM to play Skyrim again.

 

 

Go with a basic GTX 960 with 2Gb.

You can run Skyrim 1960x1080 at 60 FPS with ENB.

 

Something like this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127844, that is $ 190.

 

Save money for when you can do a full new PC.

Putting a 980 on your current PC is not the best option.

 

 

That card will work with my current PC? My little brother couldn't get his new card to work, something about ports.

 

[Guest]

 

That card will work with my current PC? My little brother couldn't get his new card to work, something about ports.

 

 

Right now I don't know.

I have to check what you posted, and check if the ports are correct.

 

@Benmc20 posted a "no it will not work", and probably he/she already gave a look to it.

 

But you can still find some card with this chipset and a connection port that is available on your current card.

[Benmc20]

 

That card will work with my current PC? My little brother couldn't get his new card to work, something about ports.

 

Right now I don't know.

I have to check what you posted, and check if the ports are correct.

 

@Benmc20 posted a "no it will not work", and probably he/she already gave a look to it.

 

But you can still find some card with this chipset and a connection port that is available on your current card.

 

I'm male so you can say "he" .

 

I'm not a newbie as a PC assembler and the real problem of his current machine is the PSu really low. Maybe not even 80+ bronze. The best advice i will say is to buy a whole new tower.

[Darkening Demise]

Put will that card CPU posted work with my specs for now? My budget got constricted due to lack of employment opportunities (Murica really sucks donkey balls, especially when you see a heart surgeon cooking fries at a Burger King because its the only job opportunity he had yeesh, then again he's not a woman or Indian so I didn't expect him to get the job anyways. HAH! )

[Guest]

Put will that card CPU posted work with my specs for now? My budget got constricted due to lack of employment opportunities (Murica really sucks donkey balls, especially when you see a heart surgeon cooking fries at a Burger King because its the only job opportunity he had yeesh, then again he's not a woman or Indian so I didn't expect him to get the job anyways. HAH! )

 

Your card (checked on internet the specification for HP Pavillon Series Model No. p7-1254), supports the PCI Express connectors, so the card will run.

This card is not really power consuming, so it may work well also with a small PSU.

[Benmc20]

Put will that card CPU posted work with my specs for now? My budget got constricted due to lack of employment opportunities (Murica really sucks donkey balls, especially when you see a heart surgeon cooking fries at a Burger King because its the only job opportunity he had yeesh, then again he's not a woman or Indian so I didn't expect him to get the job anyways. HAH! )

Hmmm you will have the same problem with your actual PSU : https://www.msi.com/product/graphics-card/GTX-960-2GD5T.html#hero-specification

 

 

Recommended PSU (W)

400

[Darkening Demise]

Plain and simple due to my 300W PSU I may encounter performance problems? Like....the card doesn't fully work (not take use of its full potential) if I lack the recommended PSU?

[SlapMeSilly]

I should really call this an article or blog post  . To stay directly on the topic of whether the original system you asked about is good enough. Yes. Yes it is. Heh. More about alternatives to that system, and optional upgrades instead of full replacement. Holy crap this got long.
 
A Little background on me:
I'm a PC repair tech for a popular retail electronics chain (not BestBuy. I can't say which though since they don't want to be associated with places such as this). I've been repairing and building pc's for about 20 years.
 
From a gamer/technician point of view, based on your current specs, I would do a power supply upgrade and video card and just run with it.
 
Since the budget was revised I put pre-built, custom build info in this spoiler. Worth reading for future reference should plans change.

If you still want to go for a full system, certainly be very cautious of placing the CPU on the motherboard if building it yourself. I see so many people screw it up and damage motherboards and CPU's recently. Especially on Intel based builds. If you don't know how to build one yourself or aren't comfortable making the attempt, definitely consider having a reputable place do a build for you. Ask about a warranty with it, parts can and do fail. 
 
If you do decide on going with a pre-built system, I cannot stress enough, avoid CyberPower, CyberTron PC, or IBuyPower. I'm not going to start bad mouthing their product, and I don't have repair #'s handy, but I see all of them more than I should. For the cost of those particular brands you can get better quality parts for the same money, and potentially even less if you look for sales, clearance, open box, etc. You primarily end up paying for convenience and potential warranty, which may or may not be useful.
 
While on the topic of pre-builts. If you must go that route, Alienware is good although arguably overpriced. Asus and Lenovo make decent gaming rigs, though caution should be noted in case you ever needed/wanted to upgrade motherboards. Some manufacturers do custom designs so only their parts work/fit in their case. I haven't worked on any Lenovo gaming systems, but their more budget systems have custom cable connections to the motherboard so if it goes out you'd be best off replacing the whole case with it. This is important should you ever want to upgrade the CPU. Knowing ahead of time that you'd need to replace the case along with the cpu and motherboard is good precaution.

 
Your current system specs are not all that bad. The AMD A6 APU isn't the best choice for gaming, but certainly not the worst either. I've seen IBuyPower promote gaming pc's with Celeron CPU's. That there should tell you enough about that company.
 
About the parts: 
 
For power supply's, do stick with a major name brand. The ones I like to stick to are Antec and Corsair. I've heard good things about OCZ and Silverstone as well. Avoid Coolmax, Nupower, Rosewill (newegg brand). If in doubt, google search and look for reviews. Try to make sure there's more than a dozen and that they're mostly positive. There will always be the odd defective unit with anything mass manufactured so if you see 1 or 2 low reviews take them with a grain of salt.
 
