Will these machines be ok?

[acctingman69]

Hello all!

My 6 yr old PC JUST died and my budget is LOW. I can't afford more than $500ish

I work for a company that sells PC's and TV's to it's employee's at a 50-60% off retail price.

My old PC was an intel dual core E6600, 4 gigs of ram, vista, hd 5770 1 gig vid card.

It played WoW just fine. I'm not a huge gamer, but I do game a bit (most of my gaming is on the PS3).

I'm looking at these 2 HP's and was wondering if any experts here can see any problems I may have with poping in a nicer beefier video card and maybe upgrading the power supply.

Mind you, I'm only going to be playing wow and maybe a few other games on there

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c03353621&cc=us&dlc=en&enc=UTF-8&lc=en&product=5258431&sw_lang=hr&swlinkmsg=100#N33


http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?objectID=c03348828&lang=en&cc=us&taskId=101&contentType=SupportFAQ&prodSeriesId=5187022&prodTypeId=12454


First one is $500

The second unit is $600

One last question. For medium of the road gaming rigs is an Intel based unit better than AMD

BOth of the above machines are AMD processors.

Thanks for any comments, suggestions!

 

[Ken g6]

Yes, an Intel unit would be better. If you're looking to replace your old system with something similar, even the lowly G620 is better than what you had; and you can always pop an even better Sandy Bridge processor in the socket later. Your 5770 is actually still a decent video card; it was renamed to the 6770 and they still go for ~$100. I'd reuse it.

 

[acctingman69]

Thank you Ken

I'm actually going with another HP we have at my work. It's an Intel Core i5-2400, 12 gig of Ram, 7200rpm drive.

My vid card is shot from the old machine, so I have to pick up another one.

Going to take out my power supply from the old unit. This HP only has a 300w and I don't think that's enough.

Thanks!

 

[AnonymouseUser]

Thank you Ken

I'm actually going with another HP we have at my work. It's an Intel Core i5-2400, 12 gig of Ram, 7200rpm drive.

My vid card is shot from the old machine, so I have to pick up another one.

Going to take out my power supply from the old unit. This HP only has a 300w and I don't think that's enough.

Thanks!

12G of RAM is overkill, so if you can save some money and get it with less RAM, do it.

Also, I wouldn't use that old PSU - it might be what killed your old PC.

 

[acctingman69]

I have one other question

The HP I'm getting says it supports PCI Express x16 video cards, but I see on New Egg PCI Express 2.0, 2.1 and 3.0

How can I tell which one my PC can handle? Is it JUST PCI Express x16? Not sure I understand the differences.

 

[infoiltrator]

Do not know the quality of HP power supplies these days, but depending on your upgrade choices it should be fine. An I5 2400 is an excellent CPU, 95 Watt, and only minimally overclockable, if HP allows overclocking at all. That leaves 200 watts if you can max your processor, which is difficult short of stress tests or benchmarking.
.
As an alternative (if you are in USA) you can upgrade to a Corsair CX or Antec NEO ECO or VP450 (wait for a newegg sale) or a Rosewill Capstone.
Note, going with a not modular power supply in a stock HP Case may require creative cable management.

PCIe 2.0,2.1,3.0 x16 are compatible. There are no PCIe3.0x16 cards yet, and you need a Z77 or an older motherboard designed for it with a BIOS firmware update. I doubt HP designed this in.
There is a bandwith advantage, 3.0slots operate at twice the data rate of 2.0,2.1.
This can offer advantages for Crossfire/SLI slots with multiple GPUs, not an issue here.

 

[Ken g6]

Thank you Ken

I'm actually going with another HP we have at my work. It's an Intel Core i5-2400, 12 gig of Ram, 7200rpm drive.

My vid card is shot from the old machine, so I have to pick up another one.

Going to take out my power supply from the old unit. This HP only has a 300w and I don't think that's enough.

Thanks!

12G of RAM is overkill, so if you can save some money and get it with less RAM, do it.

Also, I wouldn't use that old PSU - it might be what killed your old PC.

It sounds like you need to save some money to get a video card and/or a PSU. Actually, if you get a Radeon HD 7750, which is comparable to your old card, you could use whatever PSU comes with the system you buy.

If you are only using this system for WoW, and you were happy with the performance of your old system, then I suggest aiming for an i3-2120 at most. WoW is not highly-threaded, so an i5 isn't hugely better than an i3, or even a G620 for that matter.

As for slots, an x16 (or x1) slot refers to the slot length and number of pins.

x16 slot:

x1 slot:

All useful GPUs use x16. PCIe 2.0, 2.1, and 3.0 refer to versions of the PCIe spec, and to bus clock speeds available. They should always be backward-compatible, though your system might require a BIOS update first.

 

[acctingman69]

Thanks everyone!

Looks like I'm good to go. Just need to buy a new video card. Might upgrade the Power Supply down the road!