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[Guide] HP 6300 Pro / HP 8300 Elite - A 100 percent Working and Easily Affordable CustoMac

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The first linked product you don't need. Use the sata power from the optical drive. The second two, sata data and ssd you should order. There are no molex power output connectors from the PSU on these.
 
8GB Ram Kit by G.Skill

I've been using this kit for a few weeks now and it's performed flawlessly. It didn't work so well with my Haswell system so it's found a new home here in my HP 6300. The price has gone up since the time I bought it 3 years ago but it's still an excellent choice for these HP desktops. Get the 1600 MHz speed as there is no benefit to getting the 1866 MHz speed.

Newegg G.Skill Ram Kit:
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231428

Amazon.com
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004I763AW/?tag=tonymacx86com-20

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AHCI should mostly be okay though. Just saw a post claiming issues with a Hyper X AHCI, which is odd, considering it works with adapters in late 13-15 Macbook Pros

Yes, AHCI drives will work. The problem is that they are very hard to find these days as everyone carries mostly NVME.
 
AHCI should mostly be okay though. Just saw a post claiming issues with a Hyper X AHCI, which is odd, considering it works with adapters in late 13-15 Macbook Pros
Is it a complex install?
 
Is it a complex install?

It's no different that installing on an SSD boot drive. You do have the problem that you can't get full speeds in a x1 PCI-E slot. Has to be at least x4 for that. If you don't have a discreet graphics card you could use that slot.
 
sorry should have said is it a complex setup? What is the likely speed advantage over sata III SSD in the 8300
 
sorry should have said is it a complex setup? What is the likely speed advantage over sata III SSD in the 8300
You can look at the rated speeds on the drive. The SSD by crucial should give you 500 MB/s read and write speeds. The AHCI should be about double that but it depends on who makes it. You have to install the AHCI drive into a special PCI-e adapter because you have no M.2 slots in the HP 8300. It's too old to have those. So figure in the extra cost of the adapter when comparing it to the SSD. It's also not easy to find a low profile PCI-e adapter that fits in your SFF case. I'm not 100 % sure either that the Elite 8300 BIOS will support booting from an AHCI SSD. You'd be the first to try one that I know of.

Much simpler to just use the Crucial SSD. Plug in two cables and you are done.
 
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my issue now is that I would not know which AHCI drive and pci-e adaptor to get, but that aside I would like to give it a try. Just out of interest would, assuming its one day supported, how much faster would NVME over AHCI.

[EDIT] As advised, AHCI does seems very hard to find. What I'm thinking now is, assuming NVME is supported as a non bootable drive, to get NVME m.2 SSD as just storage and a cheap secondhand SATA III SSD as boot, then switch boot drive to nvme m.2 ssd when apple starts support. is this logic sound?

Reading the guide I'm unsure of something: Can I get hdmi and analog audio to work, or will I need gpu card / usb adaptor?

Also unsure which wifi/bt card to get, any good options? Btw, I'm hoping to make all the purchases on Amazon UK.

thanks again
 
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