The previously mentioned MSI GTX 960 is a very nice card. As previously mentioned in the top of this post size may be a consideration and this Evga GTX 960 4gb or Evga GTX 960 2gb is a good option as well. Plenty of horse power for 1080p/60hz gaming on high/max settings for even some of the more demanding games. Being that I currently run a Sapphire R9 270x (fairly close raw performer to a GTX 960), I can say for Skyrim or Fallout 4 it would perform exquisitely. As previously mentioned I would push for an nVidia card over AMD currently. There are just too many little reasons to list about why. Major ones being, general gaming performance of nVidia cards tends to be better. Some games are deliberately optimized for AMD graphics, but they're kinda few and far between in comparison. If I could do it over I would go nVidia myself, but I have what I have and it works for me.
 

Plain and simple due to my 300W PSU I may encounter performance problems? Like....the card doesn't fully work (not take use of its full potential) if I lack the recommended PSU?

 
Q: What might happen?
A: The computer will generally start up (for now). Other issues may not be immediate, but over time the excessive current draw will over stress the PSU. You'll likely start having issues with random freezing, sudden power loss, or just weird performance issues when running anything using graphics (read as anything drawing DirectX/OpenGL including streaming video). Could be just video artifacts or poor frame rate. Could be total system freeze as previously mentioned. Sometimes it just burns out the PSU and you won't be able to power on anymore. In a worst case scenario it could catch fire (I've had it happen to customer's units in for testing), or damage other components in the pc.
 
If you go for a GTX 960 upgrade (or any video card that has it's own power connectors for that matter), do not bother trying to run it on the current 300w PSU. 300w just isn't enough. If it's the HP factory original unit you absolutely *will* have issues. They're not known to be the best PSU's. They're "good enough" for what they ship with but any upgrades, that should be the first.
 
Here's a fairly simple way to calculate a rough estimate of what a video card requires for power. This applies to PCI-Express video cards (does anyone actually use anything else these days?).

• The motherboard's PCI-E port will supply up to 75w power.
• A 6-pin PCI-E power connector is intended to supply up to 75w.
• An 8-pin PCI-E power connector supplies up to 150w.
• These are base design values and technically the wiring and most power supplies can supply more power on the provided plugs but the video cards are generally designed and adhere to these specifications.

To calculate an approximate power TDP as a best guess, you would take the PCI-E bus power (75w) + each connector on the card (1 6-pin as per the referenced 960 - 75w). Using the MSI GTX 960 example this would be a 150w. Looking at MSI's page about the card it lists it as 120w. So our guess would be on the error of providing additional overhead.

I generally use this formula to figure out what PSU to recommend:
Motherboard base components (chipset, ram, integrated sound card, ethernet) ~50w
CPU ~100w
HDD/SSD/DVDRW ~10w ea
Then above estimate for video card.
Then add 50w for PSU build quality variance.
 
This is a bit of an over estimate, but it has served me well.
Using the above formula for a basic system with the aforementioned MSI GTX 960, 1 hdd, 1 dvdrw, I would come up with (50+100+10+10+150+50) 370w. Since the next closest PSU value is 400w that puts it around what MSI gives for their recommendation. Keep in mind most video card manufacturers do a PSU recommendation based on an Intel Core i7 build. Most of the more recent mainstream i7's are 65-95w depending if it is a manufacturer exclusive parts Ref 1 or a K series Ref 2 Ref 3 unlocked part. The first gen i7 cpu's were up to 130w. Some of the Extreme i7's can still go above that, and the higher end AMD FX 9000 AMD Ref series are 220w.
 
One of my co-workers uses an alternative calculation which may be easier to think of. Start with 350w base minimum. Add 100w per 6pin power connector for video card. It's overly generous but you'll always have enough power. Even if you went SLI/Crossfire.
 
I generally run 600w or there abouts in my system because I like the extra head room and most power supplies have the better efficiency at 50% load. That and the extra capacity of the PSU doesn't generally add that much to the cost until you start getting upwards of 800w and higher units.
 
I also recommend reading this article http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/143029-empowered-can-high-efficiency-power-supplies-cut-your-electricity-bill . Especially if you are considering a high efficiency PSU.

[bc733]

Plain and simple due to my 300W PSU I may encounter performance problems? Like....the card doesn't fully work (not take use of its full potential) if I lack the recommended PSU?

Weak power supply can cause all kinds of crazy shit to happen. From driver errors to CTDs to BSOD to the pc just shutting down at random times. It'll drive ya crazy. Been there, done that. Best to get a good one with more than enough power for your needs.

[Benmc20]

Plain and simple due to my 300W PSU I may encounter performance problems? Like....the card doesn't fully work (not take use of its full potential) if I lack the recommended PSU?

Two cases :

- the unit don't start due to lack of power or shutdown itself on burn (most likely)

- worst case, the PSU will burn due to too mayn overcharge (only with really bad PSU though)

[Darkening Demise]

Whelp I'll have to deal with my crap PC for now until I get the money for a whole new PC. Then the fun part of transferring my old hard drive to the new PC. I'll probably save up and try finding a....oh wait there's no such thing as a tech store around here just a Kroger and strip clubs and a highway notoriously known for prostitution which is ironic with the name Highway 69. XD

 

Anyways thanks for the help guys.