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So I have an hp envy 700-406 with an orchid motherboard, 12gb of ddr3 Ram, Radeon r7, and 2 tb memory. I’m looking to upgrade this for gaming, specifically games such as battlefield 5, call of duty black ops 4, and really any new games hopefully for the next few years.

If there is nothing I can do to upgrade to this; what can I build for under $400 that will fit these qualifications at medium quality minimum, preferably high settings?

I don't see any power supply specs listed for that model, and my guess is that will be the biggest limiting factor. Also, does the PSU have a PCIE 6-pin power connector? FM2+ socket can handle Trinity, Richland, and Kaveri APUs, which can still game acceptably with the right GPU. A8-6500 and up would be preferable. The right GPU in this case, at this time, is probably something like RX560, RX570 or maybe even 580 on the red side, or 1050, 1050Ti, maybe even 1060 on the green side. Some of these GPUs do not need the additional power that a PCIE 6-pin from the PSU would provide, and they would certainly stress less the probably under-spec'd PSU that HP provides. RX460, RX560, and 1050 are least likely to need additional power beyond PCIE slot, and they will be the cheapest of the bunch, and they probably match up with the rest of system best as well.

If HP uses standard ATX power connector pinout on that Orchid mobo, you could upgrade the PSU for a bigger GPU gain. You could also splurge on a used APU upgrade to better balance with the better GPUs. Just estimating here, but $75 PSU and $75 APU still leave room for RX580 / 1060 considerations.

It uses an orchid s, and yes it has fm2 for sure, and can take a gtx 660 guaranteed. 300w power supply on it I believe.

If I were to build something for the games listed, what would be a good setup?

And one more issue is limited space in the case. Could I remove all the hardware and case transfer?

https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c04490020 Link to my pc specs

What is the CPU? Is it the A10-7700K?

Yes, it is the A10, runs at 3.4 ghz

what I don't like about these pre built computers like the hp is that the psu is usually proprietary and the space is super hard to get around in the thing as well.

Ok, the A10-7700K is 4cores/4threads. Certainly not a speed demon by today's standards, but the nice thing about it is that it works, and you've got a healthy amount of RAM. With your $400 budget, it's better to just focus on adding performance in the form of components that you can always carry over into a new build in the future.


Is this what your case looks like inside?

That said, here's some ideas:
RX570 8GB with 3 free games for $160 after MIR. (Should give you very nice 1080p gaming performance equivalent to the GTX1060 3GB but with more VRAM)
Corsair CX450 for $19 after promo code and MIR. (don't trust that 300W OEM PSU)
Crucial MX500 500GB SSD for $85 (you need an SSD. Period)

Make sure you measure inside your case for the GPU and PSU:
The length AND width of the GPU. (9.7" long x 5.12" tall)
And the length of the PSU (I recently modified a Dell that uses an abnormally short PSU and the locking mechanism had to be modified/cut/removed in order to get a standard length PSU in)

The case might be tight and lack airflow, and the stock PSU is probably not capable of handling too much. I would replace case/power/graphics now, and set yourself up to do CPU/RAM/motherboard down the road.

With a mainstream GPU, you won't need more than 400-500 watts from your power supply. You can get a good one for $50-$75 easily.

I just saw some GTX 1060 cards on Newegg around $200. That is pretty much the highest you'd want to go with your current CPU. It will probably be able to stretch its legs a little if/when you replace the CPU in a few years.

That leaves $125+ for the case. There are a lot of really good choices in that price range. Good reviews were showered on almost everything made by Corsair and Fractal Design, so those are the safe bets if you're not entirely sure what you want.

Honestly, you could probably drop to a GTX 1050, watch for a deal on the PSU, keep the case under $100, and probably end up under $300. It would still be a noticeable difference. But it's hard to ignore the price/performance on the 1060 (more than twice the compute capability, but less than twice the price).

I should've asked. Does your current case have a fan in/on the front panel? If not, does it have screw holes where you could mount a fan in the front of the case?

The spec sheet suggests your motherboard is a standard mATX form factor, so really any aftermarket case that supports mATX will sufficiently house it. Just need to make sure it's necessary. On this topic, I'd definitely be on the side of "try the current case with the new GPU first" and see where you're at. Unless the current case is woefully insufficient at providing enough airflow to keep the GPU and CPU cool, buying a new case isn't going to improve performance.

Rn it’s all stock, case n all, just as I bought it. If what I’m understanding is that I should get a new case, graphics card, and power supply. A few questions numbered

1) It is safe to transfer all the old components to a new case?

2) how do I pick out a case?

3) what should I know about transferring parts to a new case, and what are the risk

4) what are things I need to know about this whole project so nothing breaks

Also which 1050/1060 should I buy? There are many iterations and I don’t know which one is which?

