Should i get a desktop or upgrade? Hp

[Zamblot]

Ok so i have a hp elitebook 8470p and its a nice little laptop but i somehow cracked the screen while i wasnt using it and now use it hooked up to a mechanical gaming keyboard and a gaming mouse... These are the specifications, Small 110gb hard drive but i have a external hard drive plugged into it, intel core i7-3520M 2.90GHz processor, 8gb of ram, windows 10 64 bit, And here is my issue... it has a AMD Radeon 7570M graphics card and from what ive seen online its not great and while playing fallout 4... Its so so horrible when im inside buildings D:, whenever i play games even as simple as minecraft the computor crashes if its plugged in to the power supply at the same time even with a cooling mat and i believe its because of a weak graphics card... So basically i have enough things to run a new desktop easily but the max i would spend would be £350... and thats pushing it... so i heard you can get a normal graphics card and plug it into a laptop converter i would probably get a 960 or a 750ti for it... would it be better than buying a new desktop all together and before you ask im to scared to build one so i would get a decent used one like this http/www.ebay.co.uk/itm/172177563542?_trksid=p2065413.m570.l5999&_trkparms=gh1g%3DI172177563542.N36.S2.R2.TR2 So what do you think a new computor or a new graphics card also if you choose the external graphics card will it stop pc laptop from crashing and send me a easy guide on an external gpu...

 

[Zamblot]

Forgot to mention fallout 4 is running terribly on low graphics with mods to help improve the performance by going even lower graphics... yeah 🙁

 

[burdenbound]

I don't think there are really any good external graphics options for laptops right now. I think the only ones that are out are pretty expensive and only work with certain laptops, drivers are going to be a big factor there, can't just plug in a graphics card to a laptop and expect it to work.

Your best bet would be to build, there are a ton of guides out there and it's pretty hard to mess up. Building a computer now a days is pretty much just connecting parts together and even without any knowledge you would probably get it right because most connections are unique enough that if it fits it's probably the right spot.

 

[Zamblot]

I don't think there are really any good external graphics options for laptops right now. I think the only ones that are out are pretty expensive and only work with certain laptops, drivers are going to be a big factor there, can't just plug in a graphics card to a laptop and expect it to work.

Your best bet would be to build, there are a ton of guides out there and it's pretty hard to mess up. Building a computer now a days is pretty much just connecting parts together and even without any knowledge you would probably get it right because most connections are unique enough that if it fits it's probably the right spot.

Im worried though... if i do one thing wrong the whole thing would break and buying a used desktop would add up to a similar price

 

[burdenbound]

I don't think there are really any good external graphics options for laptops right now. I think the only ones that are out are pretty expensive and only work with certain laptops, drivers are going to be a big factor there, can't just plug in a graphics card to a laptop and expect it to work.

Your best bet would be to build, there are a ton of guides out there and it's pretty hard to mess up. Building a computer now a days is pretty much just connecting parts together and even without any knowledge you would probably get it right because most connections are unique enough that if it fits it's probably the right spot.

Im worried though... if i do one thing wrong the whole thing would break and buying a used desktop would add up to a similar price

There really isn't any one thing you could do that's going to cause the entire thing to break short of throwing it into the bathtub. Plus with buying a used one you have to trust that the previous owner took good care of it and isn't hiding known issues. The upside to building your own is most parts come with a generous warranty. On top of that building your own will help shake you off the fear of going in and replacing components down the line. PCs components are pretty tough, you don't have to baby it.

 

[hang-the-9]

A computer would not crash because of a weaker card, it may be a heat issue or a driver issue. Did you try a clean Windows setup?
The video card is a bit slow anyway for newer games.

If you are afraid to build a desktop. you would not want to mess with installing an external video card in the laptop, you need to take off the cover and plug in the external adapter into a mini PCIe slot on the motherboard, unless your laptop happens to have an Express Card slot.

You'll need about $500 US to get a base gaming system for medium settings, not including the monitor/keyboard/mouse and operating system.

Maybe $500 including those if you are OK with lower resolutions or settings.

i3 CPU, R7-360 or GTX 750 Ti video card.