I ordered an i7 HP 800 and an RX 580 in hopes of putting them together an inexpensive gaming rig. Well... You know what they say about 'best laid plans'..
TL:DR; This was a painful experience mostly due to not knowing what I was really getting into. All the adapters and cable issues did not make it any easier. But I got it working and working well.
The Machine:
HP 800 G1 using an i7 4770 non K SKU with an HP OEM main board in a tower case. It came with 4gb of RAM (2x2 DDR3) and an HDD with 250gb capacity and no OS. The vendor also sent it along with a power cable.
The GPU:
Powercolor AXRX 580 Red Devil with 8gb GDDR5. New and in retail packaging.
Why the HP 800 G1?
So I went to a refurb site that deals in off-lease machines. These are computers sold to businesses that usually get swapped out every 2-4 years for new machines. This is a great option for large offices and call centers as they pay a flat rate but have new machines replacing old or failing hardware at a consistent rate. The used machines are rarely put to heavy tasks and usually just run antique software in a VM or WoW (Windows on Windows) runtime. The outdated software puts a strain on network hardware but are so light on processing that even a thin client would make do. But with security being an issue most enterprises want the latest Windows running on their machines. This means massive OS overhead a thin client would choke on. So these machines have good specs and come super cheap with super light wear. The HP EliteDesk series are very dependable and even the G1 i7 version is sporting a sufficiently powerful 4770 or 4790. Even the i5 version is very usable and might have been a better pairing with the RX 580 but I knew the user would benefit from the i7's superior single core performance.
Some considerations:
Most people gravitate towards off-lease Dell hardware. I understand why now. HP has a bad habit of using OEM components that cannot be upgraded with off the shelf parts. This wasn't my first identified issue but it turned out to be problem-adjacent. I knew for a fact I needed a better PSU to run the beefy RX card's 6+8 PCI-E power requirement. I looked around and found a very respectable Corsair VX 550. This PSU has all the power I needed plus 80+ certification and plenty of wattage overhead as the machine only required 325w including the RX 580. It is non-modular and uses a standard PC-PSU 24pin interface plus a 4pin CPU channel and two 8pin PCI-E channels that adapt to connect as 6pin as well. All without having to use Molex to 8pin adapters which are highly unrecommended. Yes they work. But they work terribly.
Eventually I got all my components together and began tearing down the EliteDesk until, like Johnny Cash, I noticed that something was definitely wrong. There's a wire harness that runs from the mainboard to the drives. This is right next to a 6pin PSU interface. 6pin. Not 24. To make things worse the wiring harness is a similar 6pin connector. Running the cable back to the PSU also lead to the discovery of a 6pin needle line interface that plugged into the mainboard. At this point I was quite angry. I was trying to avoid buying a new board and 1150 CPU sockets tend to be rather rare and expensive. I wonder why.. Right. So I looked around online and saw some HP Z-series boards could be powered on by a rewired PSU. I'm a board flipper tho not an engineer. So I found an adapter used by many as a solution to their Z-series board woes and took the chance it might work on my 800 G1. I ordered one with the most reviews which turned out to be a made by some company named COMeap.
The day came. As the USPS truck drove off I felt the stars align and my destiny laid out before me. Either this was going to be a glorious day of triumph or a great day to die. Or rather murder. Because if this didn't work I was about to kill either the board, the CPU or the PSU. Possibly all three. Fuck it. Let's fail BIG. Add the GPU to the chain on first power up. Maybe I could destroy all four and score me a Tetris. Well that didn't happen. It all posted, powered on and we all lived happily ever after only we didn't. While plugging in the GPU I noticed it obscured the front panel USB interface and several SATA plugs. I was able to mitigate that by using some 90 degree angled SATA cables I had laying around. Luckily buying more is rather inexpensive as well. I also lucked out that the USB interface's bulk plug fit between the GPU's PCB and the cooler shroud without touching anything vital or being too close to the heat pipes. It is possible to buy a slimmed down plug adapter that neatly plugs into the mainboard and lets you plug the bulky cable into it. I was just lucky enough to not need it.
So at the end of the day my parts list looked like this:
- Powercolor AXRX 580 Red Devil 8gb GPU
- HP 800 G1 DDR3 4gb 250gb HDD i7-4770
- Corsair VX550 80+ white certified PSU
- COMeap 24pin to 6in + 6 needle line Adapter
- 6x 90 Degree Angle SATA III Cables*
- Flexible Male to Female 20pin case plug adapter**
It all works. The PSU is adapted to the mainboard and plugged directly to the GPU and drives. The old wiring harness that lead from the mainboard to the drives I've left off and now have hung over my bed as a trophy in honor of the PC Master Race and our Arcane God-Saints. We've plugged in the TV set the user prefers as the main display and an ultrawide LG display as secondary. All four memory slots are in use with a total of 24gb of RAM running in dual channel. I was able to get three SATA drives connected with the cables I had laying around. The included RAM, HDD and slimline DVD drive are all unsued. The RAM is in a pile ready to be used in a low power 720 gaming rig for a console gamer wanting to experience the PCMR and a machine I plan to donate to a student. Same household. Different members. The HDD was only 250gb so it goes in the stack as an emergency backup drive if one fails in a DVR or something similar. The DVD drive is still in the HP 800 case but not plugged in. Just sitting there so there's not a big hole in the face plate. Altho a trial to assemble it is quite a performer (even with so many adapters in use) and the user is quite pleased with her new daily driver.
*make sure you buy the correct angle for your needs. they come in up angle and down angle versions and on this board a mix is needed to use all the sata ports
**the flexible variety are hard to find but there are up and down angle versions of the 20pin adapterso just make sure you get the correct one for your board which i believe is the up angle in the case of the hp 800 g1's board
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