...found a GT 710 new for around $50 bucks. Cool. I followed a few more guides to NVIDIA drivers on 10.13.6, installing drivers, editing config.plist, and 2 kexts. Oh, and the secret key... disable "integrated graphics" in the HP BIOS.
And WOW does this run amazing! Fast, quiet, and surprisingly seems stable! Shutdown, sleep, etc works, for now... knock on wood.
If anyone with similar hardware has any issues, I am very inexperienced in Hackintosh-ing, but may be able to share what I did to get mine working!
Cheers!