Maximum PC

Here is a short background...

I bought a HP P6804 Nov. 2011. I have never been into games and the salesman said this would be a solid choice for me. It's been great so far. Downloading movies, music and using the internet.

However, over the past couple months I have been following a new game coming out (The War Z). I really want to play this game.

I found out I am going to have to play on the lowest settings and my computer is not up-gradable (say what?!).

I guess what it comes down to, is I would need a new motherboard and power supply. OR buy/build a new PC.

Is my P6804 worth up-grading?

I'm a NEWB!

If you want to upgrade your computer's motherboard and processor you'll probably have upgrade your power supply (since the one you have is 250 watts only) since you'll probably want a video card since graphics cards usually take about 100 watts to 200 watts to run. You'll want a video card too so you can play The War Z at medium to high settings. The thing that it all comes down to is how much money are you willing to spend on a new PC?

Here's a build that'll probably be good for you.

Rosewill case $50 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6811147153

ASRock Z75 motherboard $85 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813157304

i3-3220 processor $130 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6819116775

Crucial Ballistix 4GB $23 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820148538

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817182021

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6822136771

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814161387 HIS 6770

Windows 7 $100 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6832116986

This is what I would suggest if you want a good build for $600

Well, it took quite a while for my post to be approved and I jumped in... I bought a 500w power supply, a Gigabyte motherboard (model # 78LMT) and a Radeon HD6670 XFX...

I just need to understand how to get my OEM windows 7 to be cool with the new motherboard.

From my understanding Windows 7 OEM links to the motherboard that you use it with so basically your new board is the only board that will be able to use your OEM copy. If you buy the full version you can use it on as many computers as you want but it can only be activated on one PC at a time.

Add a video card if you still want to play modern games at a decent resolution and FPS rate. So if your current rig does not fulfill your needs, I believe you will require a new build. From a quick google of your PC, you could recyle into a new build the following:
- hard drive
- DVD drive
- and if you had to, you could probably keep the 2 GB x 2 RAM modules and motherboard

Imho, you might be better off selling your rig completely as-is (to get some $ out of it) and building a new one. A budget gaming build/everyday PC would start around $500, but can easily close on $800, depending on what you want it to do.

Or keep it and just read books! I don't know anything about "The War Z" game, but I have "World War Z", the book, in my queue

Have to agree with the masses here - not really worth upgrading, these are really cut-down, feature free PCs in order to keep costs down.

For example, your motherboard is an H-Apricot-RS780L-uATX (Apricot) which, if you confirm by opening the case - is lacking the pci-express connector altogether and since someone mentioned a 250W PSU is installed in the case - that is probably a good thing

The only good thing is, it is a 760G based chipset with an on-board ATI Radeon 3000 that does support dual-head so it is an awesome office PC all kidding aside, I have seen a few of these live their retirement days as budget HTPCs if you don't mind the lack of HDMI (stuck w/ converting DVI to HDMI and porting audio through your A/V amp or sound bar).