Please help. I want to mod but I know nothing.

[BuickGN]

I bought a HP p6310y a few weeks ago. It's great for what I use it for most which is this site. Unfortunately, my addiction to modding things does not end with cars and bikes. So the reason why is honestly I can't help myself. I know that sounds pretty ignorant but I want to learn more about computers in the process.

It has 6GB of DDR3
AMD 630 processor
1TB HD

Right now I was thinking about adding more RAM which I can do myself. Only question is, will I see any difference whatsoever in speed going to say 8-10GB? It's capable of holding 16GB.

I've read the 630 processor takes well to overclocking and is pretty reliable at something reasonable. I've also heard I may have to upgrade the power supply.

The 1TB HD is fine but I was thinking about using a 10,000rpm for the OS. Any gains to be had in this area?

Now I know this is retarded for someone who primarily just surfs the internet but please bare with me as I learn.

 

[Quest]

Originally Posted By: BuickGN
I bought a HP p6310y a few weeks ago. It's great for what I use it for most which is this site. Unfortunately, my addiction to modding things does not end with cars and bikes. So the reason why is honestly I can't help myself. I know that sounds pretty ignorant but I want to learn more about computers in the process.

It has 6GB of DDR3
AMD 630 processor
1TB HD

Right now I was thinking about adding more RAM which I can do myself. Only question is, will I see any difference whatsoever in speed going to say 8-10GB? It's capable of holding 16GB.

I've read the 630 processor takes well to overclocking and is pretty reliable at something reasonable. I've also heard I may have to upgrade the power supply.

The 1TB HD is fine but I was thinking about using a 10,000rpm for the OS. Any gains to be had in this area?

Now I know this is retarded for someone who primarily just surfs the internet but please bare with me as I learn.


What OS are you running on? Is it Windows based 32-bit (incl. Vista, Windows 7, XP32bit, etc.) or is it 64bit?

If it's 32bit Windows varieties, you max. RAM is limited by the OS (max. 4GB) and your OS will not be able to make use of the extra ram beyond that point.

Q.

 

[Bill in Utah]

I know I come off as Mr Cheap

but you have enough ram and you would not really see any difference between 6 gig and 10 gig of ram or 7200 RPM HD or a 10,000 RPM one. Esp with your use of surfing.

Make sure you are using Firefox. IE is slower.

Just my 3 cents, Bill

 

[BuickGN]

It's a 64 bit...

Bill, I agree with you but I'm using this as a platform to learn. On my last computer with 512mb

Firefox made a huge difference in speed. I may just give it a try on this one. So far it's pretty much instant. On the old one when I clicked "submit" on this board it would take about 10 seconds. Now it's instant for all intents and purposes. Which I guess makes your point even more clear.

How about this. If I were to start using photo editing software would any of the suggested mods be worthwhile?

 

[Quattro Pete]

Originally Posted By: Bill in Utah

Make sure you are using Firefox. IE is slower.

IE has improved in that regard in recent past. FF has gotten slower on the other hand. At least that's my experience. I still use FF though. With a decent dual-core CPU, web browsing performance is not really an issue.

 

[Bill in Utah]

Originally Posted By: BuickGN
It's a 64 bit...

Bill, I agree with you but I'm using this as a platform to learn. On my last computer with 512mb

Firefox made a huge difference in speed. I may just give it a try on this one. So far it's pretty much instant. On the old one when I clicked "submit" on this board it would take about 10 seconds. Now it's instant for all intents and purposes. Which I guess makes your point even more clear.

How about this. If I were to start using photo editing software would any of the suggested mods be worthwhile?


Doing photo editing I'd say the hard drive would make a *little* improvement. Remember that the 10k drives don't last as long (for what I've seen) as the 7200rpm ones.

I doubt the memory would help any.

 

[JSP]

You will not notice any difference by adding more memory. Most people do not need more than 4GB of memory at this time and anything more will just not be used. Hard drive speeds can make quite a bit of difference. If you are really into performance you might want to consider a RAID setup. But, if all you use it for is mainly web browsing I wouldn't change a thing, because you will notice little to no difference. A better value would be to buy a faster connection. Oh, and I love the speed of the Chrome browser.

 

[TXMXTruck]

In checking the HP website, I think your answer should be obvious. Am I correct in seeing that the machine has INTEGRATED GRAPHICS? If yes, start by getting a real graphics card. That will give you a significant performance boost verses running integrated graphics off the motherboard.

Yes, keep the memory where it is at. Check NewEgg.com and get yourself the best graphics card you can afford. That will also free up the 256MB of shared system RAM that the nVidia 9100 GPU is now using.

 

[FusilliJerry82]

Originally Posted By: Bill in Utah
Remember that the 10k drives don't last as long (for what I've seen) as the 7200rpm ones.


