Given an off the shelf PC, want to upgrade for light gaming usage.

[wpm]

Hello all,

So I recently was gifted a non-booting HP P6-2330. I'm fairly certain the RAM is causing it not to boot (thats a different story), but I was figuring once I get it fixed, I wouldn't mind popping a better GPU in there for some light gaming usage.

It has an A6-5400K APU. I'm planning on getting some DDR3-1866 RAM to replace the dead DDR3-1600 sticks, and I was figuring on getting a nVidia 750 Ti as well. So far the PSU estimates I've seen show that the 300W stock PSU should be enough to handle the upgrades.

I'm just concerned that the 750 Ti is going to be held back by two things. Firstly, the APU. I know its not a great APU (its on the low-end), but since modern games tend to be more GPU starved than CPU starved, I'm not sure if I should be worried. The A6 has pretty dismal multithreaded performance, as well as lacking an L3 cache. Not exactly a gaming CPU at all. The other concern, which I know is a small one, is that the FM2 mobo it has only has a PCIe 2.0 x16 slot. Performance won't be held back too much by this, right? I'd assume that the CPU would cause a performance bottleneck before the PCIe slot did.

But by light gaming, I mean 30fps and 720p (I don't have enough money for a snazzy monitor just yet), on nothing more than medium or high settings (depending on game's vintage).

Thanks in advance.

 

[chusteczka]

This upgrade work is not going to give you the desired results. The bios is disabled, meaning that you cannot adjust memory speeds.

You can drop a faster processor in there but since the bios is disabled, you will not receive the full upgrade potential, it is limited and stuck at current speeds.

There is no guarantee the bios will allow or recognize an external video card. First experiment with a spare card on hand before purchasing, to avoid disappointment.

You can physically place DDR3-1866 memory in the slots but the bios will treat them as if they are DDR3-1600 because the Front Side Bus speed cannot be changed in the bios.

Your upgrades will be money spent for naught. It is not worth it. The OEM system is not designed to be upgraded.

 

[wpm]

HP lists DDR3-1866 as supported memory, it just shipped with DDR3-1600. As well it explicitly states on the product website that PCIe x16 graphics cards are supported, it'll just disable the IGP in the APU.

Here's the product website. Obviously I won't be OCing the CPU but nothing on that page would suggest that 1866 ram won't be supported, nor a dGPU not being supported.

 

[chusteczka]

Can you access the bios? Does the bios allow changing the memory speeds from 800MHz to 933MHz? 800MHz for DDR3-1600 and 933MHz for DDR3-1866.

EDIT:
Thanks, that page you provided helps. That page does show upgradeability. You could be fine, as you expect. You are lucky. But still double-check in the bios for the ability to change memory speeds.

EDIT2:
If you wish to spend an extra $90, you could upgrade the CPU to the AMD 760k to remove the GPU portion. The AMD 760k is quad-core and also an FM2 socket but without the GPU. It would pair well with the nVidia 750 Ti, which is a good choice.
AMD 760K Richland Quad-Core 3.8GHz Socket FM2 100W Desktop Processor AD760KWOHLBOX
Comparison: AMD A6-5400K dual-core with 760k quad-core

 

[Harvey]

You found the link to the specs for your machine. On that page, there's a further link to info about the MSI MS-7778 (Jasmine) motherboard that may help.

One of my main gripes about "department store" brands is the undersized PSU's. For the 750 Ti, nVidia specs:

Graphics Card Power (W): 60 W
Minimum System Power Requirement (W): 300 W

Assuming you get everything else working, don't be suprised if the original 300 W PSU in your machine doesn't hold up under a maximum load... But you'll find out when you get there. 😛

Good luck. 🙂

 

[mfenn]

I agree that there's no real point in paying extra for DDR3 1866. Whether or not the mobo will support it is kind of a moot point because there is next to no performance differential for discrete GPU gaming. It does give a boost in IGP gaming, but the IGP on that CPU is slow enough that what's the point?

The A6-5400K will hold you back in CPU intensive games however. I agree that you might want to try to borrow a card and test it out before committing to a purchase. This is a case where it makes sense to hunt for a used Radeon 7770 or thereabouts. That should be well under $100 and give you a decent performance boost.

 

[frozentundra123456]

The 7770 requires a six pin connector, which I am pretty sure that psu will not have. So the overall cost of the 750Ti might not be more than a 7770 plus a new psu. Given the weak CPU a non-Ti GT750 or HD 7750 might be sufficient.

 

[mistersprinkles]

Swap the CPU out for an Athlon 760K and get your 750Ti.

Honestly though, since you would need so much, GPU, CPU, RAM, why bother? Why not start from scratch and build a real gaming PC?

 

[mfenn]

The 7770 requires a six pin connector, which I am pretty sure that psu will not have. So the overall cost of the 750Ti might not be more than a 7770 plus a new psu. Given the weak CPU a non-Ti GT750 or HD 7750 might be sufficient.

The 7770 is an 80W part, so it just barely squeaks over the 75W PCIe slot-only power. By comparison, the GTX 750 Ti is a 60W part, so it goes under, even though the true power differential at full bore is 20W. The OP could use a molex/SATA to PCIe 6-pin power adapter to fulfill the 7770's PCIe 6-pin requirement.

The 7750 is not a bad choice either, it's just not as good of a value on the secondary market because it costs basically the same as a 7770 ($45-$65 based on ebay sold listings).