Graphics card compatibility

Dont Be at It

Would anyone be able to advise if the following graphics card is compatible with an old Dell Optiplex 960 MT....

ASUS NVIDIA GeForce GT 730 Graphics Card (PCIe 2.0, 2GB GDDR5 Memory, 4x HDMI Ports, Single-slot Design, Passive Cooling)

Spear

Yes, it has a full x16 length PCI slot, so it'll work.

K.O.Kiki

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058323279/graphics-card-compatibility

It should be.

Found a GT 1030 on Amazon Black Friday that would be a bit better.

https://amzn.eu/d/cbh729m

Dont Be at It

Brilliant, thanks guys.

I'm looking for one with 4 x hdmi slots so the GT 1030 wouldn't work for me.

Dont Be at It

Back again, folks. Looks like the old optiplex has had its day. Hadn't been turned on in nearly 10 years... I replaced the coin battery but still not booting.

Thinking of picking up a refurbed HP 800 G1 SFF... Same question - would the graphics card above fit it? I'm thinking it will.

As an aside.. Am I missing a trick when it comes to connecting 4 x monitors? There's no way around needing a graphics card with 4 slots, right? Looking to get sorted as cheaply as possibly. Refurbed HP is 100 euro and graphics card above is 100 euro.

Spear

The HP has a full x16 PCIe slot, so again the card will work.

Cuddlesworth

The HP 800 G1 SFF a half height form factor, meaning its a full PCI-slot but not full height so its limited to a very specific subset of cards.

But it does already have 2 DisplayPort connectors on it.

minitrue

As Cuddlesworth said the G1 800 SFF needs a low profile card and I don't see you finding one with 4 outputs.

There are other ways to get 4 monitors connected but not cheaply. For example there are monitors that support displayport daisychaining (aka MST) but not that many, they generally aren't cheap and it certainly sounds like you have the monitors already. If you don't have the monitors already you could try and find used bargains.

There are usb video cards but their performance is limited and they will essentially run on your cpu. Perhaps for your use case you wouldn't care about the performance, I was going to say but the price would make it very questionable but the price right now for https://www.amazon.co.uk/StarTech-com-USB-Dual-HDMI-Adapter/dp/B0725K1MHH?th=1 is lower than I expected.

Between those two options there are also displayport to hdmi MST hubs which take one displayport and provide 2 hdmi outputs. Two of those with the likes of that G1 800 SFF would drive 4 monitors. There's a fair range of prices for them but the pair would likely be roughly the same price as the graphics card.

Dont Be at It

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121442111#Comment_121442111

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B09DVN7QWH?ref_=cm_sw_r_apan_dp_R14ZVP4RK2PNM5H0B7VA&language=en-GB

That's the one I was looking at. Says low profile but is it the width is the issue rather than the depth?

I have the monitors alright. I haven't bought the desktop though so still have flexibility there.

Didn't realise those USB adapters were a thing. I have two screens currently attached to my laptop. Assume I could use that adapter to connect 2 additional screens? Wouldn't need a new desktop then at all. Or would all 4 x screens have to be connected via the USB adapter method for it to work properly?

Appreciate the detailed reply.👍

Spear

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121442306#Comment_121442306

Low profiles is the height, and smaller video cards, like the 730/1030 usually come with a half height back bracket to replace the normal full height one.

Last time I saw some of the USB adapters a good few years back, they were pretty awful. Very laggy, with next to no processing power.

minitrue

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121442306#Comment_121442306

It says low profile as part of the style name but if you compare it to some of the others on that page like the other 730 you will see the difference, that card isn't low profile. https://www.asus.com/motherboards-components/graphics-cards/asus/gt730-4h-sl-2gd5/ is the asus page for it and you'll notice no mention of low profile there.

You could just connect 2 more monitors to that Star Tech usb video card. If you just want to use those extra monitors to display some documents or the like you probably won't care about the performance. I have no idea just how good/bad the performance of that one is and as it's driven by your cpu it would be influenced by that.

If your laptop is new it might have displayport over usb-c (or thunderbolt) along with whatever other display outputs it has which could open up the options to use the MST hub type of adapter instead and in fact I should have mentioned you can get 4 hdmi outputs from one of those so if the laptop has a displayport output something like: https://www.amazon.co.uk/StarTech-com-DisplayPort-Multi-Monitor-Splitter-Black/dp/B00XXPZ3AQ

Dont Be at It

I get you now. I thought low profile referred to the depth (say half an inch). But it actually refers to the height/width (4ish inches).

So they're using incorrect terminology on that one then? Low profile should actually mean a height of no more than about 2.5inches?

I don't have a display port on the laptop.

K.O.Kiki

I'm almost certain that there are no low-profile GPUs with 4x HDMI.

Most I could find are Gigabyte GTX 1630 LP, GTX 1650 LP & RTX 4060 LP with 2x HDMI.

All other low-profile cards use 4x mini-DisplayPort.

Dont Be at It

Thanks for all the feedback, folks. Looking at one of these - think I'm right in saying that these will take the card linked in the first post..

https://www.amazon.co.uk/HP-Intel%C2%AE-Graphics-Windows-Renewed/dp/B08WKNBZX5/ref%3Dsr_1_58?qid=1701448063&refinements=p_36%3A-15000&rnid=428432031&s=computers&sr=1-58&srs=16308409031

https://www.refurbed.ie/p/fujitsu-esprimo-p556-e85-micro-t/88097b/

Spear

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121443041#Comment_121443041

It has a full x16 PCIe slot, so it'll take anything.

minitrue

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121442766#Comment_121442766

Displayport to hdmi cables or adapters are cheap and fine for basic use (e.g. if you need displayport bandwidth and features they won't magic that away).

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121442741#Comment_121442741

Yep to what low profile really means and your height guesses are close enough, you can see the difference by looking at the back of the two PCs you were considering.

You said you have 2 monitors connected to the laptop currently? One by hdmi and the other by usb-c? If so I think that usb-c one has to be displayport over usb-c so you could use a usb-c to displayport cable (not very expensive) or get something like: https://www.amazon.co.uk/StarTech-com-USB-HDMI-Multi-Monitor-Adapter-Black/dp/B07667D37V

If your monitors are higher resolution/refresh than 1080p though it's not that easy. The original PC you posted did have 2 displayport outputs though so you could add two mst hubs each supporting two 4k60 monitors to one of those.

And again worth noting displayport to hdmi adapters or cables are cheap so you could get one with displayport outputs and use those (assuming your monitors don't have displayport inputs).

Dont Be at It

This is the laptop I have... https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-laptops-and-notebooks/latitude-5411-laptop/spd/latitude-14-5411-laptop

So I think you're right about it having a dp over USB-c port. That adapter you linked could do the trick. Hard to belive a laptop could run 3 screens off a single port 😅

That's a good point about picking up a PC with 2 x DP ports rather than focusing on the graphics card, which would really limit the type of desktop I could go for.

Cuddlesworth

Its "half height" for the cards which are really half the width of a normal PCI slot at the rear of a case and "low profile" for cards that are thin, so they really just take up the height of a PCI slot internally.

Dont Be at It

That was my take on it too but some outlets say low profile when they mean half height!