How well can this computer run games?

Moohsan · December 31, 2018

I am just curious about how well this computer can run games. The most notable feature of this desktop is that it is very cheap, even though it has an i7 processor and 16 GB of RAM.

Desktop:

(https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883165351&ignorebbr=1&nm_mc=KNC-GoogleAdwords-PC&cm_mmc=KNC-GoogleAdwords-PC-_-pla-_-Desktop+PC-_-N82E16883165351&gclid=Cj0KCQiAmafhBRDUARIsACOKEROwFVVnDYoK_U37xf-RgNOi1Fv6nDTF41fwTboo0_0-x-9IFZxfiTEaAgGAEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

Fasauceome · December 31, 2018

You'd be better off building a Ryzen based desktop. This thing has no SSD, likely a crap PSU, only DDR3, and a cheap PSU. It would run games very poorly, on account of the iGPU and older CPU.

mariushm · December 31, 2018

The system's not a great deal, the i7 2600 still has some power but I'm not sure it's such a good deal at 350$

The problem you're gonna face is that these systems come with low wattage power supplies, the tower optiplex 790 probably come with a 265w power supply, at least if I'm to believe what the pdf says: https://clascsg.uconn.edu/download/specs/O790.pdf

So if you are to add a video card, you have to also add a power supply.

The document also says that the pci-e slot is only capable of 35w , but I don't think there's an actual physical limitation or intentional, it's more like they're saying only 35w because the power suppy they use to equip the system with is not really designed to power serious video cards.

99$ ryzen 2200g quad core with graphics : https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819113481

60$ GIGABYTE AB350M-DS3H https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813145056

50$ CORSAIR CX-M Series CX450 450W 80 PLUS BRONZE https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139146

60$ Patriot Viper 4 8GB (2 x 4GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 3000 https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820220976

45$ Seagate BarraCuda ST1000DM010 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822179010

= $314 .. and you have to add a computer case, which can be anywhere from 25$ to hundreds, depends on your taste.

Later you can add more memory (another 8 GB), maybe a SSD, you can add a video card and the power supply will handle it..

If you want to match the specs of the other system, 2 TB hdd is ~10$ more, from 8 GB to 16 GB is around 50$ more so still less than around 400 dollars.

Axeoasis · January 6, 2019

Honestly, the real killer of this system is mainly the cpu, that i7 is sandy bridge which is quite dated (it's 2nd generation, consider that we're currently on 9th generation). In addition that's the best CPU that the system will take. The ram is DDR3 which isn't that bad for having 16GB of it, as long as the hard drives are brand new 2TB is pretty nice but you'd still want to add an SSD otherwise things will feel super slow (you can use minitool partition to move the windows 10 installation to the SSD). On top of all this you'd still want a GPU upgrade too, which is really up to you.

Honestly i'd find something else, you'd be better off building a pc yourself for this price, unless you already have a motherboard and cpu you could swap out that's newer and still uses DDR3 (it isn't too common, but you can still find motherboards that use newer cpus (like 5th or 6th gen) that use ddr3) but even in that case you'd lose your windows installation because the motherboard changed.

Although you didn't ask for our opinion if you should buy it, you asked how well it could run games. With those specs, not too well, intel HD 2000 is a very dated and underpowered graphic processor and as noted before, the i7 is too old. You probably wouldn't be able to get above 40 FPS in most games, assuming they'll even run. And you'd have to forget about AAA titles.