Just Bought a PC (need help)

[snapptastic]

Hey everyone! First post here, but I've been here many many times. Thanks for all the previous help that you all have given me. Now to the point.

Today I bought a computer from Costco. It is an HP with an AMD A10 5700 (3.4 GHz) with 12GB of RAM (which is probably a waste) and a 2TB Hard Drive (probably a waste too). It also came with a GFX card (Discrete ATI RADEON HD 7660D), but I just noticed it's only 512MB of Dedicated Memory.. Now I paid $700 for this and am getting a $100 rebate in the mail.. Did I get a good/bad deal? I'm looking to play games like Diablo 3, Starcraft 2, and Battlefield 3 with it. How will it fare? What should I change?


My past PC was an Intel Pentium D (3.2 GHz) with 2 GB of Ram, a 1GB GT 520 (CRAP) Video Card, and a 160GB Hard Drive, so I saw this as a HUGE Upgrade.. And that computer ran Diablo 3 beautifully on Medium settings.. and Starcraft 2 on Low/Medium settings, with some stutter.. However it couldn't even load Battlefield 3.

So if you computer gurus could help me out here, I would REALLY appreciate it! Thank you!

 

[denis280]

it is a good deal. and with the hd 7660d should work perfect with your games.
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsuppor...portFAQ&prodSeriesId=5187022&prodTypeId=12454

 

[krnmastersgt]

It's not a bad system for the price, but that card is too weak for something as intensive as BF3. You could just buy another video card for that if you want.

 

[sm625]

"Discrete ATI RADEON HD 7660D" sounds like hogwash. It is a fancy way of saying you dont have a video card. Since you want to play games, $600 is way way way too much to pay for a system that dont got no video card. Even a 5 year old craigslist ebay $149 special will game better once you throw in a latest generation $100 video card.

Since you dont need that much HDD or RAM, yes it is a bad deal. You could build the system to suit your needs and it would end up doing what you need much faster for under $500.

I believe if you spent $250 on a latest generation HD7850 video card and threw it in your old Pentium D computer, it would game better. Since a pentium D is fast enough for most general usage, all it looks like you really needed was a video card upgrade.

 

[Skiprudder]

For $600 I think you have a pretty good, but not exceptional deal. If I may politely disgree with another person who commented, the system will be a major upgrade for you over a Pentium D. The 7660D is the graphics half of the AMD A10 cpu and is a good deal faster than a 520. The CPU half of it is a quad core, and each core is faster than the cores on a Pentium D. If you're curious of a review of the chip in your machine, Tom's Hardware posted one recently:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/a10-5800k-a8-5600k-a6-5400k,3224.html
As you can see it puts up pretty decent off the shelf numbers.

Other people are correct in commenting that a discrete (ie add-on) card will improve your game framerates-as long as you get something at least upper midrange. If you don't feel comfortable tinkering around in the machine I would stick with this one. Costco is also a good choice with their 2-year warranty and lifetime phone support.

If you don't mind opening it up, I think this might be a better deal for the same budget ~$600:
http://www.costco.com/Browse/Produc...519&Ns=P_Price|1||P_SignDesc1&lang=en-US&Sp=C
This has an i5 cpu, which is much faster than the cpu half of the HP you bought, but the video card side is much weaker. You could however spend the $100 you save on a video card like this Radeon 7750 at newegg:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814161403
The end result is a faster cpu and faster gpu.

 

[snapptastic]

Thank you all for the help. I went ahead and bought all the parts I needed seperately from Newegg (in my sig) and put together my first computer! Took about 3-4 hours and I am so satisfied! (minus my poor cable management lol).

 

[riffdex]

Thank you all for the help. I went ahead and bought all the parts I needed seperately from Newegg (in my sig) and put together my first computer! Took about 3-4 hours and I am so satisfied! (minus my poor cable management lol).

So then what did you do with the HP computer?

 

[Soundmanred]

So then what did you do with the HP computer?

Traded it for a '97 Hyundai

 

[richaron]

I don't want to mess with your Chi... but original puter was an ~ok~ box. Unless I'm wrong (?) the 7660D works with the A10 system. The 7660 works in crossfire with the "fusion" cpu/gpu, & makes much better results than if the 7660 was in another system.

I'd guess you need a mid range ($150-200 or so) video card to perform better.

 

[Smoblikat]

I think you could have built one for less, but as far as mark-ups on teh shalf screwing you over you did fairly well. Grab a 100$ video card with your rebate from newegg and install it:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814121472
That would do nicely for a budget card.