The Western Digital Velociraptor (pretty much the only non-enterprise 10k drive) has a 5 year warranty, and I personally haven't had an issue with the 4 I've had (including the plain Raptors) over the years.

If you really want to go nuts as far as HD speeds, go with a high-end solid-state drive. Expensive as all get out but orders of magnitude faster than standard hard drives.

 

[ToyotaNSaturn]

The only real upgrade worth doing on this one is a dedicated graphics card. However, that might mean a new power supply to drive it as most HP models never have anything more than a 350Watt P/S.

Solid State drives are great, but for desktop PC's I can't find any real difference between a 1TB Seagate 7200.12 and an Intel SSD. Why? Here: MS Word 2007 loads in 1 second from the Seagate drive on my HP Pavilion m9150f (Intel Q6600) With Win7 64 bit, everything is far better than the old XP 32bit days. SSD's aren't cost justifyable in such arrangements. Even Velociraptor is overkill. Invest your money in to a good external hard disk to backup all your stuff. You'll be glad you did.

 

[JHZR2]

Ive had fine luck with enterprise-spec 10k HDs. If I was going 10k, that is what I'd use.

If there is integrated graphics, get that fixed. If there isnt a proper graphics slot on the motherboard, then I wouldnt attempt to mod anything, just save pennies for a proper computer.

 

[Scotty1981]

If you have the cash, installing your OS on a solid state drive will really speed up your system and just use the 1TB drive for holding media and little accessed programs.

 

[bepperb]

"If you have the cash, installing your OS on a solid state drive will really speed up your system and just use the 1TB drive for holding media and little accessed programs."

This. Though prices on SSD's are dropping pretty fast right now.

 

[OVERKILL]

The drive is fine. The gain from rotational speed is reduced latency due to seek time. Overall throughput is the same, and in fact most cases, favours the high platter density 7,200RPM drives.

RAM is fine.

As others have suggested, get a dedicated video card. Which will likely require an upgrade to your PSU as well.

 

[TXMXTruck]

Originally Posted By: ToyotaNSaturn
The only real upgrade worth doing on this one is a dedicated graphics card. However, that might mean a new power supply to drive it as most HP models never have anything more than a 350Watt P/S.


Good point! I failed to mention that the HP website indicates he has a 300W power supply. As others have stated, you will not notice any real life improvement with more memory or a faster hard drive. Go with a very good graphics card and do get a good power supply. Antec is one of the best brands. Never go cheap on power or memory sticks.

HP makes decent looking machines at a fair price. I often see them using ASUS motherboards (very good), but most attractively priced retail computers have built in graphics, which just kills performance. Fortunately, HP generally goes with the 7200 vs. 5400 drives and generally does not cut short on memory speed either.

 

[FusilliJerry82]

Ya, I didn't even catch that this has integrated graphics. If you game AT ALL this should be your first move. If you game a lot with newer games, you're going to want something with some beef, which itself will require an upgrade of the power supply. This will also depend on your money situation. Based on this, about how much would you be willing to spend for the two?

 

[BuickGN]

Thanks for all the replies. So is replacing the graphics card a do it yourself job? I know the power supply is.

I don't want to set a budget limit. Everytime I do that I go over by a magnitude of 5 lol.

I don't game. I really don't need the speed, I just want to know it's there. I guess it's more of a personality flaw than anything... but knowing what I've done to my cars, bikes, car and home audio, etc, I know the computer is my next victim.

 

[FusilliJerry82]

A graphics card is not one of those types of upgrades. If you don't game its worthless, and considering their rapid depreciation, its not worth spending a lot on one for bling alone; there will always be a newer card within months and then your card is middle of the road. Try and keep up and you'll be dumping thousands in short order. Your money would be better spent on things like the CPU and hard drive.

Considering your personality, I would have personally built a tower myself; pre-built computers aren't very conducive to modding.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: FusilliJerry82
A graphics card is not one of those types of upgrades. If you don't game its worthless, and considering their rapid depreciation, its not worth spending a lot on one for bling alone; there will always be a newer card within months and then your card is middle of the road. Try and keep up and you'll be dumping thousands in short order. Your money would be better spent on things like the CPU and hard drive.

Considering your personality, I would have personally built a tower myself; pre-built computers aren't very conducive to modding.


Agreed!

 

[chuckerants]

Buick,

Yes the graphics card R & R is an easy DIY job. However, be aware that even if you were get a new PSU and you will probably need at least a GOOD 500W PSU, a good GPU may not even fit in your pc.

As some have suggested, with your modding personality, you should have built a pc from scratch.

As for overclocking the HP, you can do it, but you probably will not be able to do it through the BIOS like it should be done. So, you need to use a software like NVidia's Performance software or something similar to OC the PC as well as the GPU.

Again, be aware that without access to the voltage adjustment, your computer OC will be minimal, though you may be able to OC the gPU quite a bit depending.