I'm not familiar with BO4's practical system requirements, but anything you can do for $400 is probably going to be a bit weak in Battlefield. It takes quite a bit of CPU, meaning in effect that every component you've got is fairly weak for it. If you just upgrade the GPU, you'll be able to crank the settings way up without much or any penalty, but there relatedly may be no settings that actually get it running well. If you do that, I think you should plan on carrying the new graphics card over into an upgrade of the rest of the system, hopefully soon.

$400 will just about fit an overhaul of everything except the case and drives. It sounds like the case is standard enough to support new components, and the new components in question aren't challenging to keep cool. Staying with a mechanical drive will make things take a while loading, but it beats having trouble running games at any reasonable framerate.

Here are some parts that would work: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/fWVssZ. While they're a bit weak by current PC standards, they're comfortably more powerful than the baseline PS4 and Xbox One in almost every way, and with some settings compromises they should be able to decently handle just about any game releases up to at least the end of 2019.

The 700-406 model looks to be a standard ATX PSU and mATX motherboard, so I'd suggest getting the best graphics card possible within the budget.
A PSU swap is definitely needed for any half-decent graphics card, and the extra cooling required for a more powerful graphics card needs to be considered.

Transferring everything into a new case with better airflow is one way to do it and that would work well, but it would eat into your budget.
Another option is to buy a graphics card that's designed to vent most of its hot exhaust air directly out of the expansion slot, putting much less strain on the internal cooling than a regular card would.

Here's an 8GB RX580 and 6GB GTX1060 that would do just that:
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product. ... -_-Product
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product. ... -_-Product
In some games, a 1060 6GB is faster, in others an 8GB RX580 is faster. Overall the RX580 is faster, cheaper, and uses more power, but they're both pretty comparable.

Pair that with something like this Seasonic 80+ Gold Modular PSU on offer for the next six days:
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product. ... -_-Product

As for your other questions:
1) It is safe to transfer all the old components to a new case?
Yep, it looks like everything is a standard component that will transfer without any unforseen problems. When you buy a case most of the screws and fittings you will need to do the transfer come with the new case, the rest you will be able to salvage from the old one.

2) how do I pick out a case?
Choose a size, choose a budget, pick the one you like the look of. There are very few bad cases as long as you stick to a reputable brand. There's plenty of high-quality choice in the $50-100 range, and if you tell people here what sort of case you like I'm sure we can make some suggestions.

3) what should I know about transferring parts to a new case, and what are the risk
Watch a youtube video on how to build a PC. That'll cover everything you need and more. Techreport has its own video somewhere, I think it's linked on every one of the system guides that come out a couple of times a year.

4) what are things I need to know about this whole project so nothing breaks
It's quite hard to break a PC if you're careful, but my advice as a beginner is to treat everything as if it were brittle glass that is static-sensitive so don't force anything if it doesn't fit the connector, if you're sure it's the right plug into the right socket and the connection is causing the board or card to bend, provide some support from behind the board so that you're not stressing it (this mainly applies to power connectors on the graphics card and motherboard, as they can be stiff. When you're unsure, Google it rather than guessing

Also which 1050/1060 should I buy? There are many iterations and I don’t know which one is which?
I've linked a couple of cards that would work without you needing to change to a new case. If you're really keen on getting a new case, try to get the best graphics card you can afford with your remaining budget. That means you want a 1060 instead of a 1050, and you want the 6GB version of it instead of the 3GB version. More expensive does not necessarily mean better, either. A lot of the more expensive models are more expensive because of RGB Lighting and very minor factory-approved overclocks, but in reality what affects performance is mainly how big the card is, because a larger card usually has more surface area for better cooling.

Before you go buying an RX580 or GTX1060 6GB for 45-55% more $$ than the RX570 I linked for only a 10-20% increase in performance , you might want to check out some benchmark numbers. (and keep in mind, those are on Ultra settings, which is a waste)

Also, I would not recommend a single fan RX580.

And again, get a GPU and PSU first. Put them in the existing case. And see what temps are like before you go spending $50 on a metal box. It doesn't sound like you have a lot of experience with building PCs from scratch (not that it's hard) but installing a GPU and PSU is easier than an entire system transplant.

Ordered an rx 580 and a 550w psu; next question is about how to change power supply? Will a simple YouTube search answer this

I'm a ghost. I hope you didn't order the RX580 that Chrispy linked (no offense Chrispy). It's literally the worst cooler of all the RX580s.

Unplug all the plugs from the existing one, plug the new one back into all the components. The only thing to make sure of is that you get the 8-pin CPU power to the motherboard and the 8-pin PCIe power to the GPU. Everything else is simple, the plugs only fit where they belong.

