first time posting in this sub forum and not sure if i would get a better response from the video game forum but this seems like the right place.

I am a student looking for a PC capable of running the latest games well, not a hardcore gamer by any means, hence the low end PCs. I know that both are overspecced for just playing poker/studying but it would be nice to be able to play BF4 at med/high settings.

i assume links will be taken down if i post to a site selling PCs so here are the specs..

PC 1;
CPU:INTEL® Core™ Pentium™ Anniversary Edition G3258 3.2 GHz 3MB Intel Smart Cache LGA1150 + HD Graphics
MoBo:ASUS H81M-P INTEL H81 Chipset, Micro ATX Mainboard w/ 2 RAM slots, 8-Channel High Definition Audio, GbLAN, USB 3.0, SATA-III, 1x Gen2 PCIe x16, 1x PCIe x 1


PC 2;
CPU:AMD A10-7850K 3.70GHz Quad-Core APU w/ Radeon R7 8GCN Cores Graphics
MoBo:Gigabyte F2A78M-DS2 AMD A78 Chipset, CrossFire supported, Micro-ATX mainboard w/ 2 RAM slots, Realtek HD Audio, GbLAN, USB3.0, SATA-III RAID, 1 Gen2 PCIe x 16, 1 PCIe x 1 & 1 PCI

both 8GB ram, 1 TB hard drive.
What are your thoughts?

What are the game quality differences from moving from built in graphics to low end dedicated graphics cards? and do you suggest any upgrades?

Links are generally okay in CTH, I think, so long as it's not obvious spam (which probably means so long as it's a reasonably well-know site rather than your own obscure one, and not affiliate links etc).

Not much of a gamer so I'll leave it to others to comment - but that first one is integrated graphics. That's about as basic as it gets.

Why not check the website for BF4? Somewhere you should be able to find the min/recommended specs. That should be your starting point.

https://www.cyberpowersystem.co.uk/s...Essential_1000

https://www.cyberpowersystem.co.uk/s...ltra_Fusion_SE

they come with a host of upgrades, BF4 recommends AMD Six-Core CPU or Intel quad-core CPU, AMD Radeon HD 7870 or NVIDIA Geforce GTX 660 for graphics and 8GB of RAM

their minmum specs are 4GB ram, AMD Radeon HD 3870 or NVIDIA Geforce 8800 GT graphics and AMD Athlon X2 2.8 GHZ or Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHZ for CPUs

am i right in saying that the 2 PCs posted sit in between minimum and recommended? this will be my first PC and tbh most of the specs go way over my head

Er, no - certainly not the first one of the two. At least, I don't think so.

Here's a chart showing you how all the different GPUs compare to each other. Look how far down you find Intel's integrated HD graphics. (Here's the data sheet for that Pentium, btw.)

While you're on the Tom's Hardware site, though, you might want to read this article. Look at the range of GPUs they used, and look at how they handled BF4 on different settings. You can then look at where they are in the hierarchy to get a feel for what you might need.

http://pcpartpicker.com

I would take #2 for Games AMD's APUs have far superior graphics compared to Intel HD graphics.

after some more research i have realised that neither are adequate, current build is...

MOBO: Gigabyte GA-970A-DS3P AMD 970 Chipset, ATX mainboard w/ 4 RAM slots, 7.1 Audio, GbLAN, USB3.0, SATA-III, RAID, 1 Gen PCIe x16, 1 Gen PCIe x4, 3 PCIe x1, & 2 PCI

CPU: AMD FX-6350

GPU: AMD Radeon R7 360 2GB

RAM: 2x4GB 2133mhz

500W power supply, 1TB HDD, 120GB SSD

way more expensive than whats posted above, my question is whether i should upgrade from standard cooling? what do you guys think of this?

How much extra are you paying for 2133MHz RAM?

£12 extra compared to 8GBs of 1866mhz

Save those £12. The board doesn't support 2133MHz anyway.

WRT cooling, the FX-6350 is a 125W CPU, so yes I'd definitely pair it with an aftermarket cooler.