Question Converting HP 8300 USDT into a 4k Editing PC

[mkp1582]

I need a 4k editing PC. I have budget to buy a laptop like Dell XPS 15 with I7-9750H & GT1650ti. However I am planning to wait for another year until ice lake CPUs are out (H series). Because I keep it longer once I invest in it. Hope it is worth the wait.
In the interim, planning to tweak my old PC, HP Compaq Elite 8300 USDT (not SFF ) into a decent 4k editing PC. It has i5-3470s cpu, 13GB memory, 256GB SSD + 1TB HDD.
I am looking for some help with below questions.

1. Will using V8.0 GDC BEAST with GPU like RX 560 work on this via mini PCIE (wifi slot)? I have the latest BIOS (Apr 2019) and hope it does not have white list. I don't think a mxm3 video card would be any useful.
2. Is it worth making this effort on this PC (I am okay with moderate rendering time)

I will be using Davinci resolve 16/Filmora 9

Appreciate your help here. Thanks.

 

[waqqas31]

I am in the same boat. I want to prepare my Elite 8300 USDT (same CPU as yours) to watch 4k video on a (yet-to-be-purchased) 4k TV.

I have scoured the internet to understand that my main option is go with a MXM video card, but the most commonly available options based on an AMD 7650a GPU seem to max out at 2560x1600. One website, Techpowerup, appears to suggest that the 7650a supports 3840x2160, but I would need more corroboration before taking the plunge.

I would love to hear if anyone else has been able to get their 8300 USDT to support 4k (and how, of course!)

 

[mkp1582]

I am in the same boat. I want to prepare my Elite 8300 USDT (same CPU as yours) to watch 4k video on a (yet-to-be-purchased) 4k TV.

I have scoured the internet to understand that my main option is go with a MXM video card, but the most commonly available options based on an AMD 7650a GPU seem to max out at 2560x1600. One website, Techpowerup, appears to suggest that the 7650a supports 3840x2160, but I would need more corroboration before taking the plunge.

I would love to hear if anyone else has been able to get their 8300 USDT to support 4k (and how, of course!)

Are you sure, you want to prepare this PC just to watch 4k Video? For that kind of purpose I might purchase something like a Fire TV stick and stream 4K content.

Anyways, for my needs, I ended up getting a V8.0 GDC BEAST open box for $20 and a MSI Aero RX 560 4GB new for $100. I used an external power supply of 300W which I had already. However I would recommend using Dell DA2 8pin power supply if you are buying only for this purpose which is about $12 on ebay.

Set up : Connect the mini-PCIE onto the motherboard wifi slot, the HDMI out to the gdc beast and 8pin out from DELL DA2 PS also to the 8pin power in of the gdc beast. MSI Aero RX 560 4GB is powered from PCIE so need of separate external power supply to it. Now connect the TV or monitor HDMI to the graphic card.

It worked liked charm for me. I am able to edit 1080p 60fps videos with ease and 4k 30fps with some proxy and render cache set up.

 

[waqqas31]

Are you sure, you want to prepare this PC just to watch 4k Video? For that kind of purpose I might purchase something like a Fire TV stick and stream 4K content.

Anyways, for my needs, I ended up getting a V8.0 GDC BEAST open box for $20 and a MSI Aero RX 560 4GB new for $100. I used an external power supply of 300W which I had already. However I would recommend using Dell DA2 8pin power supply if you are buying only for this purpose which is about $12 on ebay.

Set up : Connect the mini-PCIE onto the motherboard wifi slot, the HDMI out to the gdc beast and 8pin out from DELL DA2 PS also to the 8pin power in of the gdc beast. MSI Aero RX 560 4GB is powered from PCIE so need of separate external power supply to it. Now connect the TV or monitor HDMI to the graphic card.

It worked liked charm for me. I am able to edit 1080p 60fps videos with ease and 4k 30fps with some proxy and render cache set up.

That is quite the setup! I actually never heard of something like the V8.0 GDC BEAST.

I want to equip my USDT with 4k for more than just watching 4k video (I should have mentioned that before.) The additional screen real-estate for doing actual work would be awesome and I just dig the photo-like sharpness that 4k brings when you scale the display to anything larger than native resolution.

But my efforts so far have not been fruitful. I just tried an nVidia Quadro K1100m-based MXM (3.0 type A?) card and it would not power on without beeping (and not POST or display anything, for that matter) on the original BIOS I had (K01 2.05). After updating to the latest K01 3.08 BIOS, it no longer beeped and you could actually see the boot-to-windows hard drive activity, but there was still no display. My power supply is 230W, so I know power input is not a problem.

Tonight I am going to try pre-staging the nvidia driver and then installing the card again, however, I doubt that will solve the no-display-at-boot problem.

I also have an MXM ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5450 that I received for free with the heatsink I purchased. Even though it doesn't support 4k, I will give it a shot to know whether the MXM slot works at all or not.

As of right now, my quest's outlook is a little grim.

 

[mkp1582]

That is quite the setup! I actually never heard of something like the V8.0 GDC BEAST.

I want to equip my USDT with 4k for more than just watching 4k video (I should have mentioned that before.) The additional screen real-estate for doing actual work would be awesome and I just dig the photo-like sharpness that 4k brings when you scale the display to anything larger than native resolution.

But my efforts so far have not been fruitful. I just tried an nVidia Quadro K1100m-based MXM (3.0 type A?) card and it would not power on without beeping (and not POST or display anything, for that matter) on the original BIOS I had (K01 2.05). After updating to the latest K01 3.08 BIOS, it no longer beeped and you could actually see the boot-to-windows hard drive activity, but there was still no display. My power supply is 230W, so I know power input is not a problem.

Tonight I am going to try pre-staging the nvidia driver and then installing the card again, however, I doubt that will solve the no-display-at-boot problem.

I also have an MXM ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5450 that I received for free with the heatsink I purchased. Even though it doesn't support 4k, I will give it a shot to know whether the MXM slot works at all or not.

As of right now, my quest's outlook is a little grim.

Good luck with that. I had a problem with Nvidia 1000m that it wouldn't even show the boot screen. I have 230w Power adapter too. The ebay seller was nice to accept the mxm card back. That's when I gave up with mxm card and looked into amd rx card options. I really had no complaint with i5 3470s cpu that I had and that's the reason I spent some effort on it. I would recommend that to you too if you can spend $100-$150 on it.