Recommendations on new card for HP Compaq 8000? Please help.

[sanzee]

Hey guys,

I just want to upgrade the video card in this ancient PC but I don't know much about this stuff. Based on my specs, what cards am I looking at? Here are the specs I got from Sys Info and CPU-Z:

Win 7 Pro - x64 bit
HP Compaq 8000 Elite CMT
Core 2 Duo (E8400 @ 3.00Ghz)
HP 3647h Motherboard
PCIe x16
4GB RAM

Included manually added ATI Radeon 2600 XT (256MB, DDR3) card. I want to get a better one.

What are a few cards I could replace this with? Either one-step-up cards or the best card possible works! I have some money, but not much, so if you could help me out I'd be so grateful. Are there cards that wont need a PSU (just switch out? prefer) Or do u recommend one that needs PSU? It's a pretty small machine. If I need to post wattage info or anything, please lmk where that's listed.

Thank you so much for your help.

Danny

 

[Dashing_star]

You know the limit is going to be that anemic 135w power supply. It is going to have to be a bus-powered low profile card.

I think you have done your homework well because best I can tell, the HD 7750 low-profile is your best bet:

http://icrontic.com/article/sapphire-radeon-7750-low-profile-review

 

[Chayan4400]

Hey guys,

I just want to upgrade the video card in this ancient PC but I don't know much about this stuff. Based on my specs, what cards am I looking at? Here are the specs I got from Sys Info and CPU-Z:

Win 7 Pro - x64 bit
HP Compaq 8000 Elite CMT
Core 2 Duo (E8400 @ 3.00Ghz)
HP 3647h Motherboard
PCIe x16
4GB RAM

Included manually added ATI Radeon 2600 XT (256MB, DDR3) card. I want to get a better one.

What are a few cards I could replace this with? Either one-step-up cards or the best card possible works! I have some money, but not much, so if you could help me out I'd be so grateful. Are there cards that wont need a PSU (just switch out? prefer) Or do u recommend one that needs PSU? It's a pretty small machine. If I need to post wattage info or anything, please lmk where that's listed.

Thank you so much for your help.

Danny

Your main limiting factor will be the 320w PSU, but the E8400 is also not that powerful, so I'd reccomend a GTX 750 Ti (which performs a fair bit better than the HD 7750, but not so much that you'd experience a bottleneck.), simply because it is one of the best performing cards that doesn't need external power (I know, since I had the older SFF version of your PC, which I originally planned to upgrade). Also, low profile cards wont work in your PC, you need normal, full height graphics cards. Any version of the GTX 750 Ti will run well on this system, but be sure to pick up one that DOESN'T need a six pin PCIE power connector, since you don't have one.

Here are a few possible one;

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814500349&cm_re=gtx_750ti-_-14-500-349-_-Product

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814487024&cm_re=gtx_750ti-_-14-487-024-_-Product

Best one in my opinion: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127783&cm_re=gtx_750ti-_-14-127-783-_-Product

None of the above cards require extra power connectors.

 

[Jimbocous1]

Dittos to Chayan4400. I've done a fair amount to my CMT 8000. In addition to being my main use box, I also run BOINC and crunch SETI@Home data 24x7. That being the case, I've done the following:

1) Replaced the E8400 Core 2 Duo CPU with a Q9650 Core 2 Quad. Used Arctic Silver grease, and followed the instructions at their web site. Essentially doubled the processor power, for about $80. You could probably do better than that on eBay. It does increase CPU power consumption from 65 to 95w. Tweaked the BIOS thermal setting up a bit to keep the CPUs below 70c, as they run 100% use 24x7. [edit] Replaced the stock CPU cooler with an Arctic 7 for $20, which cooled it down by 20c and eliminated fan noise. [/edit] Also upgraded the BIOS to latest, which is 786G7 V01.10.

2) I'm running two EVGA GTX-750TI SC video boards, as BOINC uses the GPUs for number crunching. The first 750 sits in the first x16 slot, and gets its power off the mobo. This also drives the monitor. The second 750 sits in a PCIE 1X slot extender ($8 at Amazon), and gets its power via an adapter from two molex drive power connectors off the PSU. The GTX750s run about 65w max each.

3) Added two 2gb memory sticks $20 to the two 2gb sticks already installed, to take the RAM from 4gb to 8gb for a little extra head room, and replaced the old and slow HD with a 120gb SSD for $35 .

FWIW, the stock 320w PSU seems to handle all this nonsense just fine, and runs pretty cool to boot. Basically doubled my BOINC production over the dual core.

This quad runs great at 3ghz, HP OEM mobo locked down tight so no overclocking in my future on this one.

 

[Chayan4400]

Glad that it runs well! I've got a Q9300 in my one . Performs quite well for 7 year old CPU, and is almost equal to my i3 4130.

Be careful when mixing RAM, as many people do have problems when running different sets of RAM together due to different clock speeds, CAS timings, etc. It did work just fine for me though (8 GB corsair vengeance + 4 GB Samsung stick from the 6000 Elite 😀). Just a heads up so you know what happened if the computer gives problems after adding the RAM.

Hmmmmmm, you do know that your 2 750 Ti's aren't actually working together, right? The 750 Ti can't be SLI'ed - this means you're actually using only one of the cards at any given time, the other is just sitting there! Trust me, run benchmarks with and without the 2nd card to verify - I can guarantee your results will be the same. This is why the PSU hasn't given you any problems - it's never powering more than one card at any given time! On the plus side, we now know a 750 Ti does work without a problem . I'd sell those two 750 Ti's and get a 960 if possible or a used 760.

