Upgrading my Desktop. help!

Okay so my computer is due for some updates. especially with gw2 coming out
Its a HP Pavilion 061
System Model: ED822AA-ABA a1101n
Chip type: Radeon 9200 PRO (0x5960)
Memory:632mb RAM
Processor:Intel(R) Celeron(R) CPU 2.93 GHz
Hard Drive:80gb
and im running xp.

I want to upgrade to Windows 7. Get a larger hard drive. More RAM. and should i get a better video card? i dont know a whole lot about computers. so any tips and help is greatly appreciated! If you need to know any more information let me know and i'll try and get it for ya.

Its probably better to just leave your old box as is and do a full upgrade once the final specs for gw2 comes out.

I advise you to check deal sites like fatwallet or slick deals for the best pricing. You can generally buy a dell or hp online for $3-700 and sometimes those include a monitor and a decent gaming video card. Then simply add whatever is missing or needed (video card ($100ish)and/or Ram($50-100), etc.). I recommend going this route because you can get the most bang for your buck. You won't have to trouble shoot it much if at all. If there are any problems you can return it and it comes with operating system ($100).

If you want to build one, there is a thread on slickdeals that can help you a lot.
Generally you want 4 gigs+ of ram, 1st tier or 2nd tier from last gens video cards, or 2nd tier this gens video and around i5 or better processor.

Gl

So what your saying is it isnt worth upgrading my cp. Instead i should just buy a new one or build one to get "More bang for my buck?".

yep. do the math and figure out how much all the upgrades will cost and how much faster it will make your current machine. You can probably upgrade your cpu, but not to a very fast one by todays standards. It's 50-100 upgrade windows now? If your video still uses agp, it will be hard to find a decent video card. So you can spend a couple to a few hundred to upgrade your current box and it still probably wont play gw2 on decent settings.

save up money. check the deals sites. as soon as you see a smoking deal (they rate every deal), jump on it. then add whatever is missing. you have a few months to do this and the performance will be nigh and day if you buy the right components.

Hey, just thought I would throw in my 2 cents here.

DO NOT BUY A DELL, They are absolute garbage and you pay a premium for that garbage.

Definitely build you own if you can, I am not sure what your budget is, but I recently build one of my own for GW2.

Core i7 3.6 GHz (8 Core Processor)
Asus P8Z68 Deluxe Gen 3 Motherboard
16 GB Ram (Overkill I know)
Nvidia 570 GT or something (2.5 GB of Video Ram)
60 Gig Solid State drive for the Operating System
1.5 TB Drive for everything else
Windows 7 Pro ($30 more than Home edition)
Corsair 600T Case
750 W Power Supply

This ran me around $2000, but it is going to run GW2 Epically!!!

If you are in Canada, www.memoryexpress.com has about the best prices I have ever been able to find!

How many dells have you owned? Read some reviews? Heard from a guy who knows a guy...?

What you have there is simply a list of the latest and greatest components.
Besides overclocking, for half of what you spent, he can get 90% of the performance. Grab an i7 rig on sale at dell($500ish), add 8 gigs of ram, SSD, and the same video card. Then in a year he can do it all over again and have a faster rig than your current set up.

Now before we get into who knows what... I've built dozens of rigs. From the cheapest parts, to the latest and greatest. What I've found is that the expense for cutting edge performance and beyond is no way justified for over 99% of the people who want them. It's like having a Ferrari stuck in traffic. Looks nice, is able to go much faster, but for what it's doing (commuting), it's the same as a prius. Who cares if you can run gw at 200fps when the human eye and most lcd monitors are on 60 refresh.

There's nothing wrong with saying your opinion, but you should have a lot to back up that dells are complete junk when it's the #1 computer manufacturer in the world. That doesn't make them the greatest, but it does give the pricing advantages that other companies can't match. You could get a lemon from Dell and you could send it back for a replacement. You could also buy a bad mobo from asus. Right? He's never built a full computer system before. So even if he bought all your recommended part and put it together, what happens if it won't post. Is it the ram? Bad ps? Bad mobo? Dells are at least tested and if they don't work, you just send it back for one that does.

Any i7 CPU with proper cooling will run basically the same as your i7 on your nice mobo. BUT you can get a full computer with OS sans video card for the price of your cpu and mobo when dell has a sale which is frequently.

I've bought or recommended dozens of dells over the years. Generally nothing fancy, but they get the job done. When on sale you can't even get the same performance by building it yourself with shitty parts and that's before the OS.

Did you bother to read the specs of his computer? It's 4 or 5 gens old and mid to lower end of that time. He's not looking to drop 2k for epeen. He wants something that will play gw2 and cost as little as possible. That is why I said not to try to upgrade his current rig, wait for final minimal reqs for game, and to buy a dell or something with an i5, 4+gigs, and a decent video card. Cuz that's doable for less than a third of what you paid and should be plenty for gw2 depending on his montior.

