Solved: HP OMEN X 900-080nz upgrade part 3 - HP Support Community

Myoubouh · ‎08-25-2025

Seems I can't continue in my old topic. That's quite sad. NonSequitur777 helped me a lot but
still have one question more (again).

I was still thinking getting the Rtx 5070 Dual but I saw this beauty done by a person on Internet.

https://pcpartpicker.com/b/49GLrH

The person put a Sapphire PURE Radeon RX 9070 XT 16 GB in it. Then I suppose the computer can handle a bit bigger GPU than the 5070 Dual ? This Radeon seems bigger. Maybe we can choose a bit bigger Rtx 5070 super. I think the 16 GB rams would be better than the 12 Go from the 5070 dual.

Thanks a lot.

Kind regards.

meteorick · ‎09-08-2025

I have the exact same machine as you, and, like you, I spent quite a bit of time planning an upgrade, which I finally completed a couple of days ago. I am happy to share what I learned, in case it helps you and others who stumble upon this thread.

If I remember correctly from the start of this thread, your motivation for the upgrade is to be able to play very recent games on the machine. My motivation was a bit different: first and foremost I wanted to get silent fans, because the original fans' noise was driving me crazy, I could no longer concentrate while working; second, I wanted to have extremely fast and smooth desktop and software development experiences. The two GTX1080 in the original machine are perfectly fine for my gaming needs, since I play mostly CPU-bound games (2D, indies, 4X strategy, retro), and if I want to play GPU-bound games I'll do it elsewhere (PS4/PS5). So I kept the dual GTX1080 but changed pretty much everything else in this machine.

At the start of the thread, I believe you asked whether it would be possible to change the motherboard. After some research, I found out that the answer is yes. The Munich-S motherboard is a standard Micro-ATX motherboard, albeit with a few peculiarities. Fortunately, these peculiarities do not prevent having (almost) everything working after you replace it with any other Micro-ATX motherboard. In particular, I was concerned that the lighting of the case would stop working, but it didn't, and I found out why: it is not controlled by the motherboard itself, but by a secondary board that is connected to the motherboard via a standard USB connector. I am really happy that I managed to keep the retro feel of the case while at the same time have a super fast machine, as you will probably understand. 😉 As for what I did not manage to get working: 1) the wifi led located next to the power button, which is controlled by a specific connector in the Munich-S motherboard, for which I did not find an equivalent in the new motherboard; 2) idem concerning a connector labeled "SENSOR2" (which I do not even know what it was for); 3) the audio-out and mic-in ports, also next to the power button, on the Munich-S motherboard they are controlled by a 11-pin connector labeled "F_AUDIO1" but the new motherboard has instead a 9-pin connector labeled "JAUD1" (which I believe is the standard), so I did not dare to try and connect them -- the motherboard offers the same ports on the back panel anyway, and I use USB for audio anyway, so no big loss. That's it, otherwise everything works perfectly.

My new motherboard is the "MSI MAG B850M MORTAR WIFI". I chose it because I wanted to make sure I could use the dual GTX1080 GPUs. When I researched this topic, I found out that 1) Nvidia SLI (the ability to use the two GPUs at the same time to generate the image) has been dead for a long time and modern Micro-ATX motherboards do not support it, but 2) having a second GPU is still great with "lossless scaling" (a technique that increases FPS in games by having the second GPU generate intermediate frames using AI, specially in older games which had the FPS capped), and 3) due to limitations in modern consumer CPU architectures (in my case AM5), the motherboards have a limitation in the number of PCI lanes that are available, and therefore the various PCIe and NVMe slots have to share those lanes. In practice this means that not all micro-ATX motherboards are alike when it comes to supporting a second GPU, some won't even have a second slot at all, while others have as many as 3 additional slots but each will be limited to using one PCIe lane, and that is not fast enough to host a GPU; the GTX1080 works with 8 lanes on PCIe 3.0 -- unfortunately, as far as I could see, there are no Micro-ATX AM5-architecture motherboards on the market that offer 8 lanes for a second slot (which is understandable since not many people use a second GPU anymore and the PCI lanes will be used for other things like SSDs instead), but fortunately this motherboard offers a second slot with 4 lanes on the faster PCIe 4.0 standard, which is equivalent to using 8 lanes on the old PCIe 3.0 standard with around 97% of the speed. Good enough for me!

