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Best Single Slot Low Profile GPU for a Kaby Lake Sierra build?

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Seems easy enough; thanks @pastrychef!

Also, just for comparison reasons if anyone else is interested, here is Cinebench with my mid-2015 MBP with the R9 M370X GPU.

FcLqAke.png


Looks like my i5-7500 CPU and this GTX 745 will be an improvement over my current MBP. My hackintosh is maxed at 32GB RAM, but I always have room to grow the CPU by swapping a 7th gen i7, but don't think I'll ever need to. Super excited about making this hackintosh my daily driver!
 
Super happy with the GTX 745, at least initially. Received today, installed in system in about 5 minutes (fits perfect in my case, leaving enough room for GPU fan to pull in air). Had to install Nvidia web drivers, and enable EmuVariableUefi-64 in Clover, and then reboot. Benchmarks indicate that this is much more powerful than my HD630 so I'm very happy about it (benchmarks aslo had a slight increase in CPU performance after this, which is odd but welcome).

hnAofpc.png


Power draw was another interesting thing to watch. Without the GTX 745 installed, running the Cinebench r15 CPU test showed a PEAK power usage of 61W. With the GTX 745 installed, the PEAK power pull that I noticed (watching my kill-a-watt) was only 78.5W. Clearly my PicoPSU 160W is going to be plenty. In fact, I've decided to order a i7-7700 (got one for $275, which is why I didn't get the i7-7700k; no intention to overclock anyway) and return my i5-7500 since power shouldn't be an issue (might as well go big here). From testing I've seen online, power draw on a i7-7700 is about 5-6W higher than a i5-7600, so I expect to see a max of around 85-87W after swapping the CPU. I also finally ordered a slot-loading DVD drive for this system, so that'll add a little more. All in, I should still be below 100W. My power brick is rated at 10A/120W, so staying below 100W was my goal, else I'd need to order a slightly larger power brick.

All in all, very happy with this system. Installing OSX was easier than I imagined, and performance appears to be great. DVD drive (and my new wifi/bt M.2 card) should be here in a couple days, and I can then call this beast complete!
 
One final update, in case anyone else is following.

Swapped out my i5-7500 for a i7-7700, and reinstalled with 10.12.4. Seems my OpenGL score increased by over 5 fps. Super happy with the performance I'm seeing so far here.

KRnX2TD.png


Peak power draw that I observed so far, was 113W during the Cinebench R15 CPU test. Using a PicoPSU 160W PSU, along with a 120W power brick...I seem to be doing just fine. I may invest in a 150-200W power brick just to be on the safe side, but no concerns here over using a GTX 745, i7-7700, 2 x 16GB DIMM's, a single SSD, and a DVD drive.
 
tycoonbob said:
One final update, in case anyone else is following.

Swapped out my i5-7500 for a i7-7700, and reinstalled with 10.12.4. Seems my OpenGL score increased by over 5 fps. Super happy with the performance I'm seeing so far here.

KRnX2TD.png


Peak power draw that I observed so far, was 113W during the Cinebench R15 CPU test. Using a PicoPSU 160W PSU, along with a 120W power brick...I seem to be doing just fine. I may invest in a 150-200W power brick just to be on the safe side, but no concerns here over using a GTX 745, i7-7700, 2 x 16GB DIMM's, a single SSD, and a DVD drive.
Click to expand...


Very nice. I was also looking for a single slot GPU. I did find the GTX 745 and currently watching some on Ebay. Why didn't you opt of the GTX 750 Low Profile from MSI? It is single slot and low profile. Would it have drawn too much for your build?
 
aztlan78 said:
Very nice. I was also looking for a single slot GPU. I did find the GTX 745 and currently watching some on Ebay. Why didn't you opt of the GTX 750 Low Profile from MSI? It is single slot and low profile. Would it have drawn too much for your build?
Click to expand...
As one of the previous posts mentioned there's really not much difference between the two. The 750 may have slightly faster ram but that's about it.
 
aztlan78 said:
Very nice. I was also looking for a single slot GPU. I did find the GTX 745 and currently watching some on Ebay. Why didn't you opt of the GTX 750 Low Profile from MSI? It is single slot and low profile. Would it have drawn too much for your build?
Click to expand...

I was never able to find a true single slot GTX 750 available in the US. The reason why single slot was important to me was because of the BTX layout used in my HP Elite 8300 SFF. A dual slot card would have prohibited use of one of the three PCI-e slots.
HP8300.jpg

If you manage to find a GTX 750, its power consumption should still be fine for slot power. Nvidia lists it as a 55W card and PCI-e provides up to 75W.
 
pastrychef, is it possible to fit a dual slot LP GPU (like 750 ti or RX 460) and a BCM94360CS with PCI-e adapter at the same time in an HP 8300 SFF, or is a single slot GPU required for that?
 
PBL said:
pastrychef, is it possible to fit a dual slot LP GPU (like 750 ti or RX 460) and a BCM94360CS with PCI-e adapter at the same time in an HP 8300 SFF, or is a single slot GPU required for that?
Click to expand...

Yes, it's possible. The middle PCI-e slot will be blocked, but two remain accessible so you can use one for dual slot low profile video card and the other for BCM94360CS.
 
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aztlan78 said:
Very nice. I was also looking for a single slot GPU. I did find the GTX 745 and currently watching some on Ebay. Why didn't you opt of the GTX 750 Low Profile from MSI? It is single slot and low profile. Would it have drawn too much for your build?
Click to expand...

As previously mentioned, there is no true single slot LP GTX 750 (that I could find). The MSI card you mention, while only takes 1 PCIe bracket, the heatsink and fan extend past that. While my board is a mITX, my case (Streacom F7c Alpha) doesn't really allow much room for that. It'd probably fit, but the fan would be sitting right against (or very close to) the aluminum case, so it wouldn't be able to pull in any air. The GTX 745 I went with does NOT extend past the motherboard, so this leaves a good 2 inches from the GPU fan and the side of the case. There are holes in the bottom of the case, as well as an opening in the side (further up past the GPU fan) to draw air in. Also, the only LP GTX 750's I found were 2GB cards, so while the 745 may be clocked lower on VRAM, it has 4GB instead of 2GB. Not sure how the performance plays out there, but since I'm not gaming, I imagine this card will do me great. Only complain is that it uses a DVI and HDMI. I wish it had dual HDMI, or better yet, dual DP. Right now it's pushing a 27" ASUS PB278Q 1440p monitor, and a 27" ViewSonic 1080p monitor. Will probably just replace the ViewSonic with another ASUS, and call it a day.

Here's an album with some random pictures of this build.
http://imgur.com/a/6JrUy


If I find that I need more power out of my GPU, I'll just have to replace my case with a Streacom F12C, get an ATX PSU, and a much larger GPU. But at that point, I may consider an i7-7700k, and then I may want to swap out the motherboard and max the RAM just because. It's really a money pit, because I'm going to buy the best I can get (within reason), so my limiting myself to this case and a PicoPSU, I couldn't really go much bigger on the GPU. Vicious cycle, and I hope this system will last me 4-5 years. Time will tell. ;)
 
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