Illiterate old mom trying to buy Christmas Present for 12yo... Help!

Marybabs73 · 27 Nov 2015

Thanks for helping in advance. I bought my daughter an all in one HP for these things:
she wants it for class projects, some gaming (nothing serious.. Minecraft and little things like that), she mentioned some place she wanted to buy games online though so I'm worried I didn't buy a good enough computer for that, etc. I am worried that I didn't buy enough GB RAM to run her little games and it will be slow with the quad processor after reading previous reviews. Would I have been better off buying a faster dual processor or something with more RAM? We are on a bit of a budget and I'm not smart enough to build her a computer. I can return it before Christmas and get something better if this won't run her games.
Thanks
I bought this...

HP Pavilion 23t All-in-One PC
Product number: N0X22AV#ABA

•Microsoft Office Trial
•No Additional Security Software
•Home and Home Office Insert
•4GB DDR3L-1600 SODIMM (1x4GB) RAM
•Integrated Sound
•1TB 7200 RPM SATA 6G 3.5 Hard Drive
•HP USB Wired Keyboard and Optical Mouse (White)
•HP 3-in-1 Media Card Reader
•4th Generation Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-4460T processor quad-core [1.9GHz, 6MB Shared Cache]
•SuperMulti DVD Burner
•Intel Integrated Graphic
•Windows 10 Home 64-bit OS
•HP Wireless 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac 1x1 with Bluetooth M.2 NIC (Stone Peak 1)

shimshom · 27 Nov 2015

This should be fine and a quad processor is better than a dual core. My daughter plays Minecraft on a slower processor with the same amount of RAM with no problems and being a 64 bit Windows you can always add more RAM later when the budget permits but also depends what other games she wishes to play as some require better video card than the integrated one

Marybabs73 · 27 Nov 2015

Thanks for your help. She mentioned getting games from steam and that had me worried because from what I read THOSE games are pretty taxing. Since it's an AIO system I'm not sure how much upgrading I'll be able to do, not to mention I'm not too smart at building PC like everyone else on here. Ha! I guess if she wants to do big gaming she will have to learn how to upgrade them. I almost bought one of those Alienware ones and kind of regret not doing it since I'm not into building and working on these things but holy smokes are they expensive!!!!

essenbe · 27 Nov 2015

Marybabs73, the games on Steam run from very demanding to not too demanding at all. So, it would just depend on which games she wants to run. The computer you bought should be OK for the low to moderate demanding games. The biggest upgrade you could do to that computer for gaming would be adding a graphics card. I don't know much about the all in one computers, but I would suspect it would not be quite as easy as a tower computer. In gaming, Graphics capabilities are more important than CPU.

edobson · 27 Nov 2015

Steam is just a platform to buy games from, the fact the games have been bought from Steam doesn't affect the requirements of your PC. The quad-core i5 CPU is actually pretty decent and more than enough to play games with, the integrated graphics card however, isn't. 4GB's of RAM is also quite on the low end for games by today's standards. As essenbe said, it should be OK to run low demand games but anything more than that and you're going to want to upgrade the GPU. However, if you open up an All-in-One it will void the warrenty. It would also be quite difficult to fit an aftermarket GPU into the All-in-One, as they're not built with upgrades in mind, so there's a good chance that you wouldn't even be able to upgrade to a better GPU.

So, if she's only going to be using it for class projects and low-demand games, the HP should do fine. Anything more than that and you will probably want a more powerful system.

essenbe · 27 Nov 2015

I agree with edobson. I know little about all in one PCs, but in my mind they are built not a lot different than laptops. Increasing the ram would not be difficult or real expensive, but adding a graphics card would be difficult and expensive, if it can be done at all. The CPU is fine and you have no worries there and for the most part the ram is probably OK, although I would make it 8 GB if you can. The only real problem you will have is the GPU if she wants any demanding games. If you plan to try to add a GPU, you are going to have to take your power supply into account.

But again, the graphics you have are fine for low end games and maybe for some moderate games if the settings are turned down. For schoolwork and normal usage, it is more than adequate. The only problem you will have is playing any demanding games.

Marybabs73 · 27 Nov 2015

edobson said:

Steam is just a platform to buy games from, the fact the games have been bought from Steam doesn't affect the requirements of your PC. The quad-core i5 CPU is actually pretty decent and more than enough to play games with, the integrated graphics card however, isn't. 4GB's of RAM is also quite on the low end for games by today's standards. As essenbe said, it should be OK to run low demand games but anything more than that and you're going to want to upgrade the GPU. However, if you open up an All-in-One it will void the warrenty. It would also be quite difficult to fit an aftermarket GPU into the All-in-One, as they're not built with upgrades in mind, so there's a good chance that you wouldn't even be able to upgrade to a better GPU.

So, if she's only going to be using it for class projects and low-demand games, the HP should do fine. Anything more than that and you will probably want a more powerful system.

Thanks so much. Since I'm not smart enough to build my own I ended up canceling my order and I'll have to go with this Alienware one for her and just buy a smaller crappy monitor until I save more money. Thanks so much for your help!!!

lx07 · 27 Nov 2015

Marybabs73 said:

Thanks so much. Since I'm not smart enough to build my own I ended up canceling my order and I'll have to go with this Alienware one for her and just buy a smaller crappy monitor until I save more money. Thanks so much for your help!!!

That was correct :)

essenbe · 27 Nov 2015

Marybabs73, how old is your Daughter and what games is she into. I think you could find a decent computer without going Ailenware. My personal opinion is Alienware make some good computers, but they are overpriced.

BTW, you are smart enough to build you own and it is not that difficult, especially if you or your daughter have friends that know how.

edobson · 27 Nov 2015

Marybabs73 said:

Thanks so much. Since I'm not smart enough to build my own I ended up canceling my order and I'll have to go with this Alienware one for her and just buy a smaller crappy monitor until I save more money. Thanks so much for your help!!!

Actually, Alienware are quite overpriced for the hardware they actually have in them, and to be honest it'll probably pretty overkill for what your daughter will use it for. I would recommend having a look around for a desktop PC - something like this HP Pavilion 500-504na Desktop PC

I'm not sure what the price would translate to in your currency but you can probably see it's a hell of a lot cheaper than an Alienware and it would be perfect for what your daughter needs, you'd just have to buy a monitor to go with it.