Don't even consider trying to overclock on the stock motherboard - OEM motherboards aren't designed for handling even light overclocks. The Q9650 is already a power hungry CPU - stressing the motherboard even more isn't going to end well. Another reason you can't overclock is because HP's BIOS is heavily locked down and does not give you access to any overclocking settings (Most OEM BIOes are the same) this is because this PC was meant for cooperate users who would have no use for such options.

 

[Jimbocous1]

Glad that it runs well! I've got a Q9300 in my one . Performs quite well for 7 year old CPU, and is almost equal to my i3 4130.

Be careful when mixing RAM,
...
Hmmmmmm, you do know that your 2 750Tis aren't actually working together, right? The 750Ti can't be SLI'ed - this means you're actually using only one of the cards at any given time, the other is just sitting there!
....
Don't even consider trying to overclock on the stock motherboard -
...

Thanks for the note!
Definitely prepared for potential issues with the RAM. Worst case, I chuck the stock Hyundai 2gb sticks, and go it alone with the new ATech (probably Samsung chips) 4gb sticks. Trying to do much with "only" 4gb on Win7 is iffy.

Regarding the dual 750s, I'll have to disagree with you a bit. I understand that they cannot do SLI, but don't care as this is not a gaming box. As I mentioned, I use this for number crunching, and each board is an independent entity doing its crunching at nearly 100% GPU utilization as measured by GPU-z and HWMonitor. Power utilization is usually in the mid-80s to low 90s, again as measured by HWMonitor, so the load is definitely hitting the PSU. For number crunching, I think the two 750tis get me a better result than even a single 960, based on what I've seen and discussed with others doing this, especially when it comes to Gflops per Watt.

I'm sure you're right on the overclocking. Can't say I've found much of any info on doing that to HPs. I do have an interesting puzzle on two HP Z400 workstations. Both have the W3550 3.066 quad core Xeon, and both report CPU speed of 3.2ghz. So someone must have done something at some point. But there's a world of difference between the Z series and the 8000 series, too.

 

[Chayan4400]

Ok, if you say so! I'm not really familiar with number crunching programs, but to my knowledge any program in windows should recognize only one 750Ti, as the main gateway to it (The Nvidia drivers) will also 'see' only one GPU. I could be wrong on this though.

Nothing strange about your W3550s - they have a max turbo frequency of 3.33GHz, so looks like they are just auto-overclocking themselves for small periods of time (Or even for longer periods if they can) like they were designed to do .

 

[Jimbocous1]

Ok, if you say so! I'm not really familiar with number crunching programs, but to my knowledge any program in windows should recognize only one 750Ti, as the main gateway to it (The Nvidia drivers) will also 'see' only one GPU. I could be wrong on this though.

Nothing strange about your W3550s - they have a max turbo frequency of 3.33GHz, so looks like they are just auto-overclocking themselves for small periods of time (Or even for longer periods if they can) like they were designed to do .

Good info on the W3550s. Didn't know that; guess I have a bit of reading to do.
In case you're curious, here's a screen cap of the aforementioned 8000 doing its thing:

 

[Jimbocous1]

Ok, if you say so! I'm not really familiar with number crunching programs, but to my knowledge any program in windows should recognize only one 750Ti, as the main gateway to it (The Nvidia drivers) will also 'see' only one GPU. I could be wrong on this though.

Nothing strange about your W3550s - they have a max turbo frequency of 3.33GHz, so looks like they are just auto-overclocking themselves for small periods of time (Or even for longer periods if they can) like they were designed to do .

So here's maybe a link that will show that better?

HP-8000 at work

 

[Jimbocous1]

Ok, if you say so! I'm not really familiar with number crunching programs, but to my knowledge any program in windows should recognize only one 750Ti, as the main gateway to it (The Nvidia drivers) will also 'see' only one GPU. I could be wrong on this though.
.

Actually the craziest setup I ever did in that regard was with my old Foxconn 925xe box, which had a P4 3.4ghz Prescott. I had it running with 1xGTX-750ti and 4xZotac GT-610s. Total of 5 GPUs. This was a success, in that all boards were up and crunching. It was a failure, of course, in that the there was no way that old P4 had enough horsepower to keep all those GPUs fed with work. Would have needed at least a quad core to even make it worth while. Definitely didn't increase production enough to justify the watts I was burning keeping it all running. I was actually amazed the Foxconn MB didn't go up in smoke, but that indeed was a motherboard designed to put up with a bit of abuse.
This whole number crunching thing is quite similar to bit coin mining, in application and implementation, if that makes it any clearer.
Regards, Jim ...

 

[Chayan4400]

That's really interesting! I never knew non SLI cards can work together sometimes. If it isn't too much trouble, could you run some GPU benchmarks like 3DMark? There'll probably be no difference from a single card, but you never know .

 

[Jimbocous1]

That's really interesting! I never knew non SLI cards can work together sometimes. If it isn't too much trouble, could you run some GPU benchmarks like 3DMark? There'll probably be no difference from a single card, but you never know .

Y'know, I was going to download 3DMark, until I noticed that it was a 1.6gb download, more time and disk space than I was willing to spend on something like this, especially as I'm not a gamer I can tell you that (don't laugh now the Windows Experience Index for graphics sits at 7.3 on this machine.
Later, Jim ...