Compaq 8200 Elite CMT upgrade options

[Cold_Mac]

I am considering upgrading a Compaq 8200 Elite CMT for gaming (flight simulation). It has an i3-2120 (3.3 Ghz) with built-in graphics, 4 GB (2 x PC3-10700) & 500 GB 7200 RPM Hitachi SATA III HD. Performance bottlenecks to address include increasing the number of CPU cores and clock speed, the amount and speed of RAM, and improving graphics with a video card.

Can the CPU on the Compaq 8200 Elite CMT be upgraded to Ivy Bridge? I understand some Sandy Bridge motherboards could take Ivy Bridge CPUs. Is this one of them? Belarc identifies the board as Hewlett-Packard 1494. CPU-Z identifies the northbridge as Intel Sandy Bridge rev. 09 and the southbridge as Intel Q67 rev. B2. According to the serial number, the full model is HP Compaq 8200 Elite Convertible Minitower PC.

Is the QuickSpecs document (http://www8.hp.com/h20195/v2/getpdf.aspx/c04168353.pdf) current? It lists the i7-2600 as the fastest CPU available. The i7-3770K would be a major upgrade; is this an option?

The QuickSpec document referenced above states "Maximum memory bandwidth of 10.6 GB/s in single-channel mode or 21 GB/s in dual-channel mode assuming DDR3 1333 MT/s (PC3-10600)". 8 GB RAM is perfect for running the simulator by itself. The G.Skill F3-10600CL9D-8GBNT appears to be among the lowest CAS dual-channel compatible kits. Is there any advantage to DDR3 2400 CAS 9 or similar RAM modules?

It appears that a PCIe x16 video card can be added (QuickSpec). This is unfortunate, as I'm hoping to use a GTX 970. Are PCI-E  3.0 cards like the GTX compatible with this motherboard?

Finally, I may re-use the case for a new build (if upgrading is not feasible or cost prohibitive). Will the case accept ATX motherboards? Any comments on this? I expect the power supply may need to be upgraded to accommodate new internal components.

Thanks for any input.

[Zworkstation]

Thanks for your interest to use HP Elite 8200 for your simulation software but unfortunatly I do not expect that it will support that appliaction since it include alot of layers and Ivy processors are not supported at that model.

here I would recomind you to use HP Proffisional workstation At least Z230 tower model. where:

1- you will be bale to upgrade/request memory (up to 32GB ram) and you will be able to use proffisional graphics cards which includes Graphics processor unite (GPU) with up to AMD FirePro W7000 4GB Graphics 

and Xeon processor up to:

Intel® Xeon® processor E3-1281v3

meanwhile you can use HP new hard drive HP Zturbo drive 256 or 512GB.

http://www8.hp.com/us/en/campaigns/workstations/z230.html

meanwhile to get the best output you may use one of our pro monitors like Z23i or Z24i

Best Regards;