Upgrade Questions

[Icedragon769]

I wanted to build my own PC for some time. My parents got me a new HP last christmas, and it's been slowing down over the last few months. I'm a casual gamer, and I run Skyrim and Starcraft 2 on this PC, but both are on the lowest graphics settings, and there are still some glitches and slowing when there is a lot of activity (quite detrimental to competitive play).

My question is: What should I upgrade first? I'm a senior in high school, preparing for college, so I don't have a lot of money to throw at upgrades, so I want the best value for my dollar, and probably only one upgrade for now. $50 or less would be nice.

My current system:
AMD Athlon II 635 quad-core

4G DDR3 Memory

750G HDD

ATI Radeon HD 4200 graphics

Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit

Any help or opinion is welcome. Thanks!

[RickyTick]

The weak spot is the 4200 onboard graphics. You need a dedicated graphics card.
What is the model # of your HP computer?

$50 is not going to buy much of a graphics card. You'd be looking at something like this.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814134121

[Icedragon769]

HP Pavillion P6610f

I didn't make the connection that my graphics card was not dedicated. The new card is really what I need to improve performance? I was thinking of getting some more RAM, but you think the graphics card will do the trick? What kind of difference will that $55 card do?

[bighoo93]

HP Pavillion P6610f

I didn't make the connection that my graphics card was not dedicated. The new card is really what I need to improve performance? I was thinking of getting some more RAM, but you think the graphics card will do the trick? What kind of difference will that $55 card do?

Here is a great link showing the graphics performance you can get from Skyrim based on different graphics cards. I'm not sure where you could get for $55. Probably into the Low/Medium group, maybe Medium/High if you went with something refurbished.

Update: This card puts you in the Medium/High group for $50: SAPPHIRE 100324L Radeon HD 6570 2GB DDR3 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready Video Card (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102942)

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:System_Requirements

[Icedragon769]

Okay, so that chart confused me. I understand the organization and it is very helpful, I may print a copy and take it down to my local Frys Electronics, but I was under the impression that the model number on the graphics card scaled up in relation to quality. Am I wrong?

eg, a 4890 card will run Skyrim on high/very high, while a 4850 card will run it on medium/high; in my understanding of the numbering system, those two cards are nearly identical in power and image quality.

[bighoo93]

Just saw this deal on Techbargains (http://www.techbargains.com/news_displayItem.cfm/294271): ZOTAC ZT-50401-10L GeForce GTX 550 Ti (Fermi) 1GB 192-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card for $80. This is at the top of the list in the High/Very High category. I don't even need a video card and I am thinking about going for this...

[Icedragon769]

By the time I have $110 for the price before rebate, the deal will probably be gone, but I'll keep an eye on it, thanks!