Upgrade for old PC (AMD)

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meaga1n

meaga1n

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So, after my previous desktop died (see my other topic) I jumped when I saw a ex-business HP 6005 Pro (full-sized) on eBay for £25 inc. delivery.
This seems to beat similar-aged Intel CPUs for price/performance.
The CPU is a Phenom B75 and I heard it is possible to unlock an extra core - would this be possible on a HP OEM board?
I will also add some more RAM. What GPU would you suggest that would not be bottlenecked by the CPU and that is cheap on the second hand market? I am upgrading from a nVidia 8400GS / E4400 CPU so anything would be an improvement.
It's also a BTX board - would this affect the choice of GPUs I have?

Thanks in advance,
- meaga1n
 
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Barty1884
Glad to hear you got a good deal and are happy with it. Is the board maxed out at 4GB RAM? Or does it accept more? 8GB would be ideal when you can afford it.

An SSD would be a perfect upgrade for you.

A "business" orientated desktop generally does have a limited BIOS - as modifications were generally not anticipated.
The Web is full of modified/custom BIOS's, so if you ever do decide to explore attempting to unlock that 4th core, finding a custom BIOS that would allow you to do so probably won't be too difficult.
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meaga1n

meaga1n

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PCIe. It's a modern-ish system.
The PSU cannot be upgraded due to HP's stupid design and the current card looks to be a Quadro NVS 290 (don't actually have the system yet) so I'm stuck with low-power-consumption cards.
However, the case is full-sized so the card has to be full height.
 
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The EVGA GTX 750 Ti is what I would consider a good card for your system. It doesn't use much power, it doesn't even need an extra power plug from the PSU, it's pretty small, and it's quite powerful, enough for running modern games at high settings.
 
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Barty1884

Barty1884

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To have any chance of it working, you've got to stay with the lowest power consumption cards you can.

A common "upgrade" was a GT 610, a 1GB card, with 29W consumption.
There's a 2GB version also, same consumption. It's $37 new
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Video Card: MSI GeForce GT 610 2GB Video Card ($36.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Total: $36.99
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-12-22 12:00 EST-0500

A 750ti uses up to 60W, so hopefully you'd still be alright. It's $107 at it's cheapest new, but would be a huge improvement over the 610

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB Video Card ($106.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Total: $106.99
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-12-22 12:02 EST-0500
 
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meaga1n

meaga1n

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Thanks a lot. Will upgrade when possible. My budget is low so I will keep an eye out on eBay and look in CEX (refurbished / used computer part shop in UK, cheaper than eBay in some cases) for modern-ish cards with low power consumption
Apart from graphics, would you say the AMD Phenom x3 B75 is any good? I know it's old but it's an upgrade on my Core 2 Duo E4400 right? Does anyone know about unlocking the extra core?
 
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Barty1884

Barty1884

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The Phenom is a huge step up over the E4400 - absolutely.

As far as "unlocking" the extra core (the Phenom is a "triple core" CPU - a quad core with one core disabled), it's possible on certain boards & BIOS versions. Until you have the unit, it's going to be difficult to know for sure.

It;s a fairly simple process though, if you have the right component. See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGKBXgbmCOk

Tri-Cores are Quad cores with one Core disabled.
Now, sometimes it's a defective core, so it's disabled and marketted as a tri-core - unlocking (if possible) may make the system unstable.
Sometimes a perfectly capable quad-core is restricted to tri and unlocking the core is as simple as that.
 
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meaga1n

meaga1n

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Thanks a lot. Will try when I get the PC - hopefully just before Christmas.
As for the GPU, I have read that there are no external power connectors available and the PCI-E slot only provides 25W - which would limit my options to a nVidia 730/430 as the best card?
Somewhere I've got an old ATi 3450 so I'll chuck that in first to see if it even supports GPUs other than the proprietary HP-branded Quadro it is shown as having. the 3450 takes 25W so that will test also the max power consumption.

Thanks a lot everyone - really helpful!
EDIT: It's a BTX PSU, 320W, and may have a power connector for a GPU. https://h20566.www2.hp.com/hpsc/doc/public/display?sp4ts.oid=4024563&docId=emr_na-c01870924&docLocale=en_US
System delivery should be 24th so I'll look then. It's got a ATi 4200 built in as well as the Quadro and I'm only using it for basic use and a small amount of very light gaming so that might not need an upgrade.
 
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meaga1n

meaga1n

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So... the system arrived sooner than expected (I am typing on it now) and it came with a Radeon 6350 GPU and a Phenom B75 CPU. I plan on keeping the 6350 for now (need to purchase a DMS-59 splitter cable first) and putting the money I would have spent on a new GPU to a SSD.
The BTX board is kinda strange but it has 4GB DDR3 (more than expected) and an overkill of case fans so overall I'm pleased with it.

Unlocking the fourth core? The HP BIOS is very limited and to be honest it's fast enough for my requirements how it is now. I can't believe I got 4GB DDR3, a decent AMD CPU, a basic GPU, a nice BTX case, a motherboard, a branded PSU and a Windows 7 Pro OEM licence for less than £25!
 
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Barty1884

Barty1884

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Glad to hear you got a good deal and are happy with it. Is the board maxed out at 4GB RAM? Or does it accept more? 8GB would be ideal when you can afford it.

An SSD would be a perfect upgrade for you.

A "business" orientated desktop generally does have a limited BIOS - as modifications were generally not anticipated.
The Web is full of modified/custom BIOS's, so if you ever do decide to explore attempting to unlock that 4th core, finding a custom BIOS that would allow you to do so probably won't be too difficult.
 
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meaga1n

meaga1n

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Yeah, it has 4 slots and takes a max of 16GB. I'll grab some more when I have the chance.
Will definitely buy a SSD too soon - the 160GB HDD I put in is slowly dying.

Thanks again
 
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