[SOLVED] Grapics card for HP 8300 Elite

Mar 16, 2021
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Hi.
Got a request from a customer who has two HP 8300 Elite - one tower (QV99?PV) and one SFF (QV996AV). PCs are used mainly for office applications. They have bought new monitors with recommended resolution of 3840x1080 pixels. Since the 8300 only supports 1920x1080 they need a new graphics card. Nave looked at NVIDIA Quadro P620, but not sure if it fits into the PCs - thinking of bus, power and physical size.
Question1: Will this card fit into the PCs? If not - why?
Question2: Any other recommendations for a card that fits into the PCs and is able to handle the resolution?

Thanks
Olaf
 
Solution
Most GT730 are half height cards. They will have a removeable VGA port on a ribbon cable. Just make sure the one you pick includes the half height bracket. You have to take the full height one off to fit in a small form factor.

I will find one, not a recommendation to buy, just one that would work. You can see the ribbon cable comes off and they even picture it with the half height bracket on. Given the terrible spelling and overall terrible translations, not one I would pick up. 4th picture makes me laugh (15 melons long, 8 meters on board)

https://www.amazon.com/Camisin-GT730-Image-64Bit-GeforceHDMI/dp/B08SR1G28P

You can pick them up used on ebay for pretty decent prices still. $30-50, again look for the included bracket...
No need to go down the quadro route. Practically any consumer GPU will do.

As for what cards, well, you got a PCIe slot, so that means pretty much anything. At low power like this, no need for anything fancy that requires external power.

For the SFF PC, you will want a half-height card.

Something like a GT730 will do. Make sure the one you buy includes the half height bracket.
 
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Thanks for a very quick response!
I'll take a closer look at the GT730.
If the customer should ask for a slightly higher resolution - are there any other "consumer" alternatives?
Anyone know if the GT730 is half-height or not?
-Olaf-
 
Most GT730 are half height cards. They will have a removeable VGA port on a ribbon cable. Just make sure the one you pick includes the half height bracket. You have to take the full height one off to fit in a small form factor.

I will find one, not a recommendation to buy, just one that would work. You can see the ribbon cable comes off and they even picture it with the half height bracket on. Given the terrible spelling and overall terrible translations, not one I would pick up. 4th picture makes me laugh (15 melons long, 8 meters on board)

https://www.amazon.com/Camisin-GT730-Image-64Bit-GeforceHDMI/dp/B08SR1G28P

You can pick them up used on ebay for pretty decent prices still. $30-50, again look for the included bracket.

Dell is also sourcing them for $107.99 as an alternative.


Max resolution on the GT730 is 3840x2160 AKA 4K. You would need to go up to the GT1030/GTX950 to get 5K resolution support. 5120x2880 (GT1030 will support 8K as well 7680x4320)

GT1030 are in high demand and are nearly double their normal price, around $200. Same goes for the GT730, name brand ones are about $100 rather than the $40-50 they typically sit at.
 
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Solution
Have found both MSI Geforce GT 730 and GT 1030, and prices are ok.
Not sure about the resolution specs, however....

The GT 730 specs says:
Max resolution: 4096 x 2160 at 60 Hz
DVI: 2560 x 1600 at 60 Hz / HDMI: 4096 x 2160 at 24 Hz
What is this 24Hz??

The GT 1030:
HDMI (Supports 4K@60Hz as specified in HDMI 2.0b)
DisplayPort (v1.4a)
Would be great to know the max resolution on HDMI and DP

Thanks!
 
The older cards have their limits. Think of HDMI and Display Port as network ports. They are sending digital information at a fast rate to update the screen. As you increase resolution you are sending more information. One way to achieve higher resolutions is to decrease the amount of data being sent, so they reduce the refresh rate (less frames per second)

60hz is the common standard.

4096x2160 is the actual 4K resolution. What is branded as 4K is actually 4 times Full HD (1920x1080, and 8K is 4 times 4K (which you would think would be 16K...))

GT1030 can basically do any resolution. 8K would be limited to 30hz.

HDMI 2.0b and DP 1.4a have their specifications laid out if you want extreme detail. There are some handy charts on Wikipedia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDMI

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DisplayPort

They modified the DP charts a little. You would be looking at the HBR3 column (they used to be labeled with version, though this makes more sense with cabling/DP version taken into account)
 
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Thanks again!!
Seems like both cards will do the job with the Samsung monitor (recommended resolution 3840x1024 ).
The lower refresh-rate on the GT 730 may not possible to see ??
A 1030 benefit may be the DP port instead of DVI on the 730.
I'll let the customer decide.
🙂
 
GT730 should be capable of 30hz at 3840x1080, at the least. 30hz isn't too bad if you are just doing office work. 50Hz is also a possibility. You would just need to go into the advanced properties and list all modes. Video footage is typically 24/25 FPS even when run on a 60hz screen, so it is a pretty common experience.
 
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Another, follow-up question.
Have bought two MSI GeForce GT7300 cards and will install them in customer's PCs next week. The HP 8300 have built-in video on the main boards (with VGA and DP connectors). Whe installing the new cards - should the built-in video be disabled in some way - maybe there is a BIOS setting? I haven't done this kind of "upgrade" before....
- or will installing the drivers and plugging in the new card be OK?
Thanks!