Business PC to gaming PC upgrade order

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Noicium

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Aug 6, 2015
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I was looking into converting a business PC no longer used for business into a pc built for gaming and general use. It is an HP Compaq 8200 Elite Convertible Minitower, Specs are as follows: Intel core i5-2400 (3.10 Ghz), Onboard Graphics (meaning no gfx card), 4GB DDR3 Ram, The motherboard's model could not be found, and I figure Its to be one of the first things I upgrade since it doesnt even support HDMI, and a 320 Watt HP power supply. I wanted to upgrade this over time, adding parts as I go. My question is, in what order should I upgrade the parts so that they are all compatible along the way?
 
Solution
JasonL265
You don't have to upgrade the mother board right away, you can get HDMI output with a Graphics card which should be one of the first thing you upgrade, but your power supply probably won't support alot of the newer graphics cards (think the best card that can run on 320 watt is a GTX 750Ti), so you might want to upgrade that PSU as well.

4GB is ok but you will want at least 8 GB for most of today's games.

After that you can upgrade your Motherboard and CPU, your second generation I5 is perfectly capable of running most of today's games.
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You don't have to upgrade the mother board right away, you can get HDMI output with a Graphics card which should be one of the first thing you upgrade, but your power supply probably won't support alot of the newer graphics cards (think the best card that can run on 320 watt is a GTX 750Ti), so you might want to upgrade that PSU as well.

4GB is ok but you will want at least 8 GB for most of today's games.

After that you can upgrade your Motherboard and CPU, your second generation I5 is perfectly capable of running most of today's games.
 
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Solution
I dont really have a budget as I am looking to upgrade over time, but of course the parts shouldnt be crazy over the top

 
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So psu > gfx card > ram > motherboard >cpu?

 
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ok. first of all, get a better PSU. I know this will have nothignon performance, but it will let you start gaming.
after that, you can add a GPU. this will get you into gaming, and then after that, you might as well put another 4GB stick of RAM, as its only 20 bucks these days.
 
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you can combine the motherboard and CPU together.
 
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Cool I think I have my upgrade order, thats about it :)

 
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PSU & Graphics card > RAM > Motherboard & CPU.

PSU will have no real affect on performance so you should upgrade your GPU as well, but this will more money.

And you will have to upgrade Motherboard and CPU together since they will have a different chipset then your 2nd gen one.
 
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Ok, I really just needed an outline so i could see what could be done and when to do what, so I think I have it!


 
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what are you ordering then? it might be a shitty PSU or a bad GPU....
 
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I havent quite decided, like i said, i was just looking for a general guideline so that I know everything will be compatible

 
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There has to be a workaround, looking at the PSU, it looks nothing special.

 
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but if he replaces the motherboard, that shouldn't be a problem...
 
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Then I can just upgrade the motherboard first.

 
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true. get a PSU and platform upgrade, as it just wont work...
 
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Which will require new case and copy of windows.
 
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Ok then, I may just wait entirely and get all the parts at once and just salvage the ram.

 
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