Noob advice required

[welshmanofwar]

It might be a bit of a long shot but will give it a try.

 

I'm new to computers, never built one from scratch and currently I can't afford to do that either.

 

I have an old HP Pavilion 500-242ea (specs here: https://support.hp.com/gb-en/document/c04058519)

 

I'm looking to upgrade the GPU and have been looking 1050 Ti's as they don't require external power and sit happily in the PCIe slot, drawing power from there.

 

The computer current has a Radeon R5 and the motherboard is a MSI MS-7778 (JasmineR).

 

The 1050 Ti draws around 75w of power and minimum PSU required is 300w so that's all covered.

 

The specific 1050 i was looking at was the MSI GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4GT OC (link: https://www.msi.com/Graphics-card/GeForce-GTX-1050-Ti-4GT-OC/Specification)

 

My questions are, A) Would my motherboard be compatible with a dual slot GPU? and B) Would it actual fit in my current case?

 

Case dimensions are: -

 

Height: 36.7 cm (14.48 inches) 

Width: 17.5 cm (6.91 inches) 

Length: 38.9 cm (15.35 inches) 

 

Any help or advise would be greatly appreciated.

[AndrewZScorpion]

5 minutes ago, welshmanofwar said:

Would my motherboard be compatible with a dual slot GPU?

Yes, dual slot just means that it overhangs the next PCIe slot. (So if you have any other PCIe devices you might need to move them to another slot)

6 minutes ago, welshmanofwar said:

Would it actual fit in my current case?

Looks to me like it should.

[Applefreak]

@welshmanofwar That graphics card should fit. If you have some extra cash, I'd replace that fan at bottom of your case with something better. As long as it is not rattling you will be fine though. 

While you have the case open to replace the graphics card, clean it out a bit and replace the thermal paste on the cpu if you feel up to it. 

[TCG_SS03]

The only minor concern i see is that the mobo only has a pcie 2.0 slot where as the card has a 3.0 one. It'll work fine, but it'll run at the gen 2.0 speeds.. other than that i find no problems. 

 

edit: i myself dont know that much... so i could be chatting absolute poopoo

Edited October 2, 2020 by TCG_SS03

[AndrewZScorpion]

Just now, TCG_SS03 said:

The only minor concern i see is that the mobo only has a pcie 2.0 slot where as the card has a 3.0 one. It'll work fine, but it'll run at the gen 2.0 speeds.. other than that i find no problems. 

That doesn't matter at all for a 1050 Ti. Tech Yes City just released a video where he found very little bottleneck with an overclocked 3090.

[Applefreak]

Just now, TCG_SS03 said:

The only minor concern i see is that the mobo only has a pcie 2.0 slot where as the card has a 3.0 one. It'll work fine, but it'll run at the gen 2.0 speeds.. other than that i find no problems. 

Not an issue with that card. PCI-e 2.0 is fine for most RTX cards as well.

[PorkishPig]

I don't believe your MS-7778 motherboard supports UEFI out of the box. I would suggest updating your BIOS with the tool available at https://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp79501-80000/sp79851.exe to save some headache.

[welshmanofwar]

@AndrewZScorpion Perfect thanks, there's nothing else in the PCIe next to it so shouldn't be an issue, and thanks re: the size.

@Applefreak Thanks, i'll look at the fan after as the GPU is my main priority - the current R5 has it's limitations and is quite frankly run it's course!  Agreed I was looking at getting some thermal paste as i took the CPU heatsink off as there was a lot of dust and i noticed the thermal paste was looking a bit old and worn.  Also planning on getting some air in a can to get rid of the hard to reach dust - spring clean time!

[welshmanofwar]

4 minutes ago, TCG_SS03 said:

The only minor concern i see is that the mobo only has a pcie 2.0 slot where as the card has a 3.0 one. It'll work fine, but it'll run at the gen 2.0 speeds.. other than that i find no problems. 

 

edit: i myself dont know that much... so i could be chatting absolute poopoo

I noticed this on the research i was doing, but i don't think i'll personally notice the difference considering i'm on a R5 at the minute.

[Michieltje]

1 minute ago, TCG_SS03 said:

The only minor concern i see is that the mobo only has a pcie 2.0 slot where as the card has a 3.0 one. It'll work fine, but it'll run at the gen 2.0 speeds.. other than that i find no problems. 

Afaik the speeds shouldn't be an issue either.
Pcie gen 2.0 x16 should be able to handle an RTX 3090 oc model technically due to gpu's needing 4GB/s at most (4K120fps) transfer speeds for 32-bit color. So I'd presume OP isn't even going to hit close near that mark.

Enjoy the 1050Ti by the way!

[welshmanofwar]

5 minutes ago, PorkishPig said:

I don't believe your MS-7778 motherboard supports UEFI out of the box. I would suggest updating your BIOS with the tool available at https://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp79501-80000/sp79851.exe to save some headache.

I did come across another thread that mentioned this, however the pre-built was shipped with W8 and should have UEFI already (i'll need to double check in this BIOS when i finish work though).  (Link to thread https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/uefi-on-msi-ms-7778-jasmine-motherboard.2892225/) (Link to HP BIOS info: https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c03656066)

 

[welshmanofwar]

42 minutes ago, Michieltje said:

Afaik the speeds shouldn't be an issue either.
Pcie gen 2.0 x16 should be able to handle an RTX 3090 oc model technically due to gpu's needing 4GB/s at most (4K120fps) transfer speeds for 32-bit color. So I'd presume OP isn't even going to hit close near that mark.

Enjoy the 1050Ti by the way!

Yeah, 3090's are way off my affordability  

Just ordered the 1050Ti and should be here tomorrow, super excited!

I think next step will be looking at building a whole setup from scratch, but that will be another story for another day.

 

For now, we shall use the 1050Ti as a plaster for me ever outdating setup