SFF HP Elite 8300 W/ Core I7-3770

[trs96]

9-21-17 Core I7-3770 8300 Elite SFF $269.99 at Newegg
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA7RB5TE1089&cm_re=HP_Compaq_Elite_8300_SFF%2fCore_i7-3770-_-1VK-001E-0BR67-_-Product

9-8-17 Current deal on I7-3770 8300 Elite 12 GB of Ram for only $325 at Newegg.com
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA6YC6883933

You can see all the various configurations here:
https://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=-1&IsNodeId=1&Description=Elite 8300 i7-3770&bop=And&Order=PRICE&PageSize=36

8-21-17 Latest 8300 Elite Guide :
https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/...orking-and-easily-affordable-customac.224812/

8-17-16 : Here's a new guide specifically for the UEFI installation of El Capitan on the Elite 8300/3770 system from HP.
http://tonymacx86.com/threads/pastrychefs-testing-machine-hp-elite-8300-sff-i7-3770-gt-630.199712/

This guide uses a low profile GT630 GPU and not the integrated graphics (HD4000)
Directions for the HD4000 installation will be added later on. You would use either a DP to DP cable
or a DP to HDMI cable to use the HD 4000 integrated graphics. VGA is not supported and will not work.

7-23-17 Here's the current best deal on this model at Newegg.
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIADT25UW3524&cm_re=i7-3770_hp_8300-_-1VK-001E-0CFR5-_-Product
$249.95 shipped and includes 4GB of ram and a 500 GB HDD.


Original Post:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0106M9CGY/?tag=tonymacx86com-20

There are 50 of these available as of today 5/28 Sells for $299.99 on Amazon. These have on-chip
HD4000 Intel graphics so you can even run OS X on it without a discrete graphics card. Nice deal !

If you want discrete graphics get the low profile 750 Ti by either Gigabyte or MSI.
They are available on Newegg or Amazon for a little over $110 when on sale.

Install El Capitan UEFI and you've got a very nice SFF system with some power.
Should be in excellent condition as it's certified refurbished. For 300 USD you
are really only paying for the CPU and getting the PC and Windows for free. Any
3770 in new or good used condition sells for 250 to 300 dollars these days.

Compare this to the current 2014 Mac Mini refurbished with a 1.4GHz dual core laptop processor
and a price tag at least 100 dollars more than this. The mini gives you no chance to upgrade
to 32 GB of ram or a discrete low profile graphics card either. Just think, HP turned Woz
down 5 times when he wanted them to build the first Apple computer. Now they make laptops
and iMac clones that look just like Apple products. But they still can't install OS X on them and sell them
to the public, only the mediocre Windows 10.

 

[trs96]

This is interesting. Office Depot still has one of these for sale new, listed at $1,799 ! Not sure how HP justified charging that much when these were brand new some 3+ years ago. Maybe because they sold them mainly to large corporations with really large technology budgets.

http://www.officedepot.com/a/produc.../?cm_mmc=Affiliates-_-CJ-_-2801176-_-11272891

So a 1,500 dollar discount to buy it certified refurbished. Breaking news ! The brand new Elite 8300 has been reduced by
over 100 dollars and now sells for $1689.99. LOL

I'd much rather go with certified refurbished and save the $1300. Could buy a whole Skylake I7 system for that !

 

[Lonelytanker]

Yep, it's Ivy Bridge so that is all onboard.

This is interesting. Office Depot still has one of these for sale new, listed at $1,799 ! Not sure how HP justified charging that much when these were brand new some 3+ years ago. Maybe because they sold them mainly to large corporations with really large technology budgets.

http://www.officedepot.com/a/produc.../?cm_mmc=Affiliates-_-CJ-_-2801176-_-11272891

So a 1,500 dollar discount to buy it certified refurbished. Also it looks like they've gotten more in stock at Amazon. Total available 8300s: now back up to 35.

Seems like an incredible deal. The CPU is powerful even compared to newer CPUs. What would you say are the potential downsides/negatives of a system a few years old like this?

Also, this may not be the right place to ask, but do you know if this would accommodate a graphics card powerful enough to drive a 4K display without lag? I currently have a Dell P2715Q monitor that I hook my late 2013 rMBP 15 up to. Would like to dedicate a machine to the display, though. Although the GT 750m in the rMBP can drive the display at 60Hz, it isn't as buttery smooth on the 4K display as it is on the native laptop display.

Thanks for your help! And thanks for posting this deal.

 

[trs96]

Seems like an incredible deal. The CPU is powerful even compared to newer CPUs. What would you say are the potential downsides/negatives of a system a few years old like this?

Also, this may not be the right place to ask, but do you know if this would accommodate a graphics card powerful enough to drive a 4K display without lag? I currently have a Dell P2715Q monitor that I hook my late 2013 rMBP 15 up to. Would like to dedicate a machine to the display, though. Although the GT 750m in the rMBP can drive the display at 60Hz, it isn't as buttery smooth on the 4K display as it is on the native laptop display.

