Did I buy a lousy PC for gaming?

[BaconAddict]

I recently purchased what I thought was a decent PC for home office and casual gaming. However, I am getting poor performance on even older games(GTA 4 getting only 11 fps :/ ). Following is my configuration....any ideas for improvement?
HP Pavilion Elite HPE-580t customizable Desktop PC
• Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
• Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-950 quad-core [3.06GHz, 1MB L2 + 8MB shared L3 cache]
• 8GB DDR3-1066MHz SDRAM [4 DIMMs]
• FREE UPGRADE! 1.5TB 7200 rpm SATA 3Gb/s hard drive from 750GB
• No additional office software
• Norton Internet Security(TM) 2011 - 15 month
• 1GB DDR3 AMD Radeon HD 6450 [DVI, HDMI. VGA adapter]
• FREE UPGRADE! Blu-ray player & Lightscribe SuperMulti DVD burner
• Integrated Ethernet port, No wireless LAN
• 15-in-1 memory card reader, 1 USB, 1394, audio
• No TV Tuner
• Integrated sound

 

[keato02]

many people dont know that gta4 is actualy a demanding game. a friend of mine got a 1090t amd phenom and 16 gbs of ram and a 6950 and on max it only gets about 25-45 fps

anyways back to your system. the cpu and rest looks good but the graphics card needs an upgrade. not a major one, mabey only crossfire solution is enghu (if you got the money and the psu for it )

 

[howardp6]

The video card is a little weak depending on you power supply I would upgrade to a better card

 

[wolfram23]

6450 is made for watching HD movies and that's about it. So yeah, not a gaming PC. You should get minimum of a 6770 IMO.

 

[holdingholder]

The video card is very weak, it probably gives you about 10%- 20%of what you would need for decent gaming. Dump it and get yourself a good mid range card and you will be fine.

 

[bucknutty]

The 6450 costs around $40 and is currently the lowest power lowest cost amd card made. Its great for office and movies but it cant play games.
Look at a 6770 for around 100 or a 6850 for aroun 150 as the minimum graphics card you need for games.

 

[BaconAddict]

Thanks for all the replies. I am a little naive when it comes to this, I thought the 1GB of ddr3 video ram was going to be nice. I will be watching for upgrade deals. Should I consider the nvidia products at all?

 

[neonneophyte]

consider both companies for sure, ultimately get the video card that will suit your needs and give you the best performance with cost/performance/minimum performance level in mind. for me it comes down to studying the entire market segment and then watching the sales at major online distributors. that one killer sale is what does it for me, could be either company

 

[wolfram23]

Nvidia is fine as well. If you're looking at around $100-150 I think the 6770 and 6790 from Radeon or the 550 Ti from Nvidia are right around that area.

1gb of VRAM doesn't mean squat about performance, since they throw 1gb at everything these days.

 

[Temp_Username]

Just return it and build a PC from scratch. Can't believe they called this a gaming PC... Maybe 3 years ago it was.

 

[wolfram23]

Besides the GPU it's a pretty solid PC. Sure, an i5 2500k is a much better CPU now but a 950 is no slouch.

 

[ram1009]

IMHO, you should ONLY consider Nvidia. AMD has buggy drivers. Always have.

 

[samuelspark]

IMHO, you should ONLY consider Nvidia. AMD has buggy drivers. Always have.

What are you talking about? AMD is good and uses less power, produces less heat, and has better performance/price ratio.

 

[jeffredo]

The video card is the only weak point really. Problem is the power supply is most likely sub par for anything better.

 

[samuelspark]

Go get a 6850. Only $150 and you don't need a great PSU.

 

[CaedenV]

The problem with starting with an HP (other than that they may be giving their PC branch the axe soon), is that you are already limiting what your computer was 'designed' to do. The mobo try is not going to be a standard ATX, the power supply may also be slightly off the ATX spec so that you have to pay an arm and a leg to get anything better. That is the other reason to consider only AMD products for graphics, because they use less power, and power will be a major constraint in this system.
For the same $800-1000 you could have bought much better/more modern parts, and learned a lot putting them together. Don't get me wrong, it is not a bad computer, and I actually like low end HPs as they are a great deal. The problem is that on the high end they (and all big companies) really rip you off compared to what you can do with the smallest bit of know-how. And when you have to upgrade the thing anyways then it completely defeats the point.

 

[BaconAddict]

I bought this in Feb for $900 delivered. Was pretty decent deal at the time compared to home built (esp considering it came with legal OS). There are 2 Two PCI Express 2.0 x16 slots. The P/S is 460 Watt. I think I will watch for a deal on the 6850. I could have had the 6850 at the time I ordered for $100 additional...dang!

 

[gnomio]

Look for the 6870

 

[ajaat]

Yeah,listen gnomio,look for the 6870 it gives extremely fast perfomance in gaming and 3d design softwares.but 6850 is also a very good card.and as i know gta-4 is very poorly coded,it depends more on CPU than GPU.

 

[samuelspark]

He said casual gaming. 6850 will do.

 

[ajaat]

Sorry!I forgot that....

 

[BaconAddict]

Best answer selected by BaconAddict.

 

[BaconAddict]

Ordered and installed the 6850. I am all set. Thanks to all who replied. GTA4 runs well now. Felony time!

 

[Mousemonkey]

This topic has been closed by Mousemonkey