How best to upgrade an HP500B MT on a small budget?

[Matthew Forish]

So my company just finished a big round of system upgrades and decided to give away the previous systems to employees. I received an HP 500B Microtower (specs below) and was thinking about using some of my tax return to buy a few bells and whistles to improve its ability to play games (WOW, SW:TOR, Batman Arkham games, Minecraft, etc) and do video editing (Using Adobe Premiere Elements 10 currently). Figured I would toss this out and see what people might suggest.

MFG: Hewlett-Packard
Model: HP 500B Microtower
Processor: Intel Core2 Duo CPU, E7500 @2.93 GHz 2.94 GHz
Installed Ram: 4.0 GB (3.0 GB Usable) DDR3 (This is also the maximum RAM supported)
Operating System: Windows 7 Professional, 32 Bit
Hard Drive: 350 GB SATA
Power Supply: 300W

Expansion Slots:
(1) Full-Height PCI 2.3 slot
(2) Full-Height PCIe x1 slots
(1) Full-Height PICe x16


Not being a hardware guy, my knowledge is a bit limited, but my first thoughts were that it needs a new power supply, a graphics card and an additional hard drive. If you disagree with this assessment, please tell me why and what you would do instead. If my thoughts are sound, then I am looking for advice on power supply, graphics card and hard drive that won't cost too much. I am probably working on a budget of $50-$100 per component, or $150-$300 overall, as I need to be able to talk my wife into allowing each purchase. (She's on board, as she games too, but we are on a budget and don't make purchases like this without being in agreement.)


** Also, the "3.0 GB Usable Ram" is due to my Windows 7 being the 32 bit version, correct? (So if I wanted to use the full 4 GB, I need to upgrade to a 64 bit OS, right?)

 

[2Be_or_Not2Be]

You can probably get by with just adding a dedicated graphics card. Something like a GTX 750 ti would get you into the gaming world with decent performance. Most importantly, it can run with a 300W PSU!

Separately, don't worry about the RAM side. Yes, if you have a 32-bit OS, then you can access around 3-3.5GB of RAM. It would take a 64-bit OS to access all 4GB. HOWEVER, you are perfectly fine with the 4GB on the 32-bit OS. Likely, if you encounter a game that needs more, you are going to need a whole new system because undoubtedly it will need a faster graphics card as well.

So add the dedicated graphics, and don't worry about the rest until you want a complete system upgrade.

Edit: Here's a link to a 750 Ti card.