I need help

[JCosta1527]

 

Hello, my name is Jeff,

 

I recently started building gaming pcs for clients and friends. Last week I rolled out 5 builds and this week I'm working on another 4. I only charge $100 for a build fee. Anyway, I got a request now a few days old for a client wanting to swap out his hp omen 30l. He wanted to replace the motherboard and ram on it to increase the performance/ speed as I'm aware hp limits that stuff with their bios or software, he also wanted to switch everything over to a lian li lancool III mesh which I am pretty familiar with. All I could respond with is that I would do some research and get back to him as to my knowledge the hp omens are not upgradable though when doing some research online I was reading of people who had upgraded things such as motherboard, ram, case swapped, ect. I have no doubt that I would be able to do it, I just don't know if the computer would power on after if I swapped out the motherboard, or if the omens aio would fit on the new motherboard. I'm not very framiliar with hps software or any of that. 

The computer he has is a HP Omen 30L GT13-0092, it has a intel i9 10850k, a rtx 3080, a hp/cooler master 750watt power supply, a 1tb ssd, 2tb hd, and 32gb of ram. The motherboard I can't seem to find much info on but it is a micro atx. 

What should I do. The kid has a budget of $600. I already tried to get him to just repurpose the cpu and gpu and almost start over as I believe I could do it for at least close to his budget. He is very adamant about just doing the motherboard, case, and ram though. I tried to explain it will give him performance increase if it was possible but probably not as much as he thinks and he still wants to go ahead with it. 

If I got a micro atx motherboard that was compatible with the 10850k and put that in a new case so I don't have to worry about cable extensions or anything, would it work. Would the OS on the SSD and HD work with the new motherboard? Would the old power supply work with it? Would the old aio fit on the new board? 

I want to help this kid but is this a possible job or should I stand my ground on just restarting. 

[brob]

46 minutes ago, JCosta1527 said:

I want to help this kid but is this a possible job or should I stand my ground on just restarting

 

If it doesn't feel right turn down the job. Helping someone that refuses to follow your best advice can only lead to problems.

 

The Omen can be overclocked so getting noticeably more performance by switching case and motherboard is unlikely unless a much better cpu cooler is added.

[Middcore]

There is nothing special about 10850k from an HP Omen compared to any other 10850k. The CPU will work in any compatible board. Same goes for the GPU, storage, and memory (the GPU might be some shitty-looking HP-branded cooler design but dollars to doughnuts it's just a reference PCB underneath). 

 

You should be easily able to ascertain whether the AIO can be swapped on to a normal board by looking at its mounting system. 

 

The only thing I would have serious concerns about is the PSU. 750W is the minimum I would want for an RTX 3080 and the quality of units in prebuilts is always suspect. Does it use proprietary cabling or ATX standard?

 

Why does he want to replace the RAM? If it's a frequency thing (IE it's 2666mhz and he wants 3200mhz or whatever), then any improvement is going to be too marginal to be worth it, especially at the resolutions you ought to be gaming at with a 3080. 

 

$600 is easily enough for the Lancool III, a Z490/590 board, and a new power supply if one is necessary.

 

That said any significant performance increase by doing all of this is unlikely, unless the limiting factor currently is poor thermals in the Omen chassis. 

 

Edit: OK, so I looked up the exact specs on this particular Omen, the RAM is already 3200mhz, leave it alone. The 120mm (maybe 140mm?) AIO isn't really going to be adequate to get the most out of a 10850k if you're overclocking it, and if you aren't overclocking it why have a 10850k and a Z-series board? So with his $600 I'd do this:

 

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/yn2bGL

 

(I picked the white Lancool III because it was in stock and the black one wasn't most places but the pricing is about the same. There's room in the budget to get a nicer motherboard if you want but I wouldn't spend too much on a dead platform.)

 

So after this his system should run a lot cooler and could potentially perform better by keeping the CPU chilled, and he'll have more peace of mind about not overtaxing the questionable PSU.

 

However, I must say that if he has $600 to spend right now, it might be a better option to sell the 10850k and then build around the 3080 on a new (B660 or Z690) platform.