Upgrading an HP EliteDesk 800 G3 TWR

[NonSequitur777]

Dear Forum,

Purchased a well-priced 'barebone' HP EliteDesk 800 G3 TWR -though fitted with an Intel Core i5-6500 (4-Cores, 4-Threads, 3.20 GHz up to 3.60 GHz, 65-watt TDP) for just $60 and free shipping: https://www.ebay.com/itm/267259193011:

Having been around for a while, this HP EliteDesk 800 G3 TWR purchase option is one of those outstanding eBay offers that will show up once in a while. I couldn't help myself (OCD-ish?) -I just had to buy it. Come to think of it, I have been told that I'm borderline hoarding, but nah -I sort of see myself more as a Collector of sorts, and I am planning to eventually offload (sell) completed upgrade projects via eBay [maybe 🤔], so that I can buy more discounted stuff, etc. -but I digress.

Anyway, this HP EliteDesk 800 G3 Tower system is highly upgradeable, comes with a 250-watt power supply, and could very easily be made into a decent gaming PC for cheap -even with the i5-6500: throw in 2x8GB of 2400 MHz DDR4 UDIMM RAM for $24: https://www.amazon.com/PC4-19200-2400MHZ-288-pin-Upgrade-Desktop/dp/B0BJZQCMY5/ref=sr_1_3?crid=1A7AR..., a GTX 1660 Super for $140: https://www.amazon.com/PNY-GeForce-Gaming-Overclocked-Renewed/dp/B092MWFP7J/ref=sr_1_8?crid=34ZDJQ82..., and a 500GB M.2 NVMe SSD as the primary (boot) drive for just $40: https://www.amazon.com/Crucial-Plus-500GB-PCIe-5000MB/dp/B0B25NTRGD/ref=sr_1_4?crid=1XZC4YK1LT22F&di..., and you got yourself a rather decent gaming PC for well under $300 -tax/tariffs included.

Don't expect to play high-end games in super-fast 4K, but at least you'll get around in medium settings at 1080p with a decent (60+) fps in quite a few games: https://www.pcgamebenchmark.com/compatible-games.

Say, if you were to upgrade the processor from an i5-6500 to an i7-7700K (or even an i5-7600K) -then you'll see a serious gaming improvement for sure.

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777

[NonSequitur777]

Dear Forum,

As mentioned, the stock power supply for an HP EliteDesk 800 G3 Tower is a 250-watt unit.

However, you can upgrade the power supply with a number of quality power supplies, such as:

400-watt with p/n: L04618-800 / 942332-001

500-watt with p/n: 901759-013 / L77487-003 / L05757-800 / 913290-001 / L89233-001

650-watt with p/n: L57253-003 / L36049-003

This means that this full-sized PC can be fitted with a great many (high(er)-end) graphics cards, including many larger-sized (triple fan) cards* and still have plenty of room to fill up the PC with up to four SATA storage drives, plus you got an M.2 NVME SSD slot -preferably to be used as your primary (boot) drive, and an additional PCIe 3.0 x16 (wired as x4) slot, which you can use to install an additional M.2 NVMe SSD, using a PCIe to M.2 NVMe SSD adapter card. And last but not least, you got a PCIe 3.0 x16 slot for a graphics card.

* In order to fit the largest of GPUs, you can remove the removeable drives bay or 'modify' it by removing aka 'snip out' a section.

In addition to the high-end i7-7700K (4-Cores, 8-Threads, 4.20 GHz up to 4.50 GHz, 91-watt TDP), this PC may also be compatible with the Xeon E3-12xx v6 processor family, including the Xeon E3-1280 v6 (4-Cores, 8-Threads, 3.90 GHZ up to 4.20 GHz, 72-watt TDP), which I have in my CPU Collection.  Before I try this processor and see how it goes, I will first install an i5-7600K (4-Cores, 4-Threads, 3.80 GHz up to 4.20 GHz, 91-watt TDP) to download the most recent BIOS version and system drivers.

Got 4x8GB of Samsung DDR4 PC4-19200, Non-ECC, UDIMM, 288-pin RAM (p/n: M378A1K43CB2-CRC) sticks for this project.

Also have two M.2 NVMe SSD drives available: a 500GB WD Blue SN550 and a 500GB Silicon Power UD70, and one SATA SSD: 1TB Samsung 870 QVO (p/n: MZ7M31T0HALD).

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777