HP Pro 3305 Microtower PC - GPU Options

[dugganrouthorn5]

Hello HP Community,

I need help with finding a GPU for my HP Pro 3305 Desktop PC. It is currently using the Integrated ATI Radeon HD 4200 Graphics, which runs very slow and poorly, especially considering that I had previously put in an NVIDIA GeForce GT 1030 in there and the performance was substantial.

Why I'm looking at GPU Options when I mentioned that I previously used the GT 1030 in that system? Well, the performance of the GT 1030 with the AMD Athlon II X3 450 Processor that's in the computer, isn't being used to its full potential and it is heavily bottlenecked by the CPU. I want to find a GPU that works well with the AMD Athlon Processor and a GPU that isn't going to be severely bottlenecked.

I got the bottleneck information from pc-builds.com by the way. Could you please help me find a good GPU for my system and one that can handle some gaming. Thank you.

[NonSequitur777 · Accepted solution]

@dugganrouthorn5,

Honestly, first of all I would recommend upgrading your processor.  That should be very obvious as you said it yourself, and I quote: "the performance of the GT 1030 with the AMD Athlon II X3 450 Processor . . . is heavily bottlenecked by the CPU".

The specs show that an AMD Phenom II X6 1065T is compatible with your HP Pro 3305 Microtower PC.

With this upgrade, you'll gain a substantial processor improvement over your current CPU: https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/AMD-Phenom-II-X6-1065T-vs-AMD-Athlon-II-X3-450/m9983vsm91.

You can purchase an AMD Phenom II X6 1065T via this trusted eBay-UK Seller: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/203504539655?_skw=AMD+Phenom+II+X6+1065T&itmmeta=01JJG8NQZV2BQM5H577TR1T5....

This upgrade will almost certainly resolve your CPU 'bottleneck' issue.

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777

[dugganrouthorn5]

I had considered upgrading the processor in my system before but decided against it since I heard Phenom CPUs weren't very good, and it wouldn't be worth upgrading my Athlon. But, after looking at the comparison page you shared with me and after researching the Phenom II upgrade, it appears and sounds to perform a lot better than my current Athlon II CPU. I'll try and get a Phenom II CPU for my PC to help improve performance. Thank you for the suggestion. If I upgrade from Athlon II to Phenom II, what would be the best GPU to install in my HP Pro 3305 Microtower PC?

[NonSequitur777]

@dugganrouthorn5,

One of the best graphics cards to pair with your PC as upgraded with an AMD Phenom II X6 1065T, would be the low-power low profile RTX 3050 6GB, such as this Amazon-UK purchase option: https://www.amazon.co.uk/MSI-GeForce-3050-Gaming-Graphics/dp/B0CSPRNRZC/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2CU935ISXDWL....

Your case doesn't need a low-profile card per se, but this particular card happens to have just a 70-watt TDP and doesn't require a PCIe power cable.

In addition, I would strongly recommend (if you haven't done so already) installing a matching 4x4GB of DDR3 PC3-10600, 1333 MHz, Non-ECC, UDIMM, 240-pin RAM sticks kit, such as this Amazon-UK dual-rank (2Rx8) RAM-kit purchase option (you'll need two of these 2x4GB RAM kits), in order to max out your RAM: https://www.amazon.co.uk/motoeagle-1333MHz-PC3-10600U-Non-ECC-Unbuffered/dp/B08BXJY7YW/ref=sr_1_5?cr....

You'll be quite pleased how this will work out for you!

Hope this was helpful.

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777

[dugganrouthorn5]

Thank you for your suggestions again, however I'm on a tight budget and can't afford to buy an RTX 3050. I plan to use my HP Pro for using software from the early to mid 2010s which includes playing games from around 2009-2014. An RTX 3050 would be overkill for that use case. I was researching NVIDIA GeForce GT 700 Series GPUs which is in my price range, and they seem to perform well for those respective tasks.

I have a small collection of older computers, from different eras in computing history with my oldest being from Windows XP and I want to try and upgrade my older systems with hardware that was released within a set time frame. For my HP Pro, I'm interested in buying a GPU that's as new as 2014. I know it's old and outdated hardware, but it wouldn't be heavily bottlenecked by the CPU like I discovered with the RTX 3050. And by the way, my system is currently using 8GB of RAM in Quad Channel and I may potentially max it out to 16GB in Quad Channel if I decide to do more demanding work on the computer in the future.

Phenom II X6 1065T and GeForce RTX 3050 build in General Tasks | Bottleneck Calculation | PC Builds

Phenom II X6 1065T and GeForce GT 730 build in General Tasks | Bottleneck Calculation | PC Builds

[NonSequitur777]

@dugganrouthorn5,

Well, then, a GT 730 it is!

"AMD Phenom II X6 1065T and NVIDIA GeForce GT 730 will work great together on 1680 × 1050 pixels screen resolution for General Tasks."

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777

[dugganrouthorn5]

Excellent, thank you very much for your help @NonSequitur777. I really appreciate it. 😊

[NonSequitur777]

@dugganrouthorn5,

You're very welcome and smooth sailing!

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777