Thanks for your help! And thanks for posting this deal.

The two main issues with these SFFs are that they require low profile graphics cards which are generally less powerful than full height cards. The other is the proprietary power supply. It's 240W so you can't really run a high end card on one of these. A third minor thing is that the onboard audio is not supported. If you can find one in a CMT (tower) in this price range you can use a full height card and you get about 320 W to work with.
Still there are no 6 or 8 pin supplemental power connectors from the PSU. Has to get all it's power from the PCI-E slot. There are some EVGA 950s that don't require supplemental power you could use in the CMT version.

 

[Lonelytanker]

The two main issues with these SFFs are that they require low profile graphics cards which are generally less powerful than full height cards. The other is the proprietary power supply. It's 240W so you can't really run a high end card on one of these. A third minor thing is that the onboard audio is not supported. If you can find one in a CMT (tower) in this price range you can use a full height card and you get about 320 W to work with.
Still there are no 6 or 8 pin supplemental power connectors from the PSU. Has to get all it's power from the PCI-E slot. There are some EVGA 950s that don't require supplemental power you could use in the CMT version.

Thanks for all the details.

So I guess I need to keep using my rMBP and continue the search for something else to drive my 4K display. I was getting excited over the prospect of getting something at such a great price, lol.

Thanks again!

 

[trs96]

Thanks for all the details.

So I guess I need to keep using my rMBP and continue the search for something else to drive my 4K display. I was getting excited over the prospect of getting something at such a great price, lol.

Thanks again!

You could still buy one, Use the ram CPU and HDD and get a used Ivy Bridge motherboard. A cheap way to get an
I7-3770 which is a great CPU. Then use whatever PSU and grapics card you want.

 

[Lonelytanker]

You could still buy one, Use the ram CPU and HDD and get a used Ivy Bridge motherboard. A cheap way to get an
I7-3770 which is a great CPU. Then use whatever PSU and grapics card you want.

Good point. I was hoping to just buy one computer to simplify things. I'll definitely give it some thought.

 

[trs96]

This is the most powerful card, (that supposedly does 4K via DP) you could put into the Elite 8300 chassis. I've never tried one but it's possible to get 4K via Display Port with it. 60 Hz at 4K with OS X may be a little tricky.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125680&cm_re=750_TI_low_profile-_-14-125-680-_-Product

 

[Lonelytanker]

This is the most powerful card, (that supposedly does 4K via DP) you could put into the Elite 8300 chassis. I've never tried one but it's possible to get 4K via Display Port with it. 60 Hz at 4K with OS X may be a little tricky.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125680&cm_re=750_TI_low_profile-_-14-125-680-_-Product

Thanks!

The two main issues with these SFFs are that they require low profile graphics cards which are generally less powerful than full height cards. The other is the proprietary power supply. It's 240W so you can't really run a high end card on one of these. A third minor thing is that the onboard audio is not supported. If you can find one in a CMT (tower) in this price range you can use a full height card and you get about 320 W to work with.
Still there are no 6 or 8 pin supplemental power connectors from the PSU. Has to get all it's power from the PCI-E slot. There are some EVGA 950s that don't require supplemental power you could use in the CMT version.

Would the audio problem be solved by routing audio through DP or HDMI (to a 2nd display) on a discrete graphics card?

Also, would this tower fit what you were describing?
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B010BXJBYQ/?tag=tonymacx86com-20
I know its CPU is about 10% slower and the HD2000 isn't supported in OS X, but if I were using a discrete graphics card would this be a good system to build on?

Thanks for all of your help. As you can tell, I'm a bit of a newb and am still learning. The only Hackintosh I've done is on my HP Mediasmart EX-485. But i run that headless so a lot of the little annoyances in getting hackintoshes to run don't really affect it. And I'm still running Mavericks on it for fear of something breaking if I upgrade it to El Cap, lol.

 

[trs96]

Thanks!


Would the audio problem be solved by routing audio through DP or HDMI (to a 2nd display) on a discrete graphics card?

Also, would this tower fit what you were describing?
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B010BXJBYQ/?tag=tonymacx86com-20
I know its CPU is about 10% slower and the HD2000 isn't supported in OS X, but if I were using a discrete graphics card would this be a good system to build on?

Yes, you could get HDMI audio with certain discrete cards. The 8200 should have UEFI version of BIOS available. I've never worked with that specific model but some have installed EL Cap on them. With that tower you could easily run a GTX 950 GPU that doesn't need the extra 6 pin power like the ones that EVGA makes. They've got 4 versions that meet those specs. You would need Yosemite or newer and the Web drivers from Nvidia to use this or the 750 Ti GPU.