Looking to upgrade the iBUYPOWER Black Gamer Power WA550B

[M4TTSA]

A while back I purchased this gaming pc from Walmart and now I'm looking to upgrade it. I'm fairly new to the idea of pc building and upgrading so please ELI5. I want to run more modern games at high settings at a stable frame rate.


Thanks!

 

[clutchc]

That PC uses a conventional mini tower case with a bottom mount PSU, so upgrading it should not be hard. They sold several versions of that model, so list what specs yours has.
CPU, GPU, PSU, etc. I believe the first thing you'll want to do is replace the PSU, but I won't know until I have an idea of what it came with. If you can post a picture of the inside with the side panel removed, all the better.

Btw, I know I'm old, but I had to look up ELI5...lol.

 

[M4TTSA]

That PC uses a conventional mini tower case with a bottom mount PSU, so upgrading it should not be hard. They sold several versions of that model, so list what specs yours has.
CPU, GPU, PSU, etc. I believe the first thing you'll want to do is replace the PSU, but I won't know until I have an idea of what it came with. If you can post a picture of the inside with the side panel removed, all the better.

Btw, I know I'm old, but I had to look up ELI5...lol.

Alright, here is a photo

And here is the full spec list:

Chassis Raidmax Horus
Chassis Dimensions 19.5” x 8.1” x 18.5”
Processor AMD FX-4300 Zambezi (3.8GHz/4.0GHz Turbo, 4MB L2 Cache) Quad Core
Processor Socket AM3+
Motherboard AMD 760G
Graphics Card NVIDIA GeForce GT 730
Video Memory 2GB
Power Supply 350 Watt - ATX

Also has Windows 10 and 8gbs of ram

 

[clutchc]

Yeah, that PSU will have to go if you want to upgrade beyond the GTX 750 Ti ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&IsNodeId=1&N=100007709%204814%20600487565%20600007787%20600007782 )

The FX-4300 can be upgraded too, but it will depend on the exact model of m/b you have. AMD 760G is simply the chipset.
But I would say that as it sits right now, a new PSU (500W - 600W) will run any card that the FX-4300 can keep up with w/o major bottleneck: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007657%2050001516%2050001402%2050001697%2050001669%2050002177%20600014066%20600014068%20600014070%20600014072%20600014075%20600014077%204814%20600014078%20&IsNodeId=1

Once the PSU has been upgraded, you can go with a GTX 950 or even a GTX 960 http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&IsNodeId=1&N=100007709%20600582123%20600537575
...or an AMD 380 http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&IsNodeId=1&N=100007709%20600565502
...for best performance from your current CPU.

 

[M4TTSA]

Yeah, that PSU will have to go if you want to upgrade beyond the GTX 750 Ti ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&IsNodeId=1&N=100007709%204814%20600487565%20600007787%20600007782 )

The FX-4300 can be upgraded too, but it will depend on the exact model of m/b you have. AMD 760G is simply the chipset.
But I would say that as it sits right now, a new PSU (500W - 600W) will run any card that the FX-4300 can keep up with w/o major bottleneck: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007657%2050001516%2050001402%2050001697%2050001669%2050002177%20600014066%20600014068%20600014070%20600014072%20600014075%20600014077%204814%20600014078%20&IsNodeId=1

Once the PSU has been upgraded, you can go with a GTX 950 or even a GTX 960 http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&IsNodeId=1&N=100007709%20600582123%20600537575
...or an AMD 380 http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&IsNodeId=1&N=100007709%20600565502
...for best performance from your current CPU.

Thanks for the reply! Here is the newegg link that I have to my m/b http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130722

 

[clutchc]

Good. Here's the website for that board: https://us.msi.com/product/motherboard/760GMA-P34-FX.html#hero-overview
The board accepts up to the FX-8350/8370 with the same BIOS you have now (7641vP0)

But it looks like iBuypower put an aftermarket cooler on the board. I wonder if the AMD retention brackets have been removed. Or if that is a proprietary version of the 760GMA-P34 (FX)? The cooler is mounted with bolts thru the board. Not like retail AMD boards. No problem unless you wanted to replace the cooler with something for OC'ing.

 

[Marcos_8]

I acutally purchased this computer also and so far have upgraded a few things.

I changed the PSU to an EVGA SuperNOVA 750w
I changed the GPU to Sapphire NITRO R9 380
I added 8gb of RAM(Corsair Ballistix)


But, based on other people's experiences with this GPU, I feel as if the GPU is being bottlenecked by the CPU. I dont know what CPU to buy, however. Can anyone help?

 

[M4TTSA]

Good. Here's the website for that board: https://us.msi.com/product/motherboard/760GMA-P34-FX.html#hero-overview
The board accepts up to the FX-8350/8370 with the same BIOS you have now (7641vP0)

But it looks like iBuypower put an aftermarket cooler on the board. I wonder if the AMD retention brackets have been removed. Or if that is a proprietary version of the 760GMA-P34 (FX)? The cooler is mounted with bolts thru the board. Not like retail AMD boards. No problem unless you wanted to replace the cooler with something for OC'ing.

Would you like more photos? Not sure what all these parts are though.

 

[Marcos_8]

Someone please answer