Can I upgrade this?

Punknoodle

Punknoodle

3,211
Australia
Brisbane
Punknoodle_Nick
Hi, my partner has a HP computer that is getting a bit long in the tooth, but she only uses it for uni work and playing the Sims 3, which it isn't very good at, its quite slow, in fact.

Here are the specs:
http://h20565.www2.hp.com/portal/site/hpsc/template.PAGE/public/kb/docDisplay?javax.portlet.begCacheTok=com.vignette.cachetoken&javax.portlet.endCacheTok=com.vignette.cachetoken&javax.portlet.prp_ba847bafb2a2d782fcbb0710b053ce01=wsrp-navigationalState=docId%3Demr_na-c01497975-25%7CdocLocale%3D%7CcalledBy%3D&javax.portlet.tpst=ba847bafb2a2d782fcbb0710b053ce01&sp4ts.oid=3733093&ac.admitted=1393923116841.876444892.492883150

I think I can replace the two 1Gb sticks of RAM with two 2Gb sticks of ram, I'm just wondering if there would be any benefit to replacing the graphics card to something newer that shares the same connection type? If so, what graphics cards would be compatible?

I think just to play the Sims 3 the CPU should be ok?

Anything else I should think about?

I think I'll put Windows 7 on as well as I can't stand Vista and 7 should be a bit faster?

Any help would be awesome, would be great to avoid replacing the whole tower.

EDIT:

Am I right that any PCI Express x16 card will work? I could get an ATI Radeon 1Gb for 50 bucks...
 
PCI-E is what you're after but it will have to be slim, no double-deckers.

Having said that, I have had issues in the past with HP's rejecting graphics cards as they were not stock.
 
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The 5570 is a decent card, and certainly faster than the entry level stuff (much like the 5670). Not sure if sold in Australia, but the fastest low profile card to my knowledge is a 1GB GDDR5 Radeon 7750 (which I have in my mini pc).
 
NLxAROSA
The 5570 is a decent card, and certainly faster than the entry level stuff (much like the 5670). Not sure if sold in Australia, but the fastest low profile card to my knowledge is a 1GB GDDR5 Radeon 7750 (which I have in my mini pc).
Click to expand...
Thanks for the reply. The other thing I'm stuck with is PCIe X16, which is why I went with that 5570, I think the newer gear is PCI 2.0 or higher isn't it? I have no idea what all that means I just figured I'd better get whatever was the same lol.

As long as it does the Sims 3, that's all she's interested in apart from uni work. According to the Sims forums the 5570 is more than capable for that game.

If it works well I won't feel bad about leaving her with a machine she is frustrated with while I build a machine to run Project Cars in a few months time lol.
 
Something like a GTX650Ti will be fine.

Doesn't need the extra power, but HP motherboards are POS at the best of times, I dont know how it will act with a mid range GPU hooked in.
PCIe 3.0 is the latest version and any PCIe3 card is backwards compatible with PCIe2.0
 
So, the card arrived while I was away for work but I got home today so I installed it. I ended up getting really, really frustrated because I just couldn't get the drivers to install. Manually, via the software, different versions, nothing worked.

After a while I went in to the bios and found a setting for primary video, it was set on PCI but the two other options were Onboard or PCI-E, so I changed it to PCI-E and it worked straight away, drivers installed.

It's made a fair difference, so I think she's happy :)
 

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