Upgrade diary: HP Elitedesk 800 G4

It seems like Dell Optiplex computers get a lot of attention, but I’ve had better luck recently finding HP Elitedesk PCs. These compete with the Dell Optiplex, and they have a lot of the same advantages and disadvantages. In this blog post, I will walk through upgrades I used to turn a used HP Elitedesk 800 G4 into a viable gaming and streaming PC running Windows 11.

Curing the small form factor blues

First off, I got the small form factor version. Don’t judge me. Of course I would have bought the mini tower if I could have found one. At the time of purchase, the only mid tower computer I could find with a new enough CPU to run for Windows 11 would have required me to drive halfway to Chicago.

That’s not altogether a bad thing. I figure a lot of people will have questions about how to upgrade the small form factor versions of these machines.

SSD upgrade options for an HP Elitedesk 800 G4

To work on them, there is a latch on the back that you slide that releases the top cover. Then the top cover slides forward. The motherboard has a position for an NVMe SSD, and there are also a pair of 3.5-inch drive bays that can accept either a conventional hard drive or SSD. Any SSD is a huge upgrade over a conventional hard drive, but if the system doesn’t have an NVMe drive, I recommend installing one of those. They are faster than a SATA SSD, all other things being equal. Price on NVMe drives has also come down. You used to pay a premium for them just because they were faster. Not so much anymore.

There are more SATA ports on the motherboard than there are drive bays, but you can take advantage of them by buying a 2.5 to 3.5 adapter that has room for two SSDs. The dual drive adapters usually don’t cost any more than a single drive adapter does, and that will give you enough room inside for a total of four drives, plus the NVMe drive. We didn’t have an immediate need to install any additional storage, but we have plenty of options when that time comes.

Maximum RAM upgrade for HP Elitedesk 800 G4

The HP Elitedesk 800 G4 uses DDR4 RAM. Mine had a single 8 MB module installed in one of its four slots. I had a matched pair of four gigabyte modules and another matched pair of 8 GB modules, so I installed those for a total of 24 GB. The system can take up to 64 GB, in the form of (4) 16 GB modules. I will eventually do that, but memory prices being where they are, 24 will have to do for a while.

For best performance, install matched pairs of modules in the color coded sockets. One pair of sockets is black and the other pair is white.

Video card upgrade for HP Elitedesk 800 G4

The Intel integrated graphics are perfectly fine for running office applications, but they are not fine for streaming. OBS doesn’t like them.

We found a low profile RTX 3050. It cost considerably more than the rest of the computer, but that generation of Nvidia video cards can do some interesting things, and I imagine it’s an upgrade a lot of people who buy a system like this will be interested in. For our purposes, it is able to do hardware based encoding in OBS, and that isn’t the case with, say, a GT 1030.

Make sure you buy the low profile version, ideally, the one from MSI. MSI’s low profile version will fit and it does not need the supplemental PCI Express power connector. That’s a good thing, because this machine doesn’t have one of those.

I had to swap the bracket with the low profile version, but that wasn’t a huge deal. The card came bundled with the low profile bracket. If you buy one used, it’s definitely worth asking whether it comes with both brackets. Whichever bracket you don’t end up using easily gets lost.

I’d almost buy the low profile version of the 3050 even for a full-size PC, because it doesn’t require the PCI Express connector, and it fits in either a small form factor system or systems with the more conventional form factor. If you decide to upgrade from it, the low profile version will likely have more demand. Especially the MSI version that fits in more machines without modification.

I had to modify the case to make the Gigabyte RTX 3050 fit. But we couldn’t get an MSI, so we made the Gigabyte work.

Conclusion

The HP Elitedesk 800 G4 is a reasonably well built PC with a lot to offer. The case is flimsier than older HP models, but the motherboard and chipset are great, and business class PCs tend to run Windows really well as long as you give them enough memory, a fast SSD, and a fast video card. The corporate security tools that bog down your work PC aren’t a factor when you use the same hardware to build a PC for home use.

Corporations are discarding these systems because they are now out of warranty, but they are fully supported for Windows 11, and when you run a clean install from the Microsoft ISO, an upgraded Elitedesk runs Windows 11 rather well. I have some tips for moving your user profile to the new PC if you need them. If you want to use a local account, which Microsoft makes unnecessarily difficult, I have tips for that too.

I have several older Windows 10 PCs I keep around for experimentation purposes and as spares. I will definitely be looking for more Elitedesk 800 G4 or similar systems to replace them with.

Dave Farquhar

David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He has written professionally about computers since 1991, so he was writing about retro computers when they were still new. He has been working in IT professionally since 1994 and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He holds Security+ and CISSP certifications. Today he blogs five times a week, mostly about retro computers and retro gaming covering the time period from 1975 to 2000.