Upgrading my budget "e-sports" PC

froog

so I bought this in a rush cause my old PC calved. i knew it wasn't a great PC but it was compact and cheap. anyways i know i'm quite limited with it in terms of upgrades but thought i'd throw it up here and see if any meaningful upgrades are possible. i do play games an would like to play most of the latest games at medium settings with a reasonable fps of at least 30 fps.

important to note the PC box itself is very small and everythings pretty packed in there.



HP 580-015
i5-7400 @3ghz 3ghz
8 gb ram
GTX 1050
intel 100 c230
odense 2k
180W PSU


my initial thoughts are i can double the RAM quite easily and cheaply. it's actualy set up for that. not sure that will give me much more performance. i'm limited by that 180W PSU so thinking that has to be upgraded and maybe paired with the 1050 ti a slight upgrade on the 1050 basic. i'd love to squeeze a 1060 mini in there if I could. does my motherboard limit me in terms of PSU, GPU etc?

TerrorFirmer

You're heavily restricted by that PSU. A GTX1060 is out of the question.

You don't need more RAM but a better CPU would be important to a lot of new games, which are becoming limited by older i5's.

Obviously a new card would show massively improved results too, but the PSU is too weak....a 1050Ti is an upgrade that would work but not a big one and you will still be CPU limited in some games.

What is the format of the PSU? If it's a standard small factor PSU you could just replace it with a better one, though HP would often use non-standard parts, which would mean you're out of luck.

froog

Here's the current PSU.

Is it upgradeable do you think?

There's a decent bit of room in the box actually.

ED E

HP PCE018 P/N 848049

Appears to be ATX? I think.

froog

can't i just buy a new uATX PSU then?

TerrorFirmer

Maybe, maybe not. Some companies use non-standard PSUs that are custom built for them, so the connectors are different to normal off the shelf parts.

If you open the case and look inside you'll know straight away. It would need to be a 24-pin mainboard connector and a 4/8 pin connector to the motherboard.....and even then it is not guaranteed as sometimes they are wired differently, too.

froog

there's a 24 pin there just checked.

killanena

Is it for streaming esports or playing?

Streaming should be no problem with that PC, check to make sure your default graphics driver is your GPU and not built in motherboard graphics.

Playing, I would sell what you have and if you have the budget build a new PC or if not to buy a preowned custom build online so you can upgrade it as you feel the need.

You don't need more then 8gb of ram for the vast majority of games, its super expensive at the moment too.

What you could also do is salvage parts from that PC towards a new build and sell what you don't want.

1060 will be a nice upgrade. 1080 if you can afford it is an amazing card and will last you a few years. Alot of deals on 1080's in bundles with a PSU.

If you need any help with regarding choosing parts everyone here will lend their opinion

froog

this is the exact same one it looks like:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/p/HP-280-PCE018-MT-ATX-Switching-Power-Supply-180w-PSU-794974-001-Asa17/23017410029

TerrorFirmer

froog wrote: »

this is the exact same one it looks like:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/p/HP-280-PCE018-MT-ATX-Switching-Power-Supply-180w-PSU-794974-001-Asa17/23017410029

Looks fairly standard though that supply is possibly a little shorter than standard atx.

Given it's relatively standard dimensions though it should be easy find a higher wattage hp unit on Ebay from the same desktop series, there are other models with much higher end cards.

Where are you based? Probably be someone here willing to help ya check it out in person.

K.O.Kiki

According to this page the motherboard HP Odense2-K is standard micro-ATX
https://support.hp.com/za-en/document/c05573055

So you could just transplant everything into a standard mATX/ATX case & get a new PSU to boot.

froog

successfully upgraded to the 1060 with a corsair 450w PSU. all fit in snugly into the box, no issues whatsoever.

the performance improvement is amazing. running Black Ops 4 on medium to high settings at 60 fps.

K.O.Kiki

froog wrote: »

successfully upgraded to the 1060 with a corsair 450w PSU. all fit in snugly into the box, no issues whatsoever.

the performance improvement is amazing. running Black Ops 4 on medium to high settings at 60 fps.

Can you name the PSU model?
Would be great for anyone looking in the future.

froog

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

Can you name the PSU model?
Would be great for anyone looking in the future.

its this one:

https://www.currys.ie/ieen/computing-accessories/components-upgrades/power-supplies/corsair-cx450-atx-psu-450-w-10162441-pdt.html

only slightly annoying thing is it doesn't have a connector for the dvd drive but i never use that anyway. i guess id could be wired up if you knew what you were doing.

K.O.Kiki

Huh, that's surprising that a standard ATX PSU (Corsair CX450) fit!

Are you sure the DVD drive doesn't use standard SATA power connector?

TerrorFirmer

Some of those OEM PCs have odd mini-sata connectors, but I don't think it's a big loss, realistically unless you're watching DVD movies it's redundant anyway, even games that come on DVD now tend to require Steam/Uplay/Origin to download most of the files, so all you need is the key.