[DDMLK]

Firstly, I just checked my device manager and two processors are currently showing up. Could that still be hyper threading?

Yes, that is hyperthreading. It basically makes the operating system 'think' that there are 2 CPU's. The DC7100 SFF is not compatible with dual core CPU's. Your CPU is most likely a Pentium 530, like the one I used to have. This is a 3.0GHz single core 32bit CPU with hyperthreading technology.

My main question is the difference in power between your upgraded processor and video card?

If I recall, you said the video card takes 31 watts. I'm assuming the new processor you put in takes more than the old one because it is performing at high speeds, and i'm almost positive it still takes the full power even if it is being bottlenecked.

All together, I feel like your upgrades may take the same 50 watts of power my video card would be taking. And that is the maximum power of the card. I don't plan on every running my card to it's highest limits, so I don't see that there should be a problem. If anything, I feel like your system would consistently take more power, although never spike as high as mine could if i were to run it vigorously.

According to the Intel website, the upgraded CPU can use up to 31 watts more than my old CPU, which I think was the same as yours (3.0GHz).

My full list of changes that would affect the power demand are:

1 x 60GB SSD system drive - SSD drives use less power than conventional notebook drives.
1 x 320GB system backup drive - This is a notebook hard drive, so again, less power hungry than a full 3.5in hard drive.
1 x 1TB SATA Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 drive - Being a new drive, this drive actually requires less power than the original 40GB Barracuda 7200.7.
4 x 1GB RAM
1 x 4 port USB 2.0 PCI card.
1 x Asus 210 Silent 1GB PCI Express 2.0 graphics card. See my note below about PCI Express. The power requirement for this upgrade is, in theory, much lower than the power requirement stated on the manufacturer's website.

No floppy drive.
No optical drive.

I don't know how much power all of the above use. The main power hungry upgrade is the CPU. My wife tends to make the CPU peak at 100% for days at a time due to all the video encoding that she does. This doesn't put any load on the graphics card or the hard drives.

Apart from the above, I have several external USB drives connected, but these are all externally powered devices, so I don't imagine that they would draw much (or significant) power from the PC itself.

Talking about bottlenecks, please keep in mind that the DC7100 SFF only supports PCI Express 1.0. The Radeon 6570 is a PCI Express 2.1 card from what I can see. If you put this card in your system, it will only run a PCI Express 1.0 speeds = only half bandwidth.

Edited by DDMLK, 07 October 2012 - 03:09 AM.

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Talking about bottlenecks, please keep in mind that the DC7100 SFF only supports PCI Express 1.0. The Radeon 6570 is a PCI Express 2.1 card from what I can see. If you put this card in your system, it will only run a PCI Express 1.0 speeds = only half bandwidth

PCI Express x16 slot--1 low-profile (2.5"),I took the information from the HP site.> http://h18000.www1.h...20by%20Regions)

I feel sure I also posted an image of the card, (which appears to gave disappeared) with some instructions. and refereed too in Post #10

[iammykyl]

Talking about bottlenecks, please keep in mind that the DC7100 SFF only supports PCI Express 1.0. The Radeon 6570 is a PCI Express 2.1 card from what I can see. If you put this card in your system, it will only run a PCI Express 1.0 speeds = only half bandwidth

PCI Express x16 slot--1 low-profile (2.5"),I took the information from the HP site.> http://h18000.www1.h...20by%20Regions)

I feel sure I also posted an image of the card, (which appears to gave disappeared) with some instructions. and refereed too in Post #10

[DDMLK]

PCI Express x16 slot--1 low-profile (2.5"),I took the information from the HP site.> http://h18000.www1.h...20by%20Regions)

I feel sure I also posted an image of the card, (which appears to gave disappeared) with some instructions. and refereed too in Post #10

I should clarify. The DC7100 SFF has a PCI Express x16 slot, but it is version 1.0

This means that if a PCI Express x16 graphics card version 2.1 is fitted to it (as OP is contemplating), it will only run at half the bandwidth, namely the same as version 1.0 as PCI Express is backwards compatible.

Yes, the card will physically fit, but it will not run anywhere near its full potential.

[howtheflip]

extensions, as in it has vga, dvi, and hdmi. This causes the outside to be too wide for my machine, however, so it does not fit in. So, now I have to go purchase the version that only has the dvi and hdmi so that it fits in the gate:

I bought this: http://www.newegg.co..._-pla-_-NA-_-NA

I need this: http://www.google.co...ed=0CKsBEPICMAY

See the difference?

[howtheflip]

According to the Intel website, the upgraded CPU can use up to 31 watts more than my old CPU, which I think was the same as yours (3.0GHz).

My full list of changes that would affect the power demand are:

1 x 60GB SSD system drive - SSD drives use less power than conventional notebook drives.
1 x 320GB system backup drive - This is a notebook hard drive, so again, less power hungry than a full 3.5in hard drive.
1 x 1TB SATA Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 drive - Being a new drive, this drive actually requires less power than the original 40GB Barracuda 7200.7.
4 x 1GB RAM
1 x 4 port USB 2.0 PCI card.
1 x Asus 210 Silent 1GB PCI Express 2.0 graphics card. See my note below about PCI Express. The power requirement for this upgrade is, in theory, much lower than the power requirement stated on the manufacturer's website.

