REALLY slow gaming

[TheSHAD0W]

What are the components that go into a desktop computer? I know that there's the motherboard, HD or SSD, RAM, graphics card, and fan - what else, apart from the tower itself?

CPU, case and power supply. For the quote I gave you, the CPU is an "APU", which includes graphics, so you don't need a graphics card.

If you're thinking of reusing the case and power supply from your HP, don't. HP cases aren't quite standard that way and can require significant modification, and the power supply won't be adequate and may lack the right connectors.

[lordlundar]

Also, Motherboard, RAM, and HDD if you need one.

[EricKei]

The graphic shadow posted gives a solid outline of the basics.

I would add a standard HDD for storage -- but you have that external 4TB, so you should be covered there. A decent chunk of that SDD will ba taken up by Windows itsef (unless you go with Linux) -- at least 1/3 of it. Note that you can specify other hard drives as the default storage location for new downloads, pics, videos, music, & documents as long as they've been actually installed in the system; I wouldn't do this with an external, as it won't always be there. Go ahead and slap the 1TB in there as a secondary drive for that purpose.

Note that modern CPU setups often include on-die graphics, so yeah, no need for a separate video card if the most taxing thing you'll be doing is Facebook games You might wanna grab a tube of heat sink compound (the smallest possible, you only need a drop), or ask whoever helps you with the assembly for some. It's used to cement the CPU/APU onto the heat sink and fan, and it helps to more efficiently conduct heat away from the CPU.

[Ironclad Alibi]

Speaking of slow gaming speeds, this was posted to Not Always Right today.

Sounds Like They’re Playing A Gaming With You

[TheSHAD0W]

The graphic shadow posted gives a solid outline of the basics.

I spec'd the system to be great as a starter with quite a bit of expansion capability, with as little expense up front as possible and quite a bit of expansion capability. That might include a 2nd drive or larger/faster primary drive, more/faster RAM, faster CPU and GPU. Not sure if it'd take 3rd gen Ryzen, but it might.