This specific motherboard has the connectors in different places wrt the connectors in the Munich-S motherboard, and because of that some of the original cabling is too short, the cables do not reach the connectors on the new motherboard, so I bought extensions cables to solve that issue. Moreover, one of the two USB-3 connectors on the new motherboard uses a newer format called "Type-E" instead of the regular 20-pin connector, so I bought an adapter for that too. What kind of issues you will have with cabling is going to depend on which motherboard you choose and where its connectors are placed, but for reference here is the list of what I bought in case you decide to get this specific motherboard (search in places like AliExpress for this):
- 30cm Motherboard Front 9Pin USB2.0 Male To Female USB Extension Cable
- 30cm Motherboard 20Pin USB3.0 Male to Female USB Extension Cable
- 30cm Motherboard Type-E to 20Pin Male Adapter Cable
- 2x PCI slot cover (if you are not using a second GPU)

A couple of notes on the above. The only cable you really need to buy is the "Type-E to 20Pin" adapter cable. At first, I actually managed to connect the other two cables directly by taking them out of the cable holder and passing them over the motherboard to reach the connectors, but they got a bit too stretched to my liking, so I ended up buying the extension cables. There is one other cable, the one labeled "F_PANEL" (for the power/reset button), that also needs to be extended but luckily I found an extension included with the motherboard called "EZ Front Panel Cable", so I just used that (and connected it to the connector labeled "JFP1" on the motherboard).

As for choice of CPU and RAM, that has only to do with the chosen motherboard, nothing specific to this machine anymore. Just for reference, I went with the "Razen 5 9600X" CPU because it's probably the best value for money in single-core speed at the moment (I do not need multi-core processing all that often), and it runs super cool -- it does not even need anything like the original liquid cooling system that came with this machine. By the way, unfortunately the original liquid cooling system does need to be replaced, because it screws to the motherboard in a way that is specific to that Intel architecture (I think even with more modern Intel architectures it won't work, let alone AMD architectures). Alas, we lose the nice red liquid tubes and the Omen logo of the original water cooling system. To replace it I got a "Be Quiet Pure Loop 2", which has a single 120mm fan like the original (as said, even that is overkill for this CPU, but I wanted something with the same format of the original). The ARGB lights of the new cooler are actually quite cool, no pun intended, and I don't miss the old one that much... 😉 Then I got a couple of "Be Quiet Silent Wings 4 120mm" fans to replace the two original fans in the front and back of the case, and now I'm typing this while hearing a gentle soothing hum, which is very pleasant. As for RAM, I went with the "TeamGroup T-Create Expert 32GB DDR5-6000" (2x16GB modules). I think the RAM in the original machine should work since DDR5 is backward compatible with DDR4, but I did not test it. I chose this RAM because it's great value for money -- its speed (in particular the CAS latency of 30-36-36-76) is amongst the best in the market at the moment for AM5 architecture. FYI, it appears that there are some technical reasons as to why you should get 2 RAM modules and not 4, and should not go beyond 6000Mhz, otherwise your RAM will actually perform (much) worse in this architecture. So this one fit the bill perfectly. Finally, I got a 4TB "Samsung 990 Pro" SSD, and removed the HDD that came with the original machine from their bays, no point in having it anymore since its half the size of the SSD. I still appreciate having the drive bays in this machine, and plan to purchase a couple of huge 25TB+ drives later on when they become cheaper.

That's about it I think. In the end, the hardest part was the prior research itself, replacing the components was not that hard, and everything worked right off the bat. I'm really happy that I can continue using my beloved "retro cube" for at least another ten years or so!

View solution in original post

NonSequitur777 · ‎08-25-2025

@Myoubouh,

So, we meet again, so to speak!

Yes, I looked through the pictures of this User's HP OMEN X build, and I must say I was surprised that this large triple-fan Sapphire PURE RX 9070 XT Specs | TechPowerUp GPU Database with a length of 32cm (12.6 inches) actually fitted!

I agree with your assessment -an RTX 5070 Super 16GB (if yet available for purchase) or the RTX 5070 Ti 16GB such as this beautiful model: GIGABYTE RTX 5070 Ti EAGLE OC ICE SFF Specs | TechPowerUp GPU Database, would be doable.

Also, an RTX 5070 Ti 16GB would be significantly faster/provides better performance than an RX 9070 XT 16GB: UserBenchmark: AMD RX 9070-XT vs Nvidia RTX 5070-Ti.

