Helping with improving PC?

[Magnus Blade]

Hello, I'm new here. =)

I'm not very tech-savy about what makes a computer good or bad when it comes to it's components, only by what I know from my brother. But I DO know that my desktop computer is quite terrible.

Now, I've recently been dissatisfied with how weak my computer is for modern gaming. It's a great little machine for web browsing and the like, but when it comes to high performance gaming, nope. It can handle games that aren't overly demanding on my CPU, but the majority of modern games, I can't even play with their low frame rate and lagging performance. I'm forced to push this PC like a slave, and I don't want to do any more harm to it.

I understand that upgrades are the best way to get the best out of a PC, but I'm not seeking to have the absolute best performance PC (because I'd be better off just buying a more powerful machine). I just want to upgrade it to the point where it's powerful enough to run games like Devil May Cry 4: Special Edition without issue. If anyone would be as kind as to point out exactly what I have to do (and buy) to make this PC more powerful than it's current self, that'd be great. My brother is really good with computers, so everything I have to install by opening the PC, I can just hand it all over to him when I buy it. He recently installed more RAM into my computer, but we both knew that's not enough for gaming. I'd be asking my brother about all of this, but he's usually busy and can't get to my little problems like this in a snap of a finger.

I'm somewhat on a budget though, but I do realize that this won't come cheap... Below are the specs of my PC that I'm aware of, but anything else I need to provide, please let me know. Thanks for everything in advance.

CPU: AMD E-300 APU with Radeon(tm) HD Graphics 1.30 GHz (I think it's 2 cores?)
Video Card: AMD Radeon HD 6310 Graphics (4G of total memory, I believe)
Memory: 8 GB RAM (2 GB when I first bought this PC)
Operating System: Windows 7, 64-bit

 

[nsafreak]

Unfortunately the E-300 APUs were primarily sold to be used for laptops, I've seen them used on some desktops but in either case it's a soldered on BGA part. It's the main part of your system that's seriously holding you back. Even if we were to put in a GTX 950 GPU it wouldn't be able to take full advantage of the additional power. At this point I would recommend to begin saving up for a full system. It doesn't need to be terribly expensive though, this board has built plenty of systems for around $500 that game just fine.

 

[VirtualLarry]

The E-300 (not even the E-350!) is a netbook APU. I'm sorry to hear that it's in a desktop PC. Unfortunately, it's not directly upgradeable.

However, is this a name-brand pre-built system, or is this a custom rig, with a standard ATX case and power supply, and an aftermarket motherboard?

If it's a standard ATX case + PSU, then you can simply buy a CPU + motherboard, and drop them in, and re-use your DDR3 RAM.

 

[Magnus Blade]

Oh...I see. That is unfortunate indeed. I should have seen this outcome coming, but yeah, I'm less knowledgeable about this than I thought.

However, is this a name-brand pre-built system, or is this a custom rig, with a standard ATX case and power supply, and an aftermarket motherboard?

Hm. Unfortunately, it is a pre-built system (from eMachines). I guess I'm really out of luck then.

Thanks so much for your helpful responses, guys. I'll have to get to saving up for a new system then for the future. I do have one more question though. Could I still use the RAM I previously purchased for this current machine into a new gaming PC, or is it a matter of if the RAM is compatible?

 

[nsafreak]

You can re-use the RAM, HDD, and optical drive if you so choose in a new system. You might even be able to re-use the case & PSU as Larry stated. Some pre-builts do use a standard ATX case and power supply, we'd just need to know the model number to help in making a determination.

Edit: Did some searching around knowing that your system was made by eMachines and I came up with one consistent desktop that was made by them, would this happen to be your desktop? If so then you will need to get a new case & PSU as there's no way you're going to be able to re-use those parts. You'll still be able to re-use the optical drive, HDD and RAM though. Having these parts does still help though, for example you could save towards Ken_G6's current low end build (from his thread:

CPU: *Intel Core i3-4160 3.6GHz Dual-Core Processor ($102.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: *Gigabyte GA-H81M-S1 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($35.50 @ SuperBiiz)
Memory: *Kingston 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1333 Memory ($36.81 @ SuperBiiz)
Storage: *Seagate Barracuda 500GB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($37.80 @ SuperBiiz)
Video Card: *Gigabyte Radeon R9 270 2GB WINDFORCE Video Card ($137.98 @ Newegg)
Case: *Thermaltake VL80001W2Z ATX Mid Tower Case ($21.99 @ Micro Center)
Power Supply: *Antec Green 450W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($32.98 @ Newegg)
Operating System: *Microsoft Windows 8.1 OEM (64-bit) ($82.98 @ OutletPC)
Total: $489.03
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
*Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-09-04 18:07 EDT-0400

Since you already have RAM and a HDD you can re-use them and bring the cost down to about $416. If you're a student then you can likely pick up a student copy of Windows for free or very cheap knocking another $83 off the price and bringing it down to around $330.

 

[Magnus Blade]

Oh wow! Yep, that's definitely my machine. Glad to hear I can cut the price down by a good bit. Too bad I'm not a student. Would have been nice to get a free Windows 8.1, heh. But that's still pretty reasonably cheap (as far as gaming PCs go)!

Thanks for all the links and information. I'm going to save all of this to make things easier for when I have enough saved up money for this. Glad to see I came to the right place. =)