Woot Computer Graphics Card Question

[snowthedirtbub]

I've been looking into building a new computer lately and I went online and found this one on woot today, http://tech.woot.com/offers/hp-envy-quad-core-i7-desktop-w-12gb-ram. With me pricing around these past couple of months I don't think I can build a similar specc'd pc for cheaper. The computer will be used for light gaming and it has a GT 630 2gb. From brief reviews I've seen this is a basic budget card that is ok, but since this is today only and they may sell out I need a quick answer and don't have time to research it completely.

So is this card adequate for some light newer gaming? Games like Far Cry 3. And if needed can I easily upgrade this pc with a better graphics card? It has (3) PCI Express x1 slots (available) (1) PCI Express x16 slot (occupied), I'm not up to date on PCI Express and what good graphic cards are required to use so any help on this would be appreciated.

Thank you for any help.

 

[hizodge]

It has desktop graphics which is not suitable for gaming in general. Also the power supply is 460W and presumably of a lower quality so should you want to replace the GPU with some a high-end gaming card, you'd also need to swap out the PSU. You could probably get something like a GTX 660 Ti or HD 7870 working just fine. That PC also has too much RAM and it could do just as well with a Core i5 3570 CPU which would bring the price down quite a bit. Also Windows 8 sucks.

Overall I don't think that's a very good deal.

 

[johnnychuttz]

I did something similar a few years ago when I got back in to PC gaming. Bought a prebuilt i5 Asus on the cheap and added a PSU and gpu.

Not a terrible deal, save for the lowest bidder mother board and the power supply would be suspect when/if you upgrade the GPU. It does have SATA6Gb, so you can add an SSD.

You wont be able to over clock that i7, ever.

The GT630 would be hard pressed to play any new/upcoming AAA titles on anything higher than Medium Settings @1080p. Its a GDDR3(Slower memory) card with 128 bit memory bus. :yuk:

If you have a Micro center nearby, you would probably be able to get pretty close to that price with better components by building yourself.

Here are the complete specs in case you didn't find them.

Rig
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsuppor...t.jsp?objectID=c03517356&prodSeriesId=5295996

Mobo
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?cc=us&lc=en&dlc=en&docname=c03132942#N787

 

[snowthedirtbub]

Thanks for the responses/links, looks like I'm gonna pass. I figured a core i7 is almost half the price of a $700 computer but if I have to upgrade the graphics and PSU and it has an inferior mb its not much of a deal and I'll be better of building. And according to johnny s link it came out 8 months ago, which I believe there a new version of the i7 has come out.