I am a gamer and I can't really afford a gaming PC. So my question to you is if I bought this PC. And I added a $150.00-$200.00 graphics card...which I am not sure what the best in that range is (Hopefully you guys can point one out). Would the computer run games with high FPS and be a reliable computer?
It should be very good. Add an ATI 4850 series card (price range you suggested), and a good PSU (not sure what HP has in the PC) and you should be good to go. Corsair and Zalman were suggested to me. This seems like a good deal: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139005 Should be under $250 for the video card and PSU.
yes, that is the card you want. Here's a benchmark link: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-4850,1957-14.html Note that the nVidia card that would compete with this one is the 9800GTX. The 4850 is the better of those two. The cards that did better are much more expensive and did not outperform the 4850 by much. It would seem like the 4850 can handle Crysis on upto a 27" monitor (1900x1200 resolution).
It is not advisable to buy a PC with the intention of upgrading it. Often the cooling and PSU are not up to the job of new components, and the PSU is often an unusual shape compared to normal ATX units, so you can't find more powerful replacements. You would be better off doing the job yourself. Excluding the Power supply and video card you'd be upgrading regardless there aren't more than $450 worth of components in that PC. A Core 2 Quad is $190, a decent motherboard for it $80, good memory $50 (after rebates), the hard disk, case, DVD drive, card reader, keyboard and mouse can all be had for $150 or so.
Ah, that was a good point about the PSU!!! I forgot about the hell I went through trying to fit a different PSU in an old PC. In the end, I had to buy a new case in order to fit the new PSU! I just noticed that PC is a microATX. This means you will need micro PSU, and maybe a low profile graphics card!!! MicroATX are NOT for gaming. It will be hard to get proper airflow in that and gaming rigs usually need a lot of air as they produce a lot of heat. Also, after market heatsinks are usually quite large. The one I ordered is about 6" deep!!! That will not fit in a microATX case. sammorris is right. It is better to try and build it yourself, especially since you want to play games. You can get much better quality components for roughly the same total price. Plus, you get to look at the final product and feel good knowing that you were the one that put it together. Overall it is a lot of fun and a good learning experience. A lot of stuff is on sale until 11/26 at newegg.com. For gaming, this PC may not work or you will have a hard time finding adequate upgrades. The only other possibility is that in order to upgrade, you will have to buy a new Case first... So what you are keeping will be: CPU: $180 MOBO: $100 HDD: $60 RAM: $70 This PC is worth $410 (had you bought the components). If you have to add a case, GPU, PSU, and Heatsink/Fan the cost will be roughly $325. There is also a very slight chance that the RAM in the system is of any quality. They probably threw in Value RAM, which is likely to overheat if you intend on using the system to play games. So, if you are looking for a PC to use to just have a fast family PC, then that is a good choice, however, for gaming, there are too many variables and you may end up only using the HDD, keyboard/mouse, and CPU on that machine, which is worth maybe $250 total. I imagine that your budget for a PC is around $750 total. The system that sammorris and other AD members helped me put together would be a good build on that budget. http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/720328 The total cost for me was $770 charged and $135 coming back in rebates, so $635. sammorris said that it would be about $150 for whatever I did not buy for my build (I already have a keyboard/mouse/hdd/etc....), so you are looking at $785 - $800. If you are looking for a specific budget, we can do some research and point you in the right direction.