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777

Myoubouh · ‎08-26-2025

Incredible you are still around ! =D We meet again at last. The circle is now complete, I found more power for this computer ! =D Sorry to be back, but as i'm putting some money on the side I continue to see what people are doing with the Omen X and I found this. Kinda beautifull I think ! =D

The Gigabyte Rtx 5070 TI Eagle OC Ice SFF that you show seems really, really cool. I don't know if the person changed something in the Omen X to win some space, but I guess no, and that will fit like that. He changed the motheboard too, but I think mine seems compatible with this this card too, if i'm not wrong ? This one is smaller than the Sapphire Pure Rx 9070 XT. Is there other GPU's that can fit too in this same size that is smaller thn the Sapphire ?

My strategy is to put this graphic card that has a lot of rams to last longer, and use the DLSS technology to be able to play quite nicely staying with my "weak" CPU, and of course, if the motherboard die one day I already have a quite nice card. I suppose 5080 are too big, but I think they are out of budget and bigger. 😕

Kind regards.

NonSequitur777 · ‎08-26-2025

@Myoubouh,

Let's circle back for a moment: hardware-wise, an RTX 5070 should be compatible with your OMEN X motherboard (PCIe slot and physical size aren’t blockers). But success hinges on two key things:

A strong, clean PSU setup (which you have: use two separate 8-pin PCIe power cables from your power supply into a dual 8-pin PCIe to 16-pin PCIe power adapter cable, needed to power an RTX 5070 Ti)
BIOS support -stock HP firmware may not 'trust' the newer RTX 50xx family GPUs.

Reason why I want to bring up the last bullet point is that I am not sure if the RTX 50xx series are actually compatible with your older model OMEN X PC -I don't see why not, but then again, when I tried an RTX 5070 in an HP Pavilion TP01-3003w, it didn't work, no matter what I tried, but this card did work just fine in an older HP Pavilion 590-p0030 -my most recent upgrade project. Figure that.

An RTX 5070 uses a standard PCIe 5.0 x16 interface, which is backward compatible with older PCIe slots like PCIe 3.0 found on your OMEN X motherboard. Performance will simply default to the older bus speeds -no dealbreaker there.

Here is an RTX 5070 example, similar to the one I installed in my HP Pavilion 590-p0030: MSI RTX 5070 VENTUS 2X OC WHITE Specs | TechPowerUp GPU Database.

And here is an RTX 4070 example -which needs just one 8-pin PCIe power cable and is almost certainly compatible with your OMEN X: ASUS DUAL RTX 4070 EVO WHITE OC Specs | TechPowerUp GPU Database.

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777

NonSequitur777 · ‎08-26-2025

@Myoubouh,

And the more I think about it, the more I am aesthetically tempted to purchase an OMEN X series Gaming PC myself, specifically the OMEN X by HP Desktop PC - 900-260xe model (LGA 2066 CPU socket + X299 Intel chipset), and fit it with the most powerful compatible processor, the Intel Core i9-9980XE (18-Cores, 36-Threads, 3.00 GHz up to 4.50 GHz, 165-watt TDP, Cascade Lake-X).

These PCs aren't readily available, so it will probably take a while before I get one.

I already purchased the aforementioned processor for another build of mine and would thus be available right away.

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777

Myoubouh · ‎08-26-2025

Will be happy to see what you can do with it ahah. I'm just a bit worried to buy a card that will not with the computer. If I was rich no problem, but it's not the case xD. The Rtx 4070 is very high price for less power. =(

NonSequitur777 · ‎08-26-2025

@Myoubouh,

Fair enough -let me know what exact graphics card you have in mind.

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777

Myoubouh · ‎08-27-2025

I was really into the Rtx 5070 dual we speaked about but now that I know that maybe the computer can handle the last one you speaked avébout with 16 gb rams I want it badly to trick the games for a long time with dlss tech ahah. It's just that if I pay 800 bucks and the card don't work i'll cry xD.

NonSequitur777 · ‎08-27-2025

@Myoubouh,

Understood -I just wanted to be completely transparent with you that an RTX 50XX series graphics card may -or may not, work on a legacy PC such as yours. Chances are pretty good that it will work -just like it works in my legacy HP Pavilion 590-p0030, but like you said, why risking buying a card if it isn't compatible with your PC?

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777

Myoubouh · ‎08-27-2025

Was the HP Pavilion 590-p0030 a premium/high end pc ? Maybe they put the best motherboards on premium machines and they are maybe more compatible/ futurw proof ?

HP OMEN X 900-080nz upgrade part 3

Create an account on the HP Community to personalize your profile and ask a question