How much can I upgrade this?

[Foreign-Object]

I recently got my brothers desktop, because he never uses it. It is an Asus CM 1745. http://www.asus.com/Desktop/Entertainment/CM1745/#specifications

I am not all that great with computer parts and stuff like that which is why I do not know what all to put in it to upgrade it, and I don't know what will work with what parts are already in the computer.

I play a lot of video games, for example Guild Wars 2, or Diablo 3


My plan was to upgrade the graphics card, get some more ram and possibly upgrade the processor.

I have however put in a new graphics card : GeForce GT 610 GC 2GB DDR3 PCI Express 2.0 Graphics Card
It works ok, but I would like to either get a better one, or possibly get a second one, to run along with this one?

Looking to get this stuff around Christmas time, with the budget of $300-$600.

I do not know what else to tell you guys, other than the fact that I need help.

 

[combine1237]

The card you put in is a bad card for gaming. The gt series is designed for everyday computing, for $600 you could build an overall much better system than the one you have now with much better upgrade capability.

This is my opinion, I am no expert.

 

[blazorthon]

What CPU/APU does it have?

 

[cliffro]

It has a 350w Power Supply, other than that the only limitation may be case size. It has 2 PCI-E x16 slots, so 2 cards are possible, but I don't think the 610's can SLI.

If you get much more than the 610, I'd upgrade the PSU as well.

 

[Foreign-Object]

It has an AMD A6-3620

 

[blazorthon]

The GT 610 is much weaker for gaming than the A6-3620's integrated graphics IIRC.

Honestly, you'd probably be better off selling this computer and buying a new one anyway. I can make a parts list for a $400 computer (including OS) that outperforms this. If you'd rather upgrade it, then I'll see what I can do:

You'll definitely need a new PSU to get a proper graphics card such as a Radeon 7750. It won't need to be anything fancy, an ~$30 Antec VP-350 would do the job. A good Radeon 7750 would cost an additional around $80-100.

If your motherboard supports overclocking, then getting a cheap new CPU cooler such as a Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo (can be found for less than $30) and overclocking the CPU cores of that A6-3620 would also be helpful, although if you went that way, the Antec VP-450 PSU would probably be a better option than the VP-350. It's only slightly more expensive, so still no big deal there.

Altogether, at that point the upgrades would costs around $$140-$180 and it'd be an exponentially faster gaming machine. It wouldn't even really be mid-ranged, but it'd be good.Since the games that you mentioned aren't particularly intensive games, it'd probably work out great.

 

[iam2thecrowe]

^+1

 

[tsnor]

Hey,

A6 is an OK CU, not great, but certainly OK.

The integrated graphics in an A6 are weak compared to most discrete video cards, but not compared to the GT 610. The GT 610 is 29 Watt Fermi -- a rebadge of the GT 520 "This is truly a rock bottom card meant to be a cheap as possible upgrade for older computers, as even an Ivy Bridge HD4000 iGPU should be able to handily surpass it." http://www.anandtech.com/show/5845/nvidia-launches-fermi-based-geforce-gt-610-gt-620-gt-630-into-retail

First try pulling the GT610 and see if your gaming gets better. You should be gaming noticeably better without the GT610. Remember to install an AMD video driver AFTER you pull the GT610. Not sure the integrated video is detected with an nvidia card in the PCI slot.

You can add a card like the HD7770 for $130 and get good gaming performance with the rest of your system. With the "350 W Peak" power supply you should be OK with the existing power supply. The A6 is a 65W max part, the HD7770 is an 80W part. Should be no problem even for a "350 W Peak" power supply. (There is a sticker on the power supply, can you post the 12V amps? the word "peak" scares me on a power supply). For a total budget of $130 you now have a good gaming PC.

When you decide that you need more performance you can either look at a CPU upgrade keeping the HD7770 or swap out the MB and CPU.

 

[DarkSable]

The card you put in is a bad card for gaming. The gt series is designed for everyday computing

Wait, I thought it was the other way around? I mean, obviously it's not anymore, but didn't the gt cards used to be the premium versions of the gtx cards? I know the 9800gt was like that...

 

[blazorthon]

The GT series has included some higher performing and lower performing cards over the years. These days, it's only lower performance cards. Ironically, the reference current top retail GT card of the current Nvidia generation, the GT 640, isn't even really a faster card than the much older 8800 GT and 9800 GT cards. It's fairly on-par with them.

 

[DarkSable]

Gotcha, that makes sense. And yeah, I was surprised when my 670 was only about twice as good as my 9800gt. (Still love both cards though.)

 

[blazorthon]

GTX 670 you mean?

 

[combine1237]

Yep, sorry for the confusion meant current generation cards.

 

[blazorthon]

Yep, sorry for the confusion meant current generation cards.

The GTX 670 is many, many times faster than even the fastest cards from the GT series, the GT 545 (OEM) GDDR5 and GT 640 (OEM) GDDR5 (these OEM cards are quite a lot faster than the retail GT 640, 8800 GT, and 9800 GT, but they're generally rare finds for home builders because they're intended for OEMs). If you're only getting about double the performance compared to a 9800 GT with a GTX 670, then there is a different bottle-neck preventing the computer well properly utilizing the GTX 670's performance.

 

[Foreign-Object]

The game (Guild Wars 2, SWTOR) wouldn't even run with only using the integrated card. I would get to the character selection screen, and the lag would already be terrible. So, I went out (on a budget) and bought a new card the GT 610, and now it only lags when I get into large scale fights. Not sure if this is at all relevant to anything though.

 

[blazorthon]

It might be because of your system's memory not being fast enough for the APU's integrated GPU to perform properly.

As for large-scale fights, that might be the graphics, but it might instead or also be the CPU not being able to keep up at that point. Having lots of objects requires more CPU performance than fewer objects, hence the reasoning.