Upgrade Old HP Computer

[shoogie107]

I have a friend that wants me to upgrade his old HP computer (made in 2009) to be able to play modern games like Battlefield 4 and Far Cry 4 at 1080p. He wants to get into PC gaming.

The Specs:
CPU: Intel Pentium E5300 @ 2.6GHz
Memory: 4 GB DDR2
GPU: Integrated graphics

My plan was to just get a new graphics card, but I don't know if the CPU or the Memory will hold back a R7 260x.

P.S. I know with the Pentium, the graphics card will be held back a bit, but I don't know how much.

 

[ronintexas]

That is a mid-low range CPU - a good gaming CPU is around 8 to 10 times the processor that he has....upgrading the processor will probably require a new mobo, new RAM and a new PSU. When you add in the GPU, almost everything is new except the DVD drive, the HDD and the case....

 

[RunLuke]

The amount of RAM will be an issue for sure but so will the CPU, so I doubt you'll be reaching any sort of high quality settings and probably not impressive frame rates in the two games mentioned. I don't know if they will be unplayable, but BF4 will not run particularly beautifully, even less so regarding far cry 4.

Getting the GPU (provided there's enough power to run it) is fine till you can upgrade the rest of the system.

 

[boosted1g]

Even a 260x would be bottlenecked by that old pentium. Not enough to not work, but the cpu would probably only be able to handle 80% of the muscle, even worse in very cpu demanding games.

What you can do is get a GTX 750 ti and tell him that if he wants to get more into PC gaming he will need to get a completely new tower.

I dont know what model of HP computer you have but often HP and Dell both use very one-off proprietary parts that make them incompatible to be upgraded with normal ATX standard parts.
Then even if you replace everything inside the tower but the dvd drive and the case itself it, the case was never designed to cool a gaming rig, and it might not even support a full size video card.

While yes he could upgrade the cpu to a core 2 duo or core 2 quad the gain is not worth the cost and would be much much better spent saving for a new rig.

 

[shoogie107]

While yes he could upgrade the cpu to a core 2 duo or core 2 quad the gain is not worth the cost and would be much much better spent saving for a new rig.

I was able to find a Core 2 Quad Q6600 on ebay for 30 dollars. Would that be a worthy upgrade?

 

[ronintexas]

A "decent" computer is going to be at least $400, and usually the sweet spot is around $600-$800. I seriously doubt a $30 computer will be much of an upgrade for anything....