Nice parts btw. What kind of PS did you pick up? Seasonic? Something good I hope. Are you OCing? You should be with those parts since they provide all the settings to do so. Aftermarket cooler?

Just concurring with Showtime, it is not worth upgrading that old HP for GW2, better off buying/building a new system, Dell or otherwise.

Your current system is a single core Celeron, the motherboard is an old socket 478, the RAM would have to go as well... then you have the cost of a new video card and almost definitely a better power supply...

You're not saving anything by trying to upgrade that system. Less hassle, and probably just as cheap (or cheaper) to get a new rig.

Many budget gaming PC guides on the net recommend the i5 2500 CPU (don't bother paying extra for an unlocked CPU like the i5 2500K unless you're going to over clock it), but if you're bargain hunting a prebuilt system, just get the best within your budget.

Sindarin... that's a quad core, mate, you're only seeing 8 cores due to Hyperthreading. 4 cores/8 threads.

Your computer is too old to be upgraded economically. Basically, almost everything in it has been made obsolete by newer designs.
If you want to upgrade it, it would only be cost-effective if you got very cheap used parts, and even then, at best it would still be too gimped for GW2.

Your best bet would be to buy a new system. If you can give us some idea of your budget, we could point you in the direction of what's available.

Ignore those people who say things like "Dell is junk". It's a good sign that they don't actually know what they are talking about. Dell actually has a very good reliability record - not the best, but up there.

If you want a basic starting point - at this time you can get some very cheap basic systems built around an AMD APU such as the A6 or A8 that will play GW2 very easily at medium graphics settings.

It might also be better if you post this on gw2guru as there is more up-to-date info on there.

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Core i7 3.6 GHz (8 Core Processor) - there are no 8 core i7 CPUs, just 4 cores with 8 threads (HyperThreading) or 6/12 with HT. In any case, HT is not useful for games. You don't need anything more than an i5-2400/2500/2550

16 GB Ram (Overkill I know) - you're right. 4Gigs is enough, 8Gigs is good

60 Gig Solid State drive for the Operating System - too small to use effectively without lots of fussing around with what goes where. The money would be better spent on a better video card.

Windows 7 Pro ($30 more than Home edition) - There is nothing, game-wise to be gained by using anything beyond Home Premium

750 W Power Supply - slight overkill. 550watts would be enough, 650watts would be a good cushion. But this does allow for SLI or other mods later.

It really depends on how you use your computer. For the average user, a decent mid-range Dell is fine. If you want to play everything known to man at max settings and a stupid high res, then it's not going to cut it.

I find the only real limitation on Dell's is their upgradability. Oh, and the tendency to use lower power PSU's than I'd like. But, like Showtime said, upgradability isn't really a huge concern if you're flipping it every couple of years.... and upgradability is over-rated now anyways, since CPU upgrades these days normally mean a new board etc.

You can pick up some fairly reasonable deals on kit on Ebay (only buy from powersellers etc. of course) or Ebuyer. Whatever you do, don't go to PC World or somewhere like that, unless you're going to shop around, because they're usually way over-priced.

Laptop or Desktop but i prefer a desktop. And since im not very handy with computers i'll be wanting something prebuilt. Dell are great computers, but my brother had a Dell laptop and ran into some trouble with it and the customer service is horrible. Yet my other brother has a hp laptop and everytime hes had trouble with it hes had great support. But i am open to Dell or HP, because in general and my experience, laptops have way more problems than desktops. Thanks for all the help so far! Some further help on a good desktop or laptop i should look into getting would be great. Like your sayin there, i dont want to spend a lot of money on something i dont need. Like 16gb ram.. haha
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And im sure there are a lot of other people in the same boat as me, so im sure this thread will help others out too.

I recommend a desktop over a laptop. They usually have better specs for the same price. Even at same specs, a laptop will have cooling issues when playing games even if you put some good fans underneath it.

There is nothing wrong with a Dell in general. The only problem is that making modifications can be a bit hard and you pay for a label.

In my experience when you opt for a desktop best is to order one thats assambled just for you (so you select the parts for it, and they assemble it for you just the way you like it). You could try and build your own, though not very difficult when you've never done it, it can be tricky. you need to watch for the right parts (not all cpu's fits to every board, and not all memory-cards fit into every board, etc). So you need to study terms like socket, the difference between sdram ddr, ddr2, etc.

If you go for a laptop, it's best to buy a premade one from a bigger brand.

Like said bove, a desktop is cheaper then a laptop. But a laptop has the obvious advantage that it is more portable. So you can play GW2 not only from you desk, but also from e.g. the couch.

any desktop at like 500euros and more will smoothly run gw2.

desktops offer more options to upgrade (if your graphics card dies....etc).

(I have had 4 dell laptops--all were junk, as well as dad-in-law had a desktop, if he wanted to get ANYTHING fixed he had to call dell--and pay for them to service it. Not exactly what you want when 2 of your kids are computer geeks---).

however, if you dont plan on anything fancy --dells will do the job.

