Upgrade help for Gateway DX4860-UB33P

[Sandy Sand The Sander Bro]

Hey guys I have a Gateway DX4860-UB33P and was wondering what can I do to upgrade it so I can play Guild Wars 2 on max settings? I'm also playing on a 19inch monitor.

[moremana]

Since you didint link your specs, I am going off the web. Not much you can do, if you upgrade more than the video card your wasting money on a aging machine.

Video card is about all you can do and you would have to get a better PSU, I wouldn't use a SSD as it doesnt have support for SATA III.

[Fluorescent0]

It... doesn't have a dedicated GPU from what I found? You really want one. If you could also list your PSU specs (they're usually found on the side of your PSU, just by opening the case) and your budget we could recommend you what to get.

[Biernot]

Hey guys I have a Gateway DX4860-UB33P and was wondering what can I do to upgrade it so I can play Guild Wars 2 on max settings? I'm also playing on a 19inch monitor.

According to the manufacturer website, you have:
- i5-2320
- 8GB DDR3-1333
- 1TB 5400rpm
- 300W psu
- µATX tower

What resolution does your monitor have? You could have anything from the following (common resolutions for 19" tfts): 1366*768, 1440*900, 1600*900, 1280*1024
The important part is, that between 1366*768 and 1600*900 there is a 40% difference in total pixels and thus nearly a 40% fps difference with the same computer hardware.

As the others already said, get a graphics card, the rest is fine performance wise.

Without a psu upgrade you can get:
- Radeon 7750 ($80-100), does not require a PCIe power connector, which makes your current psu sufficient. On a 1366*768 resolution this card might be barely enough to run GW2 on (nearly) max settings, but especially during WvW you will have severe frame drops.
- Radeon 7850 or Geforce 650 Ti Boost ($150-180), these cards do require a separate PCIe power connector. If your psu does not have one, the cards usually come with an adapter. Theoretically a 300W psu should be enough for these cards, but as the included psu is certainly not of the best variety, i would not do it.

My suggestion would be to get a new psu and a decent mid-high level graphics card. But do not go too big, as you might get into problems with the case.

PSU: e.g. Corsair CX500 ($40 after rebate)

GPU: Something in the $150-250 range.
- MSI GTX660 TF is one of the smaller cards with that chip and will most likely fit into the case.
- MSI Radeon 7870 GHz similar performance as the above for $20 less and about the same size.

[Fluorescent0]

Without a psu upgrade you can get:
- Radeon 7750 ($80-100), does not require a PCIe power connector, which makes your current psu sufficient. On a 1366*768 resolution this card might be barely enough to run GW2 on (nearly) max settings, but especially during WvW you will have severe frame drops.

True, but only for the 800mhz version. The 900mhz version does infact need an additional connector.

[Fluorescent0]

i guess it comes down to the brand, but in my experience when a graphics card has needed to be plugged into to the PSU, it comes with a molex > 4, 6, 8 (depending on what it wants) connector. for exmaple, my 8800 GT came with one, my 9800 GT came with one and my 7870 XT came with two.
unless that was a comment about needing additional power

Yup, it was about the additional power required.