Guide for Selecting a Discrete Video Card

[brcummi]

Hello Dave,

Thanks for taking the time to answer our questions 🙂 I have an HPE-171F, and I have been thinking about upgrading my video card.

My first question is about what version my PCI-Ex16 is. I assume it is not 3.0 as the computer is several years old, but I was curious what it actually is and could not find that on the HP support website.

My second question is about the video card I have been thinking about, a Geforce GTX 660. The power supply requirements say 450W and the HPE-171F comes with a 460W. Will I be okay, or is that pushing it? I noticed that you recommend some Corsair power supplies on this site, but I would rather not upgrade if I do not need to.

My third question is kind of a combination of the previous two 🙂 The 660 is a PCI-E 3.0 card. Assuming my motherboard is not 3.0, will that cause me problems? Or will it simply just cause the card to not perform at its highest levels?

Last question 🙂 Is there a card that you might recommend instead? I am looking for a significant boost in gaming quality, at a reasonable price, without requiring too many pieces being replaced. In other words, if I could get away with just the video card being replaced, that would be amazing! I have a long history of Geforce products, so I am comfortable there, but would not be horribly opposed to other options.

Thank you again,

Brian

[milesrf]

This model?

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?objectID=c01987365&lang=en&cc=us&taskI...

http://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c01987365

http://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c02014355

1 PCI Express x16 slot for graphics card


Has a PCIE x16 graphics card slot, not the more recent PCIE2 x16 or PCIE3 x16.

The GTX 660 was designed for a PCIE3 x16 slot.

Sorry, I don't know what will happen if you plug it into a PCIE x16 slot, or even
whether it will fit into such a slot.

[brcummi]

Yes, that is the model. Yeah, I was not sure if it would work either 🙂 I was curious if someone knew about the forwards/backwards compatibility of the technologies, i.e. if an older motherboard would work with a newer card and vice versa.

Is there a different card that you would recommend I look at?

[milesrf]

No specific other card.

However, it might be helpful to know that the Radeon series of cards based on GPUs from AMD or ATI is about your only other choice.

One other detail:  You should measure the space inside your computer to check whether there is enough room for a graphics card as long as the GTX 660, which is somewhat long for a graphics card.

[ajwhiting]

PCIe3 cards will definately fit and work in a PCIe2 & PCIe1 slot, they were designed to be backwards compatible (I am using a PCIe3 card in a PCIe2 slot).

However, and this will be the sticking point, it is very unlikely that the BIOS will support the more modern card. Everytime i've instlled a new graphics card i've had to update the motherboard BIOS for it to work. Now this is an issue with HP motherboards as there won't be a newer BIOS.

To give some history, I have a 9 month old HP PC, I bought a Radeon HD7950 and ended up having to replace the motherboard to get it to work (which also invalidated my windows 7 OEM installation).

The only way you will know before hand if it will work is to borrow a graphics card before buying.

[milesrf]

ajwhiting,

Thank you for supplying what I didn't know about such upgrades.  I'll probably change my GT 440 upgrade plan to something from the GTX 500 series instead of from the GTX 600 series, then.  I've found that Nvidia-based graphics boards would upgrade for me without a BIOS upgrade as long as I made sure the new board's expected socket type matched the old board's expected socket type.  Fot example, a 9800 GT to a GTS 450 and then to a GTX 560.  Not tried with mismatched expected socket types.

Edit - excuse me, the Nvidia specs don't say what type of PCIE the 9800 GT was intended for.  This MIGHT mean that PCIE1 was all that was available then, or it could mean that that computer came with a BIOS that could already handle PCIE2.

[OracleDba20]

Having issues installing a Zotec GT 610 video card in my a1547c (I'm using a VGA monitor hookup).

Plug in card, install only drivers, boot, and my onboard sound is gone.

If I try switching the VGA from on-board to card, there's no video output.

Only way I've found so far is to remove the NVidia drivers and restore bot video and sound

  drivers using application restore.

Any hints would be appreciated.

Thanks

[TheDGN]

Hello, 

I hope someone can help me as Im really not that PC savvy....

I recently bought a refurbished HP ENVY h8-1455 and want to upgrade the video card to a EVGA GTX680 GPU i also bought. The card fits in the slot perfectly, so no issues there... unfortunately the power supply on the h8-1455 is way underpowered to run the video card so I guess I need to replace it. Im assuming that means removing the original PSU and replacing it with one that has 600w (just to be safe). Is there a reccommended PSU that I should get to be able to do this?

I've read that the PSU must be compliant with my motherboard... according to the computer specs my motherboard is a IPMMB-FM (Formasa). 

Please let me know if anyone has any advice for me!

Thanks,

dgn

[milesrf]

TheDGN,

This web page might help if you read the necessary information off your computer (probably from the back or the bottom) and enter it where requested.

http://h20141.www2.hp.com/Hpparts/Default.aspx?mscssid=E4D0C7FFD507405098684FFC98C1B6DD

I'd like to know more about how to match replacement PSUs to motherboards as well.  HP says that 600 watt PSUs are no longer available for my h8-1070t, or I'd buy one.

[TheDGN]

Mike,

Thanks for the reply and the link... although I think you may have misunderstood me. The Power supply the computer currently has is fine. It's just underpowered to run the graphics card I want to use (GTX680). So I want to replace it with a more powerful one (600W). I think the link you gave me will only show me what part number I need to replace my existing PSU, no?

Thanks,

DGN