How best to upgrade an HP500B MT on a small budget?

[Daltarian]

So my company just finished a big round of system upgrades and decided to give away the previous systems to employees. I received an HP 500B Microtower (specs below) and was thinking about using some of my tax return to buy a few bells and whistles to improve its ability to play games (WOW, SW:TOR, Batman Arkham games, Minecraft, etc) and do video editing (Using Adobe Premiere Elements 10 currently). Figured I would toss this out and see what people might suggest.

MFG: Hewlett-Packard
Model: HP 500B Microtower
Processor: Intel Core2 Duo CPU, E7500 @2.93 GHz 2.94 GHz
Installed Ram: 4.0 GB (3.0 GB Usable) DDR3 (This is also the maximum RAM supported)
Operating System: Windows 7 Professional, 32 Bit
Hard Drive: 350 GB SATA
Power Supply: 300W

Expansion Slots:
(1) Full-Height PCI 2.3 slot
(2) Full-Height PCIe x1 slots
(1) Full-Height PICe x16


Not being a hardware guy, my knowledge is a bit limited, but my first thoughts were that it needs a new power supply, a graphics card and an additional hard drive. If you disagree with this assessment, please tell me why and what you would do instead. If my thoughts are sound, then I am looking for advice on power supply, graphics card and hard drive that won't cost too much. I am probably working on a budget of $50-$100 per component, or $150-$300 overall, as I need to be able to talk my wife into allowing each purchase. (She's on board, as she games too, but we are on a budget and don't make purchases like this without being in agreement.)


** Also, the "3.0 GB Usable Ram" is due to my Windows 7 being the 32 bit version, correct? (So if I wanted to use the full 4 GB, I need to upgrade to a 64 bit OS, right?)

[chazus]

At this point, I probably wouldn't even bother putting any money into this system. You're putting cash into a sinking ship.

I would do a couple things.

1) Overclock the E7500 to squeeze some CPU life out of it.
2) Sell the system, use the $100 you'd probably get out of it towards a newer system

What are you currently playing on now? Why should this system be upgraded if you and your wife already have gaming systems?

Alternatively

3) Get a 750ti GPU that will eventually be put into a newer, current system.

Also, moving this to the build/upgrade subforum

[Daltarian]

We don't currently have a gaming PC. We've been console gaming for the past few years and our last gaming computer is quite out of date now - it won't even run WOW anymore due to updated system requirements. We are not currently playing any real PC games right now (my kids play Plants vs Zombies and Peggle), but I have a backlog of games I picked up really cheap on Steam sales and Humble Bundles. I have considered getting back into WOW and/or SW:TOR, and I'd like to be able to play the Batman: Arkham games that I own via Steam.

I don't have a lot of cash right now ($300 is pretty much the most I can spend total), so I don't think I could get a better PC right now, and it would probably be at least a year before I'll have more I can spend on one, so I was hoping to take this free PC and boost it just a little bit to better handle the stuff I want to do right now.


Thanks for the move - I didn't notice the subforum.

[WarBringerPT]

We don't currently have a gaming PC. We've been console gaming for the past few years and our last gaming computer is quite out of date now - it won't even run WOW anymore due to updated system requirements. We are not currently playing any real PC games right now (my kids play Plants vs Zombies and Peggle), but I have a backlog of games I picked up really cheap on Steam sales and Humble Bundles. I have considered getting back into WOW and/or SW:TOR, and I'd like to be able to play the Batman: Arkham games that I own via Steam.

I don't have a lot of cash right now ($300 is pretty much the most I can spend total), so I don't think I could get a better PC right now, and it would probably be at least a year before I'll have more I can spend on one, so I was hoping to take this free PC and boost it just a little bit to better handle the stuff I want to do right now.


Thanks for the move - I didn't notice the subforum.

Wouldn't recomend upgrading that computer, that cpu is far 2 old, not even with an oc will sufice (while playing mmorpgs).

You can always try to get a i3 + cheap mobo + decent gpu + better PSU + +4gb ddr3. With those $300 it's feasable.
I recently bought a g3258, when oc it has a great performance while playing non demanding or non multicore games (excellent for mmorpgs).

[Daltarian]

Please note, a decent sized HDD needs to be part of this deal due to video editing requirements. Right now it only has a 350 GB SATA HDD, and I am really wanting a 1TB or larger which I know is going to cost me at least 25-30% of my total budget for a decent one. I haven't seen any newer CPU/mobo/GPU/RAM/PSU combos in the $200 range, so that's why I am hoping to use what I have and just get it a little better. I don't need to run Crysis on High or WOW at best specs or anything.

(For reference, my previous "gaming PC" which is now pretty much useless was running 2GB ram, a dual core sub-2 GHz processor and running Windows Vista - so I'm not exactly used to having a really powerful PC, and this one is already a bit of an upgrade for me.)

[WarBringerPT]

Please note, a decent sized HDD needs to be part of this deal due to video editing requirements. Right now it only has a 350 GB SATA HDD, and I am really wanting a 1TB or larger which I know is going to cost me at least 25-30% of my total budget for a decent one. I haven't seen any newer CPU/mobo/GPU/RAM/PSU combos in the $200 range, so that's why I am hoping to use what I have and just get it a little better. I don't need to run Crysis on High or WOW at best specs or anything.

(For reference, my previous "gaming PC" which is now pretty much useless was running 2GB ram, a dual core sub-2 GHz processor and running Windows Vista - so I'm not exactly used to having a really powerful PC, and this one is already a bit of an upgrade for me.)

My former computer was an e8400, 8gb ddr3 and an hd4830(which I still use).
I was able to play the 1st 2 batman games with better than playable performance. WoW, not so much(raiding 25 man mythic at the time).

The only thing I changed on my build was cpu and mobo, oced the cpu to 4.0ghz and now I can stream WoW with decent quality while raiding with no loss of performance (720p).

I would advice to check prices for an i3+ low budget mobo + 1tb hdd + decent PSU. You can use the gpu from the i3 temporarily while saving for a decent gpu (gtx750 ti or r7 260x). You won't have good performances with the i3's gpu, but it's only temporary.