Upgrading old PC

Chuck_223

Commendable
Jul 2, 2016
11
0
1,520
Ok so ive got this old hp tower from my cousin for free, i just bought a graphics card that was a pile of crap because i thought the fact that it had 2gb of vram meant it was a good card, i obviously dont know what i am doing. so i came here to the professionals to see if anyone would like to help me and maybe learn some things on the way. Its an hp pavillion model p7-1254 here are the specs:

http://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c03135882

All i want to know is if this computer is upgrade-able to the point of playing arma 3 with fairly good graphics and maybe some links to those particular upgrades. Or would it be cheaper to just buy an entirely new pc.
 
Solution
I suggest that you look for a new pc, not just from an economical perspective but practically you will avoid the hassle of compatibility issues that might happen when mixing hardware, and most importantly the limited upgrade path for your particular pc, you may be able to upgrade the graphics card and the power supply but that's about it and when looking at the motherboard and the cpu they will hold back your gaming experience by some annoyances even after upgrading the card and the power unit, so my advice is to avoid all these troubles and save this PC for secondary usage and plan for a new PC that will last you for a long time instead of upgrading something that will serve you for a short duration and eventually you will buy a new PC.
I suggest that you look for a new pc, not just from an economical perspective but practically you will avoid the hassle of compatibility issues that might happen when mixing hardware, and most importantly the limited upgrade path for your particular pc, you may be able to upgrade the graphics card and the power supply but that's about it and when looking at the motherboard and the cpu they will hold back your gaming experience by some annoyances even after upgrading the card and the power unit, so my advice is to avoid all these troubles and save this PC for secondary usage and plan for a new PC that will last you for a long time instead of upgrading something that will serve you for a short duration and eventually you will buy a new PC.
 
Solution
as a fellow arma 3 man i agree that while theres nothing wrong with seeing what you can do with what you have, you most likely arent going to get far with that. arma 3 is believe it or not, one of the most demanding games out there, especially when it comes to your cpu, and on top of that it uses an engine thats doesnt scale well so even in the best system, you're probably not going to see 60fps on ultra (not in multiplayer, at least). the single best thing you can do to improve your arma perf is getting a higher end cpu and oc'ing it. for this you will want a k series intel, and either a z or x series mobo, depending on cpu. this is going to cost you some money. best advice. start by getting a good cpu, such as i5 or i7 k series, get an x or z series mobo, and go from there. maybe you cant afford the rest right now, but you can buy more over time. imo its not worth building a $500 pc its just not going to be that much better than what you have.