No floppy drive.
No optical drive.

I don't know how much power all of the above use. The main power hungry upgrade is the CPU. My wife tends to make the CPU peak at 100% for days at a time due to all the video encoding that she does. This doesn't put any load on the graphics card or the hard drives.

Apart from the above, I have several external USB drives connected, but these are all externally powered devices, so I don't imagine that they would draw much (or significant) power from the PC itself.

Talking about bottlenecks, please keep in mind that the DC7100 SFF only supports PCI Express 1.0. The Radeon 6570 is a PCI Express 2.1 card from what I can see. If you put this card in your system, it will only run a PCI Express 1.0 speeds = only half bandwidth.

So basically you have stated that the graphics card can use a max of 31 watts, and the upgraded cpu can use a max of 31 watts more than the previous cpu. That alone totals 62 watts, probably more realistically around 50 though without overdoing the graphics card like you said. Although your sdd uses less power than sdds today, it is still extra power. You also have a system backup drive and an internal hard drive, even if they too require less power than normal. I'm assuming the three added together either equal or surpass the amount of power my hard drive needs. So, with all the upgrades, I feel that your computer is consistently running 40-60 more watts than the mine. If that is true, shouldn't that mean that my card would be safe to use in almost all conditions? Also, I am aware of bottlenecks, but i'd rather have a system that is bottlenecked than a system that is way below it's capacity.

[iammykyl]

Hi DDMLK



Thank you for the clarification. I did miss that the slot was only ver. 1.0. relief to know I was not completely wrong.

howtheflip

See the difference?

Yes, thanks for the reply. I do hope you were able to return the card.

Would you be willing to run the WindowsExperience Index before and after your upgrde? would help other who are following this thread.
> http://windows.micro...n-Windows-Vista

[DDMLK]

extensions, as in it has vga, dvi, and hdmi. This causes the outside to be too wide for my machine, however, so it does not fit in. So, now I have to go purchase the version that only has the dvi and hdmi so that it fits in the gate:

I bought this: http://www.newegg.co..._-pla-_-NA-_-NA

I need this: http://www.google.co...ed=0CKsBEPICMAY

See the difference?

If you fit the low profile bracket to the first card, it would look exactly the same as the photo of the second card.

Mine came in the box with a bracket looking like the first card. I fitted the low profile bracket and unplugged the VGA cable altogether because I'm using HDMI.

Attached Thumbnails

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[howtheflip]

Wait, so I can safely remove the VGA? Is there anything else besides just unplugging it? This will be very helpful if you can clarify as I won't have to switch them.

And i will be happy to run the windows experience index test for all of you.

EDIT: Thankyou so much! After you said that, I decided to look into it and have figured it out. I am about to do the test and install now, I will let you guys now soon!


REEDIT: Installation was a success! Everything seems to be running fine. I can't try league of legends right now to see how much of a difference it will make, nor was I able to find a windows experience index for an XP machine (Isn't that a windows 7 program?) The machine is very quiet, and hopefully there are no cooling issues in the near future that I have to deal with. I even managed to keep the VGA attached by adding it to one of the side slots. Thankyou everybody for you help, I thought this thread would have died a long time ago, and i'm glad it didn't.

Edited by howtheflip, 08 October 2012 - 10:37 AM.

[DDMLK]

Wait, so I can safely remove the VGA? Is there anything else besides just unplugging it? This will be very helpful if you can clarify as I won't have to switch them.

Yes, you could safely remove the VGA plug and cable.

And i will be happy to run the windows experience index test for all of you.

EDIT: Thankyou so much! After you said that, I decided to look into it and have figured it out. I am about to do the test and install now, I will let you guys now soon!


REEDIT: Installation was a success! Everything seems to be running fine. I can't try league of legends right now to see how much of a difference it will make, nor was I able to find a windows experience index for an XP machine (Isn't that a windows 7 program?) The machine is very quiet, and hopefully there are no cooling issues in the near future that I have to deal with. I even managed to keep the VGA attached by adding it to one of the side slots. Thankyou everybody for you help, I thought this thread would have died a long time ago, and i'm glad it didn't.

The Windows Experience Index is not available under Windows XP.

If you ever plan to use this PC as a media player, you may want to upgrade it to Windows 7. This allows programs like VLC to use the graphics card's processing power to handle high definition video. Without this feature, this PC is unable to play HD video at 1080p. But if you only plan to play computer games via a computer monitor, then there's no need to upgrade.

My machine is now quite loud under full load, but that was to be expected, as it runs at 69C under 100% CPU use. Idle temp is the same as before (and just as quiet), and this is fine with me.

Enjoy.

[howtheflip]

I only plan on using this computer until I get back from the army, where I will have enough money to buy a fully upgraded one. Thankyou for the concern though, and all the advice everyone has given me.

After testing, my computer used to give me 15-17 FPS in League of Legends at a normal time, and down to 5-8 when I had a major battle so there was a lot of action on screen.

Now, after installation, I get at least 30 fps at all times.

[iammykyl]

What a great result, well done.


A very BIG THANKS goes to DDMLK here. I have certainly learned a few things.

Edited by iammykyl, 08 October 2012 - 03:39 PM.