TR's system guide has a handy instructional video on computer assembly.

It'll be fine, it's a partially exhausting card - around two-thirds goes out the back and one-third is recirculated. We have a batch of those already in the renderfarm because you can't buy full-blower RX580's any more and in a renderfarm's space restrictions that's the desired cooling method.

I had reference RX480s at home and have a reference Vega now, without complaints - both of those are single-fan and have less cooling area than this MSI. But don't take my word for it, there are customer reviews that say this MSI runs nice and cool - 65C on 50% fan. Yeah, you can get better coolers but they're typically fully-open and 100% of that heat is dumped back into the case, in this instance a small HP mATX tower with the bare minimum of ventilation probably won't handle those cards particularly well.

I’ve never had cooling problems, but I did order the card chrispy linked

Chrispy_ wrote:

I had reference RX480s at home and have a reference Vega now, without complaints - both of those are single-fan and have less cooling area than this MSI.

Those were actual centrifugal blowers though. A blower directs all of its airflow in the open direction, this axial fan won't. Newegg reviews on that card seem to echo: "hot" "noisy"

At this point, I'll just offer this advice. Look into undervolting your RX580. (guide here) Chrispy sees A LOT more hardware than I do, but I'm pretty sure he's tweaking voltage curves also. I shaved off 25% power draw with a 50mV undervolt compared to stock. Also use Frame Rate Target Control to match your [assumedly] 60Hz/60fps monitor. Any power you can save makes a big difference in heat/noise.
Also, since your case has no dust filters, make sure you go in there every few months and blow off/out the GPU heatsink. That will keep it running as cool as possible.

DPete27 wrote:

Those were actual centrifugal blowers though. A blower directs all of its airflow in the open direction, this axial fan won't. Newegg reviews on that card seem to echo: "hot" "noisy"

Yeah, it's not a radial fan blower but there aren't any RX580's with radial fans that I'm aware of. I can only speak of the batch I have in hand, but plenty of hot air comes out of the back of the card, Comparing a stack of 8 machines with RX480 reference blowers to a stack of 8 machines with these MSI RX580 cards, the MSI cards seem to be running their fans and GPUs at roughly the same speeds and temps (2500rpm, 80C)

As for the bad Newegg 'reviews', I can only assume that those people don't have a clue what they're talking about! They are complaining that their cards run at 80C when that's the target temperature that's set. If they want it to run cooler than the AMD recommended value, they just need to adjust the setting themselves - the drivers aren't psychic!

DPete27 wrote:

Look into undervolting your RX580. (guide here)
Also use Frame Rate Target Control to match your [assumedly] 60Hz/60fps monitor. Any power you can save makes a big difference in heat/noise.
Also, since your case has no dust filters, make sure you go in there every few months and blow off/out the GPU heatsink. That will keep it running as cool as possible.

Yep, I can only concur.
Undervolting really helps the 400/500/Vega series. Probably 99% of them run at 1V instead of the 1.1V which is an instant 20W power saving before you even start tweaking.

Pretty much any Polaris/Vega card can run ~40-50mV less than the stock curve at each frequency state. That's a good place to start for undervolting. To see this in WattMan (AMD Settings) simply move the Frequency and Voltage sliders (on the left of the window) so they don't say "Auto", then subtract 50mV from each State. I suggest graphing the Frequency/Voltage curve so you can make sure you're not creating any unwanted dips.
Also, once you get past approximately 950mV, the slope of the Voltage curve will increase noticeably.

You can "Save Profile" and "Load Profile" in WattMan, which makes applying your Undervolt very simple once you get it dialed in and tested.

Bit of an update. Everything is installed fine to some extent. 550w psu does it’s job, but I feel the rx580 is underperforming as I can barely run battlefield 1 at 30, usually around 20 on medium settings 720p. With a 3.6ghz processor, 12g of ram, and 6pins hooking the electrical each way, what’s going wrong?

And yes drivers are up to date

That does seem off. What speed is the GPU running at?

Battlefield 1 in particular needs more threads to run smoothly; as a yardstick my i7-2600 has all 8 threads (4core/8thread CPU) **constantly** at 70-100% during multiplayer. When it had an RX 480 in it, it ran as a minimum above 60 fps on high graphic settings.

Sorry, but the CPU is holding you back in this particular game, and especially if you are eyeing upcoming games. But the other upgrades you already have done will serve you well on any build.

Yikes, so what’s the next step to make my setup usable for the game

Also I run bf4 alright so idkw bf1 is so intensive

Can you tell us how it runs BF1 in offline/single player?

In single player it’s still pretty bad. At low and 720 fps it goes from 10-60 fps. Really the performance is just everywhere and unplayable honestly. Multiplayer is a catastrophe to say the least. Average of 25 fps