what are some upgrades i can do to this hp pavillion 500 series?

[jordanbuilds1]

Budget (including currency): 312

Country: usa

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: ps2 emulation, cs2, val, rb, fort, etc

Other details (existing parts lists, whether any peripherals are needed, what you're upgrading from, when you're going to buy, what resolution and refresh rate you want to play at, etc): 

picked up this older 500 series pc from a family friend, has an i3 4100 (i think), mother board and psu. no ram, no hdd. i want to emulate some older ps titles on it and play cs2, val, fort, rb, etc. what upgrades would you guys recomend i do to this pc?

[BentleyOwen123]

sell the i3, pick up a i7 5700k or whatever the i7 was from 5th gen, used 16gb of ddr3 should be less than $20, and a sata ssd, use remaining budget to pick up a low profile rtx 3050 or 1650 super of off ebay.

[Capt_Monk]

Definitely a GPU, You need RAM for it to function, and SSD if it is supported, if not HDD. You are not going to be able to get significant performance out of the PC, unless you were to upgrade everything, which you cant do with your budget. You will have to get DDR3 RAM for that CPU, and a pretty measly GPU. So you could do that, or you could just try to sell it and get something better

[BentleyOwen123]

1 minute ago, BentleyOwen123 said:

sell the i3, pick up a i7 5700k or whatever the i7 was from 5th gen, used 16gb of ddr3 should be less than $20, and a sata ssd, use remaining budget to pick up a low profile rtx 3050 or 1650 super of off ebay.

make sure to find one with a low enough tdp that it will run off of the board power, one without an external power cable unless you have one on your psu, doubt it tho

[BentleyOwen123]

1 minute ago, Capt_Monk said:

Definitely a GPU, You need RAM for it to function, and SSD if it is supported, if not HDD. You are not going to be able to get significant performance out of the PC, unless you were to upgrade everything, which you cant do with your budget. You will have to get DDR3 RAM for that CPU, and a pretty measly GPU. So you could do that, or you could just try to sell it and get something better

no, i wouldn't sell it you'd likely get less for it than a new mobo, for his needs this is a great starter platform

[BillBill]

7 minutes ago, BentleyOwen123 said:

sell the i3, pick up a i7 5700k or whatever the i7 was from 5th gen, used 16gb of ddr3 should be less than $20, and a sata ssd, use remaining budget to pick up a low profile rtx 3050 or 1650 super of off ebay.

Some OEM computers don't play well with a CPU upgrade. They should keep the i3 just incase. 

[Capt_Monk]

4 minutes ago, BentleyOwen123 said:

no, i wouldn't sell it you'd likely get less for it than a new mobo, for his needs this is a great starter platform

He said he had a $312 budget, say he can get $100 for the PC. Saves for a little while, then can get a $500-$600 PC

[Capt_Monk]

I would definitely upgrade instead of sell however 

[AndreiArgeanu]

If you have the 300$ budget to work with, I'd probably advise against upgrading it. For around 330$ or so you can build a decent ryzen build with an iGPU to start with and later, or if you sell the PC sooner, you can pick up a decent used GPU, rx 480/580, preferrably an 8gb model can be had for around 50-70$, and with the CPU pairing they'll run most of all the games, even Cyberpunk at lower settings.

 

If you want to upgrade the PC you already have you'll need an SSD(30-40$ for 500gb), a new PSU (50-60$) (from what I could find these motherboards do use standard PSU connectors but you'll have to look specifically into your model to make sure), a used GPU (like the one I mentioned earlier)(50-70$) and a new CPU (something like an i7 4770 20-30$), 16gb of ram (2x8gb sticks 10-15$), and potentially a used HDD (1TB few bucks), so you're looking at about 150$-200$, depending on what kind of deals you find, may be able to get even cheaper if you're patient and shop around.

[Crunchy Dragon]

37 minutes ago, BentleyOwen123 said:

sell the i3, pick up a i7 5700k or whatever the i7 was from 5th gen, used 16gb of ddr3 should be less than $20, and a sata ssd, use remaining budget to pick up a low profile rtx 3050 or 1650 super of off ebay.

There were no desktop Core i7s from the 5th gen, best option would be a 4770K or a possible 4790K if the motherboard supports it with a BIOS update.

[jordanbuilds1]

35 minutes ago, AndreiArgeanu said:

If you have the 300$ budget to work with, I'd probably advise against upgrading it. For around 330$ or so you can build a decent ryzen build with an iGPU to start with and later, or if you sell the PC sooner, you can pick up a decent used GPU, rx 480/580, preferrably an 8gb model can be had for around 50-70$, and with the CPU pairing they'll run most of all the games, even Cyberpunk at lower settings.

 

If you want to upgrade the PC you already have you'll need an SSD(30-40$ for 500gb), a new PSU (50-60$) (from what I could find these motherboards do use standard PSU connectors but you'll have to look specifically into your model to make sure), a used GPU (like the one I mentioned earlier)(50-70$) and a new CPU (something like an i7 4770 20-30$), 16gb of ram (2x8gb sticks 10-15$), and potentially a used HDD (1TB few bucks), so you're looking at about 150$-200$, depending on what kind of deals you find, may be able to get even cheaper if you're patient and shop around.

i wasnt exactly planing on fully using the 300 buck budget, that was just the funds i was willing to use , also would the 1650 work good? ive heard alot about polaris cards loosing support.

[AndreiArgeanu]

5 minutes ago, jordanbuilds1 said:

i wasnt exactly planing on fully using the 300 buck budget, that was just the funds i was willing to use , also would the 1650 work good? ive heard alot about polaris cards loosing support.

Yeah, any card with similar performance or greater. The 1650 is a bit lower in performance I think, but should be completely fine for your uses. Keep in mind also the lower memory amount, not important for the games you mentioned, but is important for AAA titles.

[jordanbuilds1]

well alrighty then, thanks for the help, and also, i pulled out the cpu real quick and it was the 3rd gen i3 which is a little worse but i think i could work with upgrading that plat.

[BentleyOwen123]

1 hour ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

There were no desktop Core i7s from the 5th gen, best option would be a 4770K or a possible 4790K if the motherboard supports it with a BIOS update.

oh sorry thats mb

[Crunchy Dragon]

6 hours ago, jordanbuilds1 said:

well alrighty then, thanks for the help, and also, i pulled out the cpu real quick and it was the 3rd gen i3 which is a little worse but i think i could work with upgrading that plat.

i7-3770K is an easy drop-in upgrade, still usable for a lot of modern games.