Upgrading pre-built PC

Ok... so I broke down and bought a pre-built PC, thinking I could just upgrade a few things and call it good. But now that I'm reading some things, I'm not sure upgrading will be possible...

Here is what I bought:

HP Pavilion Elite h8-1010

What I'm looking at upgrading:

Vid card (currently thinking Radeon HD 6850/6870/6790 or GeForce GTX 460)
Power supply (something that fits that isn't a measly 300W so it can handle a new vid card)

From what I've been reading, it's size may make upgrading very difficult. Anyone have any thoughts on if my intended upgrades might be feasible?

I'm assuming it's a stock card since it didn't say anything to the contrary. Jesus fuck that thing is tiny. I just took a look at my 460gtx and good luck with that. D:

Looks like a pretty small case you've got there. I had to replace my pre-built PC's case because it didn't have room for a standard-sized PSU or a larger graphics card.

That one's already better than mine was to begin with, but I think you need to crack that thing open, check how the PSU fits and what size it is, and how much space you have, particularly below the PCI slot.

Current card is Radeon HD 6450. It has a 372 rating on this chart. I don't remember what is meant by a "stock card" unless that's dealing with clock speeds? Pretty sure it's not overclocked.

Do a bit of research. Many pre-built manufacturers like to use proprietary hardware to keep you coming back to them for parts, which they can sell at a premium. Power supplies are typically where the "specialness" comes in, either in form factor or in connections.

Yes, be very careful with the power supply. I know Dell used to use a proprietary power supply that had a "standard" connector. If you plugged a stock PSU into a Dell Motherboard, it would fry the motherboard. They have since stopped this, but I don't know exactly when.

I don't know if HP tried the same thing, but HP has been doing a lot of stupid things since, like, the turn of the millenium.

Looking more closely at the specs

• 8GB PC3-10600 DDR3 SDRAM memory (2x4GB) (expandable to 8GB)

is a bit O.o but perhaps it was a automatically generated PDF.

If I were in your shoes I would go for the video card upgrade as well.

Looking at the card it has (Radeson HD 6450) -- it looks like a small card. The biggest concern is whether or not a higher end card will physically fit in your case; I suspect you will have problems.

The Radeon card looks like it is about 7"x5.43" (17.78cm x 13.8cm). To compare, an nVidia GTX460 is 9.8"x5.03" (24.8cm x 12.78).

Ok, I picked up the Radeon HD 6790 and it's a tight fit... but a fit. And upgraded the PSU from the 300W to a 550W. And it was the same size, so no real trouble there. Only thing is... there is a 4 prong connector on my MoBo (it's next to the processor) and the PSU has an 8 prong (that 4 of the prongs fit there, and the computer seems to be working...) Anyone know if this may present a problem later on down the road, or if that's normal?

Skye1013 wrote:Ok, I picked up the Radeon HD 6790 and it's a tight fit... but a fit. And upgraded the PSU from the 300W to a 550W. And it was the same size, so no real trouble there. Only thing is... there is a 4 prong connector on my MoBo (it's next to the processor) and the PSU has an 8 prong (that 4 of the prongs fit there, and the computer seems to be working...) Anyone know if this may present a problem later on down the road, or if that's normal?

That's normal. Higher-end boards use a bigger connector, more wires = lower resistance = better transmission of power. With a H61 motherboard and a low-power CPU (2390T is a 45W chip, compared to 95W for the other i5s) I imagine the motherboard designer didn't think it'd need to be designed for high power draw.

Alright, awesome, I won't fret about it then

Also... LOVING the 60 fps I'm getting on "Ultra" settings (as opposed to <30 on "Good" settings.)

I predict Schatze spanking all the other 'dps' in the guild by even more now. Oh lord.

I wouldn't necessarily go that far... I'll actually be able to see all of the visual effects, which might cause sensory overload, thereby decreasing my dps... plus I still have a min. latency of 200ms.

Ditto, and yet we're still some of the best dps in guild.

Skye1013 wrote:I wouldn't necessarily go that far... I'll actually be able to see all of the visual effects, which might cause sensory overload, thereby decreasing my dps... plus I still have a min. latency of 200ms.

Ooh, I know that feeling.
On my old pc I was running at minimum graphics, on my new one at maximum. The eyecandy is just total overload and I dropped about 10-20% dps for a few i.d's getting used to it.

I went from an Athlon 64 twin core with a GTX260 to a core i5 with a 550Ti