Help Iam new. I just bought a gaming PC

That system has a very weak graphics card, and a CPU that isn't that great either. It's going to struggle with a lot of games to tell the truth, the GT 520 isn't a gaming card, it's meant more for basic web browsing and office task, and video playback. If you want to upgrade your graphics card to something more capable it would help to know how much you are willing to spend, and more details about the power supply, like a brand and model number. All it says on the eBay page is 550 Watts, but there are a lot of crappy power supplies out there that say they can deliver that much, but really can't.
 

chinchilla_bob

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Mar 27, 2012
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Everyone has a different starting point with their PC, most on here I am assuming would build themselves, including me.

You've taken the first step to PC gaming, congrats! As to can it or will it run most of your games it depends on what you want to play and on what settings. I suspect it will play most games on a low resolution with low detail level, there may be the odd exception. It will need some work done to it to get you REALLY smiling an glad you made the switch.

Now, the AM3 platform that motherboard has does in fact allow you some very cost effective upgrades should you wish at a later date once your appetite for gaming has been wetted and you want to raise the detail levels within the games. Naturally there is a price for this but you can simply buy a faster AM3 processor and replace the one you have in there already. Likewise you can swap out the graphics card to a better one later on down the line too.

How much for these potential upgrades, well that's down to budget but I would say $100 on a CPU and $100 on a GPU and you will be well on your way to solid game play at good resolution with a good level of detail. You can also then sell the current GPU or CPU as you replace them to offset the costs ;)

From now on in you are on the PC train, spend time reading the forums, see for yourself what your PC can do once you have tried playing a few games and if you want to improve things then go ahead and ask, the forums full of people willing to help
 

wr6133

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Feb 10, 2012
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That PC is well weak but like Bob said above it has room to expand. Unfortunately your CPU upgrade window is narrowing on that Mobo as Phenom II is the upgrade and they are slowly fading away. GPU is a bit of a turkey too your going to be stuck on pretty low graphical settings with that. Would have been better if you asked here before you bought :)

Saying that though. Welcome to PC gaming the best thing since sliced bread!
 
You should have checked the forums here first before buying. This "gaming PC", is not. At the least you need to upgrade the video card, but you also need to check the brand and model of the power supply. If they listed this PC as a gaming PC, I'm sure the 550 watt power supply they used is the cheapest they could find, which means it puts out probably 300 watts.

For a pretty cheap upgrade that should work OK with your system, a Radeon 6770 would be OK to get. Although if the power supply is really bad, it could cause issues.
 

joafu

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Jan 3, 2011
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This is a predominantly BIY community, so many of our red flags went up immediately given that you were buying a prebuilt. You'll have to give us a few ideas of what you want to run on that, and at what kind of resolution. Don't be discouraged, your PC will be able to handle a large amount of titles; the GT 520 gets more hate then it should because it doesn't do so well with the benchmarks, but it will get you through some solid gaming if you realize its limitations and account for them. First, get comfortable withsystem requirements lab, it is extremely useful for determining if you have the minimum stats to run a game, but should be taken as more of a guide than absolute rule.

The greatest part of owning a PC for gaming is your ability to upgrade, and when you finally get to that point (don't worry about it now, get a feel for your machine first and decide if you need more power or if you can wait), the first upgrade you should get is the video card. Depending on what your PSU is (get a detailed sheet from your seller on the parts, and hang on to it), your options will vary since most GPUs nowadays require additional power from a special connection from the PSU. Three cards to consider, depending on what price you can find them at: HD5670, HD6670, GT440. These should be your starting point, any lower than that, and you're really limiting yourself for how much you'd be spending. Put aside at least $80 to get started, and after switching, realize that you could probably get 30 or 40 bucks for selling the 520 you're taking out.

The CPU will have more gaming viability (my brother was running Company of Heroes, Fallout 3 and NV, and even The Old Republic on a Sempron 140- far less than what you have), but after a graphics card upgrade, any increase in performance will be limited by the CPU. Skip the triple cores, you'll pay upwards of $70 for a net single core increase, best to just pony up $100 and get a quad. As wr6133 said, the AM3 platform is now inferior, so CPU production for it is being phased out. Finding a good price on an upgrade will take time, so watch the market before pulling the trigger. You'll want to move up to a Phenom 955, but even an Athlon quad core, if you can find a reasonable price on it, would be worthwhile. Don't go for a 6-core, you won't need it for gaming.

If it were me, depending on how well that GT 520 performs (hardware forums tend to dislike it, but it gets good reviews at retailers; I don't have one so I'm on the fence), I'd just go with your set up for a few months. You'll want to upgrade eventually, but if you don't mind it just stick with it for a while; absolutely take advantage of any deals you see when Thanksgiving rolls around, that might be a good time to upgrade.

Now that we've dealt with the hardware, make accounts on Steam and gog.com; these are my recommendations for gaming software. They both have ample sales (and you'll want to wait for them on Steam: I bought Oblivion GOTY for like $6), Steam has many demos so you can try out games/test your hardware, and gog has DRM-free games, usually dated a bit but still fantastic. Newegg is my preferred hardware retailer for parts and reviews, though amazon and tigerdirect are swell as well; amazon manages to beat newegg a lot in both price and availability, so always compare. Tomshardware and anandtech are where I like to read up on the tech; toms does a monthly "best CPU, GPU for the money", and it is an incredible article. I'd suggest at least reading the bottom and second to bottom category every month just to get a feel for where your potential upgrades lie.

I'll leave you with my thoughts on where you should be able to start, based on benchmarks. My laptop has a 2.9GHz dual core with HD 4250 graphics. If I punch my hardware up and tweak the graphics settings, I can play Fallout 3 (medium settings) easy; Company of Heroes (low settings) easy; Civ 5 (low settings) on small maps decently; Civ 4 (high settings) on medium worlds, or I'll dial down for larger worlds; Left for Dead 1 on medium settings; and Skyrim barely (like at 800x600, it looks worse than Morrowind (which runs great on high btw) at this point, but it's playable and smooth- mostly to say I can). We'll assume that both our GPUs are the limiting factor, and most benchmarks put your GT 520 at twice the results as my HD 4250, so it stands that you should be able to get at least these but mostly increased results on your system.

/I'm a bracket whore
 
I don't mind prebuilts, but you really should have asked us before buying. Maybe he has a return policy? I'm sorry but that PC is really bad, for the money you can buy the parts at your local PC store and get them to put it together for you. I know here the store will do it for $75.

Still, that prebuilt will play many games fine. I guess it depends on you. You won't be playing Battlefield 3 online but there's a lot of PC games out there.
 

abhinav_03

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Apr 5, 2012
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Hello,
Want to know if your current hardware & software will work with Windows 7? Check out these links: **Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor ** **Windows 7 Compatibility Center**
 

hushinimi

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Jan 19, 2012
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not to let you down, but gonna be honest with you, ( I know a little , I'll try lol)

gt520 isn't for gaming .
I am not familiar with the CPU , but now a days quad CPU is recommended for a gaming PC
now for graphics card, that depends on what resolution your at, but if you after quality and performance, that mean's you need more money for a better graphic's card or over all system hardware.

upgrading will sure hustle you if you don't have any budget for it , since you need to upgrade your power supply in order to run a graphic's card that requires a good amount of power from the power supply, the pc you have bought probably has a generic or not so good power supply for mid to high end graphics card.

that being said, you should invest more or a bit more money and better yet, cancel your purchase if possible. :love: