[SOLVED] HP motherboard and upgrading

[fdupboi]

Hi. I'm fairly new to the pc world and extremely new to this forum! I not-so-recently bought an HP compaq elite 8300 sff for about $200 usd (pretty cheap but pretty NOT WORTH IT realizing now).

I've been saving up (about 2 months, I'm a student) to buy an RX 570 graphics card since it's the best value card suggested for budget gamers like me but reading around, I saw that HP motherboards were customized to fit cases like I have. Now... I'm also planning to buy a new case along the Graphics card since I also read that the case determines the graphics card, not the mobo (please tell me I'm right.) and a new PSU since the one I have is a stock that maxes at 240w.

Now... Reading around, I saw on the HP sff manual that the PCIE x16 supports only low profile GPUs... So uhmm... Did I read that right or are my upgrade dreams are dead (low profile are more pricey and harder to find here than normal ones) in the sense that... now I should save up for a Mobo, cpu and ram too before I upgrade?

I opened up my case this morning and took pics of my motherboard so that you guys could help me out with my plans (Is my mobo compatible with my gpu + case + psu change or is it not that easy to deal with? Thank you for your time, I would really appreciate the help here!

 

[USAFRet]

New case, motherboard, PSU, CPU, GPU, RAM....this is no longer an "upgrade", but rather a whole new system.
Sell that SFF HP, and put that towards all new parts.

 

[fdupboi]

New case, motherboard, PSU, CPU, GPU, RAM....this is no longer an "upgrade", but rather a whole new system.
Sell that SFF HP, and put that towards all new parts.

Yes I'm planning on a Ship of Theseus type changes but the endgame scenario on my mind is I save this pc to hand down to my little bro. But... do I really need to change everything right now? I'd buy the PSU, Case and GPU at the end of month, but not enough for a new CPU, MOBO, RAM (though that's probably my next project since I also want to replace this pc and hand this down to a kid as I said)

 

[USAFRet]

Yes I'm planning on a Ship of Theseus type changes but the endgame scenario on my mind is I save this pc to hand down to my little bro. But... do I really need to change everything right now? I'd buy the PSU, Case and GPU at the end of month, but not enough for a new CPU, MOBO, RAM (though that's probably my next project since I also want to replace this pc and hand this down to a kid as I said)

A lot depends on if the current HP SFF motherboard is ATX spec.
Frequently, they are not.

This impacts whether you can use a standard PSU.

A pic of the motherboard, or specific model number of it would help diagnose.

 

[fdupboi]

Yes! I figured that too though I'm still quite figuring out how to upload photos lol. A minute please...

 

[USAFRet]

Yes! I figured that too though I'm still quite figuring out how to upload photos lol. A minute please...

Upload your pic to imgur.com, and post the BBCode link here.

 

[fdupboi]

Just did! So uhhh.. the black ones says x16PCIE which as far as I know is the one needed for a graphics card... right??? and added question btw! I also read that HP mobos need a 6 pin connector instead of a 20+4 from the PSU so I also need to buy a 20+4 to 6 pin adapter on top of that (which is fine, assuming I'm right on my assumptions) right???

 

[USAFRet]

This absolutely will not work.
That motherboard proprietary HP and not ATX spec, and won't fit into a larger case. Nor is it compatible with a normal PSU.

Those SFF HP and Dell things were absolutely not designed to be upgradable.
You can't get there from here...

 

[william p]

That computer has decnt CPU and RAM potential i7 3770 and 16 GB.
The size of the case means a low profile GPU, and the PSU means 75W limit which is about all you can find in LoPro anyway.
GTX1050Ti is about what will work. They're all 2 slots wide due to a hard mounted DVI header. measure the length available and check that spec. on any card you consider. It should give reasonable performance at 1080P. The PSU should be OK at that level. That CPU I mentioned is 77W, and the GPU is 75W so the 240W PSU should be OK.

 

[jorendebruyne]

I had a HP long time ago i wanted to upgrade.
Bought a new GPU, but MOBO didn't support it. No drivers to be found.

I had to buy a new case, new mobo and new cpu. All the rest i kept and upgraded over time

 

[fdupboi]

Okayyyy. I think I got the answer I needed and can now plan accordingly. Thank you for your responses guys.