HP Pavillion Gaming Desktop 690-0010 - Is it worth Upgrading to an SSD Drive and More Memory?

[EzraV]

I've read that this computer benefits from upgrading the hard drive to an SSD drive. I'm also considering upgrading the 3GB of RAM to 16GB or 32GB. However, I don't want to spend $200-$300 on upgrades if the result will not satisfy, and I will turn around and have to spend money on a whole new system.

The computer currently has an AMD Ryzen 3 2200G with Radeon Vega Graphics 3.50 GHz processor, an AMD Radeon RX 550 graphics card with 4GB of GDDR5 dedicated memory, 8GB of Ram, and a 1TB HDD hard drive. The OS is Windows 10.

I use this computer to play EVE Online and Conan Exiles. However, applications can take as many as 5-8 minutes to boot up, and often they stutter upon first opening, with graphics set to low settings. It even struggles with standard software such as Adobe Reader and GIMP.

Will upgrading the drive and memory give a satisfactory result, or should I just buy a new system?

[Paul_Tikkanen · Accepted solution]

Hi:

Below is the link to the product specs for your PC.

HP Pavilion 690-0010 Gaming Desktop PC Product Specifications | HP® Customer Support

You probably only need to add another 8 GB DDR4-2400 memory chip in the empty slot and have 16 GB of memory.

Another thing you can do is to buy one 16 GB memory chip and have 24 GB and then if you don't feel that is enough, remove the existing 8 GB chip and install another 16 GB chip in its place.

Your PC has a M.2 slot that supports NVMe SSD's, but the slot is PCie Gen 3 x 2, which means a NVMe SSD will run at approximately half of its maximum advertised speed.

That would still be around 3 x faster than a SATA SSD.

I recommend the Samsung 980 NVme. (not 980 Pro), or the Western Digital Blue SN 570 NVMe.

The biggest roadblock to the poor graphics performance would be the graphics card it has, and I don't understand why because that is a fairly decent graphics card.

AMD Radeon RX 550 4GB | GPUSpecs.com

However, it would cost a fairly high amount of money to upgrade the graphics card to something better.

[EzraV]

This is helpful. I will do as you say and add a 16GB memory stick and look into the SSD drives you recommend. Since you say this is a good graphics card, it's probably the low memory that is stifling the graphics.

[Prométhée]

hi @EzraV 

check, tested, al compatibility, system requirements for your games, you will be fixed

https://www.systemrequirementslab.com/cyri/requirements/conan-exiles/13615

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome, @EzraV