MS-7778 motherboard GPU upgrade

[GGALLIN1776]

Any recommendations on a GPU for this motherboard? I.e. the max this will handle with the upgrades listed below.

I'm doing a budget build as I was given the comp & a 1kw PSU so I'm trying to see what I can do spending the least. If the GPU originally was expensive that's fine, I'm buying used & waiting for the right price to come along.

Ram will be upgraded to 32gb of  ddr3 1866 soon (I'd go higher if possible), CPU will be 4.1ghz that "overclocks itself" to 4.5ghz.

Goal is to have the 55" UHD monitor used to its full potential, not have movies/video editing be a problem. So far I've had issues with text being "wrong" & the like.

Also open to sound card recommendations. The forced Windows 10 (x64) updates have sent onboard sound into the ditch, scaling back the sample rate of which I was formerly capable.

[old_geekster]

@GGALLIN1776 , welcome to the Community.

Here are the "Product" and "Motherboard" specifications for the computer.  Look at the sections titled "Processor upgrade information" and "Memory upgrade information" for a list of compatible processors and all of the information on compatible memory.

The motherboard has a PCI Express x16 (Gen. 2) video card slot and 3-PCI Express x1(Gen. 2) slots for the sound card or other peripherals.  It appears that you will have plenty of power with a 1000W PSU, if I read your post correctly.

You should should look for a Gen. 2 video card.  The Gen. 3 cards will be backward compatible, but you won't get full benefit from the power.  Here is a HP Knowledge Base article that will explain what to consider when adding or upgrading a video card.  Once you have read the article you will have a better idea of what will be compatible.

One of the best sound cards for 2024 is this card:  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08HYPH5T6/?tag=lifewire-onsite-prod-20&ascsubtag=833111%7Cn61ad72e6e91d4a...

You can contact Creative's Tech Support to make certain that it is compatible with your motherboard.

Please click the "Yes" button if my reply was helpful and "Accept as Solution" if your problem is Solved!!

[GGALLIN1776]

Most of what I've been seeing for a balance between price & performance has fallen into the 3.0 category.

Generally 2-4gb of gddr5 onboard, requiring 400w. In particular, I've found some affordable Gigabyte GV-N960G1 cards which seem decent.

So by limitations, do you mean it'll just be limited to whatever spec 2.0 maxed out at?

That soundblaster looks decent, it's odd how limited alot of the newer cards are. A turn of the century S.B. card I have in another machine can do 32bit 198k, compared to most maxing out at 24bit & less than half the rate.

[old_geekster]

Thank you for the additional information, @GGALLIN1776!

Yes, your definition of limited is exactly what I mean.  It wouldn't be at all bad, but it will just cost more money for not that much more performance boost.  You could choose a card and contact the manufacturer's Tech Support to see what they have to say about their cards performance with your motherboard.  I have contacted numerous over the years.  They have always been very helpful.  Of course, they want you to buy their cards.

Sound cards can be a bit picky with motherboards.  This is why I normally recommend Creative's cards.  They have been around since the beginning and seem to have the problems solved.

[GGALLIN1776]

I was looking more into the amd A-10 6800k & realized it's an "APU" vs CPU. That was the first time I've heard the term.

Is there any way (via program or other means) of forcing it to run strictly as a CPU to keep it from bogging down?

Wasn't sure if all of the processor upgrades suffered the same designation or not, or if the use of a designated GPU handled the issue of the "split" usage.

I won't be running games but would really like to keep each component focused on their task rather than multitasking.

Completely different machine, but when running my laptop, I'll see numbers like 98% CPU usage when opening a browser & it just lags forever. Running VLC with even a not so great bitrate video file, 50%+ & memory going nearly as high (at "idle" ram is 32%...yikes)....just want to avoid that with this build.

The specs page didn't mention anything about ram being underclocked, but I've seen some reports of people running four sticks of 1866mhz & it running maxed out at 1333mhz which sounded odd.

Some attributed this to non-matched (although same model/part number) sticks being run, others claim it's the motherboard. Any idea if the 1866mhz is justified at four 8gb sticks (if this is occurrence is a definite) or will a lower mhz not suffer this anomaly?

[old_geekster]

Here is an article that will explain the differences in APU, CPU and GPU.  There is a good description of an APU and why they were developed.

Most CPU's will have minimum and maximum speeds.  They will increase speed or decrease speed as it is necessary depending on the process being achieved.  There is no way to keep this from happening.

HP will not underclock their memory.  They use XMP's built into the BIOS to overclock their memory.  The standard memory is 2133 MHz, but most memory will be in the 2400 MHz to 4400 MHz range today.  If the motherboard supports "Dual channel memory architecture" it is best to install matched pairs to maximize performance.