What is the best cpu for a dell optiplex 780?

[FrostGhost]

sooo, i was thinking of doing light gaming on pc and thought of buying a dell optiplex 780 and throwing in a gtx 1050 ti. it has 12 gb ddr3 ram and a core 2 duo E8400 3.00 ghz. i wanted to upgrade the cpu as it is crap and was thinking of that what is the best cpu upgrade for this pc.

https://www.amazon.com/Dell-OptiPlex-E8400-DVD-RW-WINDOWS/dp/B01MEDIWHL/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=dell+optiplex+780&qid=1555754162&s=gateway&sr=8-3

[GoldenLag]

4 minutes ago, FrostGhost said:

throwing in a gtx 1050 ti

dont, grab an rx 570 and get a 50$ CX550 watt PSU. the 1050ti is not worth it atm. 

[LukeSavenije]

probably somewhere around a core2quad

 

check your chipset tho, some can't run them

 

~a guy with 3 e8400 machines

[realpetertdm]

First of all check the mobo and psu, you might need to upgrade them too

 

and if you're going to game then get an i3 8th gen at least. i5 & Ryzen 5 preferrably.

 

Also like people said don't go for the 1050, RX 570 should give you better performance for lower price

[Curious Pineapple]

2 minutes ago, realpetertdm said:

First of all check the mobo and psu, you might need to upgrade them too

 

and if you're going to game then get an i3 8th gen at least. i5 & Ryzen 5 preferrably.

 

Also like people said don't go for the 1050, RX 570 should give you better performance for lower price

Depends on the games. I had no issues on an OC'd FX6300 and now I'm using a dual Xeon E5530. Light gaming could mean anything. I play happily with 20 FPS on SoT with the graphics settings cranked most