Transforming an Old HP to a Playable Gaming PC: A Success Story

In this video, we explored the possibility of transforming an old HP special edition gaming PC into a playable machine, despite its limited specifications. The original system consisted of an Intel Core i7-2600K, 8GB DDR3 RAM, and a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 Ti 2GB. However, with some modifications and tweaks, we were able to breathe new life into this old machine.

First up was Skyrim special edition, which turned out to be more than playable at low settings. We set the preset to medium and adjusted a few options to their highest settings, and managed to hit the in-game cap of 60 FPS. The system's performance figures were impressive, with 1.1 lows being solid and the average frame rate remaining stable. This transformation was a great indication that this old PC could handle more demanding games.

Next, we moved on to Team Fortress 2, which worked well on this system despite some minor dips and drops. We set the textures and models to their lowest settings, but still managed to maintain a smooth gaming experience. It's worth noting that choosing high textures and high models would not have significantly impacted performance figures, given the system's limitations.

Apex Legends was another game that surprised us with its low texture settings and adaptive 60 FPS target resolution. The average frame rate was around 66 FPS, with some minor dips here and there. We were impressed by the system's ability to handle this popular battle royale game at a relatively high frame rate.

Fortnite, on the other hand, was an absolute delight to play on this old PC. With performance mode enabled, we achieved an astonishing 96 FPS at medium textures and epic view distance settings. The average frame rate was slightly lower than expected, but still above 60 FPS. We were also able to wipe out a few enemies in-game without any issues.

Two games that are ideal for low-spec systems like this one are Valorant and Minecraft. At 1080p with the lowest settings, we managed to achieve an average frame rate of 142 FPS with minimal stuttering or dips. In Minecraft, we played at 279 FPS on average, but experienced some minor stuttering due to the game's rendering requirements.

Finally, we tested Overwatch 2 at medium preset and achieved a respectable 87 FPS. However, the system's CPU was maxed out by the MSI overlay, resulting in some slight dips here and there. Despite this, the overall gaming experience was smooth and enjoyable.

In conclusion, transforming an old HP special edition gaming PC into a playable machine was a resounding success. With some modifications and tweaks, we were able to breathe new life into this system, making it capable of playing popular games at relatively high frame rates. However, there is still room for improvement, and with the addition of an SSD, a better CPU or i7 processor, and a 10 series graphics card, this system could become even more capable.

Overall, we're excited to share this transformation with our audience and hope that it will inspire others to try similar projects. Whether you have an old PC collecting dust in your garage or a friend who's looking for a budget-friendly gaming rig, this video shows that it's possible to breathe new life into these systems. We'll continue to experiment and push the limits of this old HP special edition PC, so stay tuned for more updates and reviews.

