HP Compaq dc7700 Business Desktop, video card upgrade

[boatmoter]

Hi,I have a  HP Compaq dc7700 Business Desktop I want to up grade the video card to a faster one for mild online games,such as card games, spider solitare, what is the fastest card I can install that my pc will accept??  I have a HP Compaq dc7700 Business Desktop  with a SSD 120Gb & 4Gb memory, it has a ancient add on  video card in it now

[DGroves · Accepted solution]

this is a very early core 2 duo based system as such your video card selection is going to be very limited due to the need for a legacy bios era video card and the case being only able to take low profile cards, you also have a power limit on the card itself

as this system can only uses video cards that use 75 watts or less (the card will not have a Aux pwr connector)

based on the above, i strongle advise you to buy a newer used system off ebay and xfer your SSD to it, in the long run this will be your best option

the link below has a much newer cpu, and the intergrated graphics will be faster than any video card the dc7700 supports

(select Mini tower/i5 as cpu = 89.00 USD)

https://www.ebay.com/itm/USED-Dell-OptiPlex-990-SFF-DT-MT-Core-i3-i5-i7-2nd-Gen-3-1-3-4GHz-4GB-RAM-N...

[boatmoter]

Hi, I was wrong on the model pc I have,this is the correct one >> HP Compaq dc7700 Convertible Minitower PC

[DGroves]

this does not really change anything, except for the fact that you can use full hight "Legacy" video cards

this system does not use a normal ATX power supply the power supply size is larger and would require a adapter plate to be made to properly mount a STD ATX pwr supply (the motherboard is AXT pinout however)

due to the cost of buying a std atx supply and a legacy video card that is not really that much faster i again recomend you replace the system as the price diffrence between the supply + card is almost the same as a new used (newer) system

[boatmoter]

thanks you for the pointers.. I purchased a  Dell Optiplex 790 PC Intel Core i3-2100 3.10GHz. 4GB 250GB Windows 10   on Ebay for $69 & free shipping, thanks again,time to retire the 7700, one more question if I can ask it here, the new one has windows 10,the key is on the top of the pc.. I would like to use my 250GB SSD in it, can I download windos 10 for free and use my key?? 

[DGroves]

if the bought system has a legit win 10 key/serial then you activate that version using the serial key provided

if the system had a upgrade from win 7 prof to win 10 prof, then no serial key is used during the os install (say no key) and windows will auto activate when it connects to the internet using a digital entitlement activation

both of the methods can use/download a Win 10 installer from the microsoft web site, just be sure to match the version you download to the serial key (if used)  and the correct 32 or 64bit version of the os

last, i hope you bought the Tower version i specified because if you bought the SFF (Small Form Factor) model you  have simply traded one system with no expansion abilities for a newer system with no expansion abilities