Worth upgrading? and to what?

[woodard0626]

Hello!  My daughter has a 2020 HP Pavilion TP01-0145m and does a ton of gaming.  She is wanting a new tower.  Is it worth purchasing new or upgrading?  If so, What would you recommend?  thank you so much! 

[Bill_To]

Hi

I am not a gamer. This Site is a good resource for matching games to component requirements. The following thoughts are my subjective opinions.

Please respond citing games your daughter plays as this would help all forum members when suggesting component upgrades. Less demanding games may run fine using onboard graphics as is. Or with a CPU upgrade or a RAM upgrade from 8 GBs to 16 GBs. Some AMD CPU upgrades may require a discrete graphics card. It also looks like there is an open M.2 socket for additional and faster storage.

The TP01-0145m product specs can be seen Here. Motherboard specs are Here.

The PC is upgradable but there is one big hurdle. The included HP180 watt power supply, as all other power supply options for this MB, is proprietary. You can't use a standard part. It is very difficult to play demanding games using a 180 watt PSU. This part limits graphics card options.

Second, it is almost impossible to find any higher wattage PSUs at this time. Check the HP Parts Store using the following parts.

310 watt, part number- L03980-800

400 watt, part number-L04618-800

500 watt, part number-L05757-800

Try eBay or Amazon for availability.

If your daughter is playing AAA games the power supply problem may not be solvable. Upgrading to a higher powered discrete graphics card is off the table unless you find the HP PSU for sale somewhere else.