Finally, we apologize if the audio sounds different from our previous videos, as we almost forgot to include a disclaimer about the audio quality.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhello everyone and welcome to another video now excluding the postage cost I won this old HP Pavilion for just 10 pounds and 50 pence in an online eBay auction this p6000 Series Desktop or special edition desktop I should say thanks to the stylish Bamboo Leaf effect on the front was in a bit of a mess and it was one of those situations where I ended up not expecting to be the highest bidder for such a little amount of money it originally came without a graphics card but the core i5 650 8 gigs of RAM and 300 watt OEM PSU still sounded to me like a reasonable place to start so I set aside a tiny budget to turn this into a more capable everyday and very light gaming rig aside from the dusting and the cleaning I've made a couple of changes the first was with the processor the old I5 650 that was originally in here is a hyper threaded part unlike the 750 which is about the same page but actually has four physical cores not just two cores and four threads a first gen I5 will cost you Pocket Change in 2023 but I was still able to avoid spending anything by swapping with someone on Marketplace for a Xeon they had a board which didn't work with the xeons and although I only had two cores to trade with they only wanted it to test a few old 1156 motherboards before selling them on so Smiles all round there's actually room for further upgrade too as this board should work with quad core hyper threaded xeons and i7 so we'll definitely be upgrading it further a little down the line next up we needed a graphics card we don't have much CPU power to play with so a lower end GPU will be good enough here I couldn't resist a GTX 750 Ti an absolutely legendary card that I have a lot of love for it's been an integral part of the channel since its release in 2014 and while it's hard to recommend these days due to its lack of full dx12 support it's more more than enough for the older titles that this computer is intended for plus it'll work no problem with the stock power supply traditional hard drives can be picked up for very little money as well with 320 gig SATA ones like this going for one pounds 50 at CeX I definitely recommend a cheap solid-state drive instead as this will speed up boot and loading times everything within windows will just feel snappier and it will transform the way an old PC like this feels to use on a daily basis for everyday use and office work for example this will be fine and while we've seen in the past that the GTX 750 Ti can handle AAA games with reduced quality settings this PC in its entirety will be best for lightweight single or multiplayer games my intention really with this was just to stop another old system from going to the scrapyard and I like to think I've done that here it's really nothing special but it will give someone a bit of enjoyment and I'll slap an SSD in it before selling it on so then games what can it play old xeons can still be quite impressive in the right motherboard but atop this basic OEM HP board it is somewhat restrained the 750 Ti actually has a lot more to give in some scenarios and with that said the experience overall is okay now in all of the following game tests you're probably going to see that the CPU is the limitation and this could potentially be reflected in the 1 and 0.1 percent lows by that I mean that you're going to see pretty low figures but that's to be expected with this old chip and as I said I think we'll slap a four core hyper-threaded Xeon in here instead of this four core one that lacks any hyper threading at all in CS go though 103 FPS on average was surprisingly good with a one percent low of 46 and a 0.1 percent low of just nine so there were definitely some problems but not terrible certainly not the worst experience I've had in this game in the Elder Scrolls Skyrim special edition at 1080p with the low preset and TAA enabled here instead of FXAA just to try and eliminate some of those Jagged edges we hit the FPS cap of 59 I thought this was capped at 60 but 59 here for some reason but there we go the 1.1 lows were actually pretty solid as well so Skyrim special edition was more than playable and if you wanted to Target 30 FPS instead with a system like this you could definitely turn the preset up to medium or high and potentially set a few options to their highest as well I was definitely playing it safe here but it's nice to know that at these low settings we can hit the in-game cap with this setup Team Fortress 2 is another game I enjoy to play from time to time and it works quite well on this system as expected there will be a few dips and drops here and there with the high textures High models and everything else set to lowest now choosing High textures and high models isn't essential but we definitely had room to do so in terms of the performance figures and turning these down doesn't really impact those 1.1 lows it doesn't really improve anything so I thought we may as well go a little bit higher with the settings Apex Legends was quite surprising very low textures here with everything else at lowest and an Adaptive 60fps Target resolution or as I've spelled it Rio's solution accidentally here there's always something I pick up in editing every time 66 FPS though on average with this adaptive Target in mind and 52 was the one percent low followed by 18 is the 0.1 figure so you know it was okay the occasional dip here and they're better than I thought with an old Xeon and a 750 Ti that's for sure definitely a better experience than I