New
#11
I still disagree regarding the SSD as a general user upgrade, I'd say it's more appropriate for an advanced user, gamer, or power user. Or anyone with deep pockets... <-- not many have them in todays economy!
For one thing the O.P. never really stated his/her budget or what exactly he/she wanted to improve performance wise... If OP is a gamer that 256MB vid card is a huge bottleneck for todays games... sure that slimline HP cant take a huge $300+ high end video card, but there are plenty out there with 1GB that will fit fine!
Lets look at this another way... a 120-200GB SSD (enough for most average users OS and apps) is going to set you back anywhere from $220 to $400 or more. That will improve boot time and app start times for sure, but for the general user who types a few docs, surfs the Internet, and MyFace, Spacebook, etc... It's overkill!
For that same amount of money you could upgrade all these: video card, RAM, and get a faster mechanical HDD with a TB or more storage! I try and spend someone else's $ as if it were my own, and my money doesnt go as far as it used to!
In the end, captcadaver has some questions to answer before we can actually and more importantly properly answer his/her upgrade questions!