This is based off a slim 6200 PRO desktop chassis from Hewlett Packard. It's a slim desktop, with an i3-2100, complete with a nice high capacity 750GB Hard Drive, Windows 7 Professional, Optical bay, 2 Gigs of RAM. As you can see I love me my Sandy Bridge. It has been an excellent, rugged and proven architecture despite the platform being like 5 years old. The setup will also have the USB Mike which I'm writing a post for it as well.
Let's run down on the specs pretty quick:
- Intel Core i3 2100
- 2GB DDR3 RAM (Which I swapped out to a 4GB GSkill Red RAM Stick in the photo below)
- 750GB Seagate Hard Drive
- Windows 7 Ultimate
- 240W PSU
- Optical DVD Burner
And 10, that's right, 10 USB 2.0 ports.
It's gonna be similar stuff to the sort of thing YouTube Channel Green Ham Gaming TV does, like recycle old hulls and bringing them to gaming order. Now the 6200 PRO, being a slim desktop and with a small 240W PSU, I can't afford to cramp a graphics card that would stress the PSU too much, and one that would be a low profile. It can still be a double slot though. I did manage to find the ideal one without breaking the bank. Although after deducting 65W from the i3 2100, I have about 175W to play with, but even with a decent GPU that can fit this power envelope, I needed to reserve for stuff like the Drives and the USB plugs. Theoretically I could put a GTX 750 Ti in but I'm going to be safe.
Then later, I came across this graphics card on eBay:
Zotac nVidia GeForce GTX 750 Low Profile
That's a tiny card with a small little funky orange fan. It's still a dual slot card which is fine by me and it may only have 1GB of GDDR5 texture memory on a 128-bit bus which limits bandwidth but don't let it fool you. It's still a pretty decent GPU. Having worked with Maxwells on my 970s in SLI, the baby GM106 is no slouch. This card fit the bill for a few reasons.
1. It's a nice mid-range card that is practically the most powerful low profile GPU behind the 750 Tis that are available in Low Profile factors.
2. It's among the 750s that don't require an external 6-pin PCI-E connectors.
3. It can still accept a slight boost tweak on the clocks even if I overclock it on such a wimpy Power Supply.
The card came assembled in its full size bracket with the standard VGA, DVI-I and HDMI ports. But Zotac was nice enough to include the brackets so you can split the 3 connectors from 1 full profile to 2 low profile slots should you have to cramp into a slim desktop like my Lumberjack. One bracket for the DVI and HDMI and the other one for the VGA. But if you don't need the VGA, you can unplug it out of its header on the card.
It comes with documentation and manuals and the usual Driver Disc which you don't need frankly. You can use the CD to get your started but it's best Download the latest GeForce Experience and use it to install the latest drivers available.
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| Close up of the Tiny Low profile GTX 750 that has been coping well with the overclocks |
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| Shot of internals of 'Lumberjack' with that Graphics card and an extra 2GB RAM stick I put in. |
Scores:
Now the GTX 750 is not the best of cards available. It's the most entry level to the GTX grade cards in this series but it can pump out some respectable scores on 3D Mark Fire Strike, Sky Diver and Cloud Gate as you can see below. It's also the 3rd most powerful Low Profile GPU that is available, and after overclocking it, it's quite the card really.
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| Zotac GTX 750 Low Profile Fire Strike: 3819 on Graphics Score with the Physics being a slight bottleneck |
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| Zotac GTX 750 Low Profile Sky Diver 12575 Graphics score |
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| Zotac GTX 750 Low Profile: Cloud Gate 28019 Graphics score |
Despite being a small low profile card, the temperatures of 64 with the overclocks are good. It's pretty quiet too, partly due to a closed case and the fan is facing away from my ears.
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| An Overclock that boosts the GPU score to 4162 |
As for general performance, Lumberjack doesn't disappoint. Even though it's operating on a hard-drive, it doesn't really feel all that slow and neither is it noisy. It's actually an Enterprise Level albeit old Hard drive, 750GB will be plenty for some videos that I plan to record and store there and the system is whisper quiet, both idle and at loads. Performance generally on Windows on a single 4GB Stick was abit sluggish since it was probably at the limit of hitting the page file especially on single channel. That was a bit of a pain since the windows install was clean without any Dell Bloatware that the seller did for me. But adding a 2GB Stick to make it 6GB on dual channel really help things along, bringing the Mem Score index of 5.4 to 7.5 on Windows Experience Index while also felt a heavy improvement by just adding a 2 Gig Stick on dual Channel.
In terms of Gaming, the card has demonstrated little difficulty running Life is Strange and Borderlands 2 at my set FPS Cap at 60 at maximum 1080p settings, made it even easier with the overclocks.
Other light titles like Counterstrike Global Offensive, Left for Dead 2, Diablo III, League of Legends, Dota 2, Path of Exile and perhaps even StarCraft II will be a breeze for the GTX 750 to handle.
With the recent acquisition of the 1440p QX2710 Monitor, the lighter titles can even be tapped up to 1440p, some at maximum settings.
Some of the current stuff can still be run if you'd lower the settings or resolutions down abit 900p / 768p will suit these just fine.
General Game Performance
Diablo III - 93 FPS - Max 1080p, 45 FPS - 1440p
Dota 2 - 65 FPS - Best Quality 1080p
StarCraft 2 -76 FPS Maximum 1080p
Left for Dead 2 - 60 FPS Maximum including AF x 16 and MSAA 8X 1440p
Some AAA titles of today will run quite well on Medium to High 768p
Metro Last Light: 1366 x 768 Medium 4x AA, 56 FPS
Wolfenstein The New World Order
Borderlands 2
Bioshock Infinite
CONCLUSION
'Lumberjack' actually gave me about the same power in terms of gaming maybe more than what my first DIY Rig was able to give. The GTX 750 when I overclocked, can exceed all my mid range GPUs I used before, like the Radeon 5850, the GTX 550 Ti and the Radeon 6850. For most of the games that are not so demanding, the GTX 750 just handles the job pretty well. And let's say you have an old pre-built system that doesn't have a large power supply and you still want to play games on, the GTX 750 will have your back. It can breathe new life to old systems, turning them to decent low-end gaming machines and a nice HTPC.
Future upgrades I can take with this without pushing the power envelope is to swap the Hard Drive with an SSD or unplug the DVD Writer and add the SSD. Upgrade the i3 to the Core i5 2500S or the 2500T or the i7 2600S. And maybe even upgrade to a GTX 750 Ti LP and give the GTX 750 to my bro.
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