anticipated fortnite 96fps in performance mode here I also chose the high textures and epic view distance because they didn't really impact the 1.1 lows the average was slightly lower but we were still getting at least 60 FPS which is what I hoped for in this game there will be a few little dips and drops then but it is definitely more than playable and I was even able to wipe out a couple of enemies too which is all you need really if you can do that then the game is playable even if you're a terrible player like me but yeah again more than I was expecting from this setup a setup that's not really what I call a gaming machine by any means but it is capable of those lighter titles especially ones like this that have dedicated performance modes now I apologize if this audio sounds different but I almost forgot to include two games two games that are ideal for low spec systems like this one the first of which is valorant at 1080p with the lowest settings the average FPS was 142 with the one percent low of 68 and 8.1 low of 30 so nothing to worry about here with these settings and you can even turn things up a bit if you wanted to the next game is Minecraft 1080p with eight chunks render and simulation that's supposed to say simulation again what is wrong with my spelling today 279 FPS on average with a little bit of stutter here and there that's partly the reason I didn't turn the settings up further it's not because of the average frame rate it's just because there would have been even more stutter that's the main problem with one of these old four core four thread CPUs you're not going to have issues with the average numbers it's going to be those percentile lows finally then we have OverWatch 2 1080p with the medium preset push the boundary a little bit here 87 FPS you can probably tell that the CPU is absolutely maxed out by that MSI overlay 100 is pretty much what it was pinned to all of the time that's probably because it doesn't have hyper threading so it's four physical cores four threads and you can see that reflected in this result a few dips here and there but it was more than playable no problem here and I think again this frame rate was a lot better than I anticipated so for those lightweight titles and those free games this is going to be a PC that does okay but there we go there are definitely some improvements to be made slapping SSD in here slap a better Xeon or an i7 in this thing and perhaps add a 10 series graphics card instead and you've got yourself something that could be even more capable perhaps that's something we'll actually do in another video but as for this one and as for now I hope you've enjoyed the transformation we've made to this special edition old tied HP that probably would have ended up thrown away or who knows if you did leave a like on it leave a dislike if you didn't subscribe to the channel if you haven't done so already and hopefully I'll see you all in the next onehello everyone and welcome to another video now excluding the postage cost I won this old HP Pavilion for just 10 pounds and 50 pence in an online eBay auction this p6000 Series Desktop or special edition desktop I should say thanks to the stylish Bamboo Leaf effect on the front was in a bit of a mess and it was one of those situations where I ended up not expecting to be the highest bidder for such a little amount of money it originally came without a graphics card but the core i5 650 8 gigs of RAM and 300 watt OEM PSU still sounded to me like a reasonable place to start so I set aside a tiny budget to turn this into a more capable everyday and very light gaming rig aside from the dusting and the cleaning I've made a couple of changes the first was with the processor the old I5 650 that was originally in here is a hyper threaded part unlike the 750 which is about the same page but actually has four physical cores not just two cores and four threads a first gen I5 will cost you Pocket Change in 2023 but I was still able to avoid spending anything by swapping with someone on Marketplace for a Xeon they had a board which didn't work with the xeons and although I only had two cores to trade with they only wanted it to test a few old 1156 motherboards before selling them on so Smiles all round there's actually room for further upgrade too as this board should work with quad core hyper threaded xeons and i7 so we'll definitely be upgrading it further a little down the line next up we needed a graphics card we don't have much CPU power to play with so a lower end GPU will be good enough here I couldn't resist a GTX 750 Ti an absolutely legendary card that I have a lot of love for it's been an integral part of the channel since its release in 2014 and while it's hard to recommend these days due to its lack of full dx12 support it's more more than enough for the older titles that this computer is intended for plus it'll work no problem with the stock power supply traditional hard drives can be picked up for very little money as well with 320 gig SATA ones like this going for one pounds 50 at CeX I definitely recommend a cheap solid-state drive instead as this will speed up boot and loading times everything within windows will just feel snappier and it will transform the way an old PC like this feels to use on a daily basis for everyday use and office work for example this will be fine and while we've seen in the past that the GTX 750 Ti can handle AAA games with reduced quality settings this PC in its entirety will be best for lightweight single or multiplayer games my intention really with this was just to stop another old system from going to the scrapyard and I like to think I've done that here it's really nothing