If you want to do it on cheap for now see how you go:

upgrade your video card to a radeon x1950 pro or at least a 9800
upgrade your RAM to ddr3 1G x2
personally I would buy them new or second hand off Ebay

Your computer would be a higher spec than mine

Xp 2800 (2.1ghz)
Radeon 9800XT
2G RAM
screen/card/and GW set to 75Hz 1280x1024

I get a good performance from it on GW1 :- 35 FPS in hard action

Consider your Internet connection this is whats going to effect performance and ping time greatly make sure you have the best available spending 2,000 bucks on a new rig wont improve ping much at all.

That would be a difficult upgrade to make since his motherboard (Asus P4GV-LA according to HP) has no AGP slot (and predates PCI-e) and uses DDR1 memory... it's an old socket 478 All-in-one board, presumably rockin' a PCI video card (the Radeon 9200). It's well past the age of being component upgradable. It's new computer time.

Edit: Oh, even if the suggested upgrades were possible, it still wouldn't meet the spec requirements of GW2.

If you want something really basic, and easy to get (if you're in the U.S. or Canada), this system from Wal-Mart will play GW2 on medium settings:

http://www.walmart.ca/en/ip/acer-asp...x=&addFa cet=

It may be a bit difficult to upgrade in the future because of the slim-line (looking) case. But there are other similar A6/A8 systems you can find cheap. In fact, don't look at this as a recommendation, but just as a concept.
Don't get a cheap Intel based system unless it has a discrete video card. You don't want to try to game with Intel graphics (at least, not when you could be using AMD )

Showtime, I have used and owned and used quite a few Dells and had nothing but issues with them. Hence my warning, but I am probably just one person. Dell makes most of their money off of large corporations because they have a great warranty plan which helps.

I built this PC for a high end gaming rig and am not too concerned about the price. Yeah I paid extra for the latest and greatest, but whatever. I have not Overclocked it yet, as I just have the original CPU fan at the moment, and I am not running any games that push this thing to its limit yet. I just wanted to build a screaming machine, and I figure I got a pretty decent price on it.

I see some of the machines they buy at work, and they pay a premium for them, and they are not nearly half as good as mine, and they cost more.

Buying a computer is like buying a car or anything else, and is very subjective to people's opinions, and afterwards, very subjective to how they maintain them. There are lemons. There are perfectly fine computers that will run for 10 years. You expect it to be junk it will be junk. You take good care of it and it will probably run well for years. Maintenance is key. Especially if your house is hot and/or you have a lot of dust. Parts that you have to watch out for is the HD, CPU, GPU, and power supply. Mobo's, ram, etc. can go bad, but not nearly as often as the other parts.

Laptops:
The quality of laptops goes up and down with each company in different years. Some of it has nothing to do with the computer manufacturer and everything to do with the OEM parts or design. If nvidia gpu's run too hot, there's not a lot dell or any other company can do when computers start burning out 6 months to a few years later. They try to follow the tolerances set by AMD, Intel, nvdia, etc., but sometimes that's not enough.
Lately HP has had really good deals (in the states) on laptops with video cards (lower to mid range gaming machines). Mixed reports on them, but great bang for the buck when on sale. I'd generally only buy a budget laptop from dell, but people do like their gaming laptops. We've had a few different ones and a couple of higher end with discrete video. The problem with people saying they had problems with any laptop is how did they take care of them? Was there a design flaw? Bad parts/lemon?
Chances are they died of heat and that's usually from dust getting into them or them not being used correctly. Using it on your bed with the exhaust closed off is bad and will overheat your cpu and eventually kill it. Dropping them is pretty bad too. Especially when it's on. So I take everyone's claimed experiences with a grain of salt. My friends was overheating a bunch and it turned out he some virus that was trying to do all this crap all the time. Bloatware doesn't help either. Solid state hard drives helps a bit with abuse, heat, and very slightly with less power consumption. SSDs are well worth the investment for a lot of people who don't need 250+ gigs in their laptop, but not if you are trying to get the most bang for your buck.

Desktops:
Desktops are obviously not as fragile simply because they are almost never moved (while on) and can handle the heat much better. They still need to be cleaned out depending on how much dust is in your house and it's not a good idea to drop them either.

The op asked if he should update/upgrade the parts on his computer. The answer is no for many reasons.

Next is what options he has. He said desktop would work.

What desktop. I say to keep checking the deals site and wait for what is considered a smoking deal and in your budget. Try to get an i5 or better machine with 4+ gigs of ram. Then just add the bare minimum upgrades as they go on sale. Check to make sure the power supply can handle any upgrades you plan to install. Buy it with Amex or any credit card that offers extended warranties when possible. Take good care of it. Add a fan if the interior of case if the video card you buy or comes with it seems to run hot.