this computer that you see right now I managed to grab for only $37 on eBay today I'll show you what it can do and how you can modify it for a bit more money to run all modern games and cover everything you need to know about connecting a powerful graphics card to a less potent power supply including situations where something might burn out despite looking like an office PC which it indeed is it was only an office PC back in 2011 when it was released now in 2024 it's a gaming PC if the seller didn't lie with the powerful Intel Core i7 this PC is called the HP compact Elite 8200 yes it's a pre-built HP computer and you can find plenty of these on eBay here's how it looks inside it has a gaming AMD graphics card and there's another integrated gaming graphics card in the processor imagine that for 37 bucks you get two gaming graphics cards so you could even sell the discret one and use the integrated one what's the difference one or two frames per second it even has a CD drive unfortunately there was no HDD cable included and no disc was provided either which is probably why it was sold so cheaply although the seller claimed there was a cable I hope it at least Works let's check it out I'll connect an SSD through the USB port for the test powered on as soon as I plugged in the power cable which is a good sign so the computer definitely works it has a second generation i7 processor and 8 GB of memory and the processor has 8 threads a real Beast for its time running at 3. 5 GHz on all cores the graphics card is also as advertised the gaming radon hd6570 honestly it would have been better if the seller lied and kept it as for performance in GTA 5 it's pretty decent 30 frames per second on minimum settings at a resolution of 1280 by 7 20 pixels however things aren't as rosy in counter- strike 2 in Minecraft I didn't even attempt to launch more modern games regarding the integrated graphics card it seems like it can even deliver 60 FPS on the desktop the system has Intel HD graphics 2000 such power unfortunately there are only drivers for Windows 8. 1 and I have Windows 10 installed although YouTube videos in 2K at 30 FPS play without lag overall I'll leave it alone and just say thank you for existing by the way the processor overheats in Minecraft even though the seller said the thermal paste was changed 6 months ago I've heard somewhere that lying is a sign of a developed intellect judging by everything the computer was sold to me by Einstein himself let's replace the thermal paste on this gaming monster and give it an upgrade gaming graphics card from AMD as you can see the power supply connectors on the motherboard here are non-standard so you can't easily replace the power supply you can't remove the motherboard from the case without taking off the CPU Cooler so cooling can't be replaced either however it's welld designed the fan cools both the CPU and the vrm area which is hot even without this moreover the motherboard isn't on a racing chipset and you can't overclock the processor as much however we already have a nearly top option the motherboard is on an LGA 1155 socket released in 2011 and it supports second and third generation processors of the Sandy bridge and Ivy Bridge architecture the Intel i72600 is almost an exact copy of the i7-3770 which is the maximum processor that can be installed on this motherboard the performance difference between these two processors is only 5% so upgrading from this legendary 2600 isn't economically viable so I'll leave our i7 alone and move on for a budget processor a budget thermal paste the ram is running at 13,33 MHz not the best option even for that time but we work with what we have I bought two more 4 GB sticks of the same frequency and for just an additional 7 and 1/2 bucks we now have a computer with 16 GB of RAM this means we can run all modern games power supply here isn't very powerful only 320 ws and it doesn't even have an additional six pin cable for the graphics card this is a bit disappointing but not for long because for an additional 7 and2 Bucks I bought a proprietary sat a cable and a satad 8 Pin adapter for the graphics card as you can guess the graphics card here will be quite powerful but not this one for another 37 bucks I scored a real treasure a sapphire radon RX 580 with 4 gbes judging by its appearance and what the seller said the card has seen some mining but that's okay we'll clean it up and it'll be as good as new imagine such a cool graphics card for just 37 bucks I think this is a real you find for an unpretentious gamer the card can handle almost everything they say even stalker runs on low settings but for such a game I think it's worth upgrading the computer on eBay by the way these cards are much more expensive than here in Ukraine I think this is due to more miners here and our Market is more saturated with such cards gtx650 I think the ideal video card for this PC but it is more expensive you can also install a GTX 1060 it can definitely be found for such a modest amount of $37 by the way what I noticed might not be very visible on camera but the board is bent like an eight and interestingly there's no artifacting and the card Works without issues I'm not very good at straightening spoke so I'll leave it as is and hope it'll continue to work once assembled by the way as you might have noticed there are no ads on my Channel at all well almost not but these are tough times and if you want to support me and see videos more often than once every two months consider the sponsorship option sponsors get to see videos earlier than anyone else that's at least and there are many other perks monetization doesn't bring in much money and the hardware for the videos isn't free I buy everything with my own money I'm no businessman so I can only offer sponsorship well now the card is as good as new the only concern is its power consumption of 185 Watts given that my power supply unit is only rated at 320 Watts by the way I almost forgot to mention for just 37 bucks our case comes with a front subwoofer now that's what I call an investment in the future show me a single manufacturer that includes built-in subwoofers in their cases another reason for the low cost is the absence of USB 3.
0 that was a bit disappointing but I can live with it I'm still puzzled by why everything was so cheap initially thought it might be due to a faulty power supply perhaps the PSU had damaged the hard drives for instance and without even checking the 12volt and 5volt rails with a multimeter I eagerly connected my SSD and graphics card to the SATA power connector even though the multimeter was right under my nose I think my laziness won't lead me to any good but unfortunately nothing got fried after checking the 5vt and 12volt lines with the multimeter I was sure that the PSU was fine because the voltage on both rails was within the normal range underload The 12vt Rail drops slightly to 11. 9 volts which is still within the acceptable range how however when both the GPU and CPU are underload the drop is a bit more down to 11. 8 volts this is also acceptable but there's a catch with the GPU and CPU consuming around 210 to 220 WTS the connector and power cable to the GPU were just warm but the connector to the motherboard was hot which isn't good when I reduced the gpu's power consumption to 110 WS the motherboard connector became just warm and the GPU power connector was almost cold this suggests that the heating occurs exponentially 110 watts is fine but 145 watts is too much I can explain this the lower the voltage on the 12volt rail the greater the heating of the wires because the current increases this happens when the voltage drops but the power consumption Remains the Same therefore it's not advisable to connect a powerful graphics card to a weak PSU using adapters and if you do the load shouldn't be high that's why I reduced the gpu's power consumption to ensure it doesn't exceed 110 watts in games the card didn't lose much performance maybe about 5 to 7% thanks to reducing the power consumption by 40 WTS the graphics card now operates more efficiently in my case the wires and connectors are barely warm when the GPU consumes no more than 110 Watts there's another important aspect you should know if you plan to connect a powerful graphics card to a weak power supply unit the type of voltage regulation used in your PSU group regulation or independent regulation ideally you want to have independent regulation this is important because when the 12vt line in your PSU dips the voltage on the 5vt line which your SSD is connected to won't increase thereby extending the lifespan of your disc how can you determine which type of Regulation your PSU uses if you don't have a multimeter you should check the specifications table on your PSU if the power on the 12vt line is the same as the total power rating of the PSU for example as written on mine 12 volts to 750 wats and the total power is 750 watts then the PSU has independent regulation and the voltage on the 5vt line won't rise underload now let's look at another PSU 350 Watts maximum and it only delivers 252 Watts on the 12vt line This is most likely group regulation if the PSU is rated at 400 watts total and provides 200 Watts on both the 12vt and 5vt lines it definitely uses group regulation if you look at the HP PSU there's no information about the 5vt and 3.