special but it will give someone a bit of enjoyment and I'll slap an SSD in it before selling it on so then games what can it play old xeons can still be quite impressive in the right motherboard but atop this basic OEM HP board it is somewhat restrained the 750 Ti actually has a lot more to give in some scenarios and with that said the experience overall is okay now in all of the following game tests you're probably going to see that the CPU is the limitation and this could potentially be reflected in the 1 and 0.1 percent lows by that I mean that you're going to see pretty low figures but that's to be expected with this old chip and as I said I think we'll slap a four core hyper-threaded Xeon in here instead of this four core one that lacks any hyper threading at all in CS go though 103 FPS on average was surprisingly good with a one percent low of 46 and a 0.1 percent low of just nine so there were definitely some problems but not terrible certainly not the worst experience I've had in this game in the Elder Scrolls Skyrim special edition at 1080p with the low preset and TAA enabled here instead of FXAA just to try and eliminate some of those Jagged edges we hit the FPS cap of 59 I thought this was capped at 60 but 59 here for some reason but there we go the 1.1 lows were actually pretty solid as well so Skyrim special edition was more than playable and if you wanted to Target 30 FPS instead with a system like this you could definitely turn the preset up to medium or high and potentially set a few options to their highest as well I was definitely playing it safe here but it's nice to know that at these low settings we can hit the in-game cap with this setup Team Fortress 2 is another game I enjoy to play from time to time and it works quite well on this system as expected there will be a few dips and drops here and there with the high textures High models and everything else set to lowest now choosing High textures and high models isn't essential but we definitely had room to do so in terms of the performance figures and turning these down doesn't really impact those 1.1 lows it doesn't really improve anything so I thought we may as well go a little bit higher with the settings Apex Legends was quite surprising very low textures here with everything else at lowest and an Adaptive 60fps Target resolution or as I've spelled it Rio's solution accidentally here there's always something I pick up in editing every time 66 FPS though on average with this adaptive Target in mind and 52 was the one percent low followed by 18 is the 0.1 figure so you know it was okay the occasional dip here and they're better than I thought with an old Xeon and a 750 Ti that's for sure definitely a better experience than I anticipated fortnite 96fps in performance mode here I also chose the high textures and epic view distance because they didn't really impact the 1.1 lows the average was slightly lower but we were still getting at least 60 FPS which is what I hoped for in this game there will be a few little dips and drops then but it is definitely more than playable and I was even able to wipe out a couple of enemies too which is all you need really if you can do that then the game is playable even if you're a terrible player like me but yeah again more than I was expecting from this setup a setup that's not really what I call a gaming machine by any means but it is capable of those lighter titles especially ones like this that have dedicated performance modes now I apologize if this audio sounds different but I almost forgot to include two games two games that are ideal for low spec systems like this one the first of which is valorant at 1080p with the lowest settings the average FPS was 142 with the one percent low of 68 and 8.1 low of 30 so nothing to worry about here with these settings and you can even turn things up a bit if you wanted to the next game is Minecraft 1080p with eight chunks render and simulation that's supposed to say simulation again what is wrong with my spelling today 279 FPS on average with a little bit of stutter here and there that's partly the reason I didn't turn the settings up further it's not because of the average frame rate it's just because there would have been even more stutter that's the main problem with one of these old four core four thread CPUs you're not going to have issues with the average numbers it's going to be those percentile lows finally then we have OverWatch 2 1080p with the medium preset push the boundary a little bit here 87 FPS you can probably tell that the CPU is absolutely maxed out by that MSI overlay 100 is pretty much what it was pinned to all of the time that's probably because it doesn't have hyper threading so it's four physical cores four threads and you can see that reflected in this result a few dips here and there but it was more than playable no problem here and I think again this frame rate was a lot better than I anticipated so for those lightweight titles and those free games this is going to be a PC that does okay but there we go there are definitely some improvements to be made slapping SSD in here slap a better Xeon or an i7 in this thing and perhaps add a 10 series graphics card instead and you've got yourself something that could be even more capable perhaps that's something we'll actually do in another video but as for this one and as for now I hope you've enjoyed the transformation we've made to this special edition old tied HP that probably would have ended up thrown away or who knows if you did leave a like on it leave a dislike if you didn't subscribe to the channel if you haven't done so already and hopefully I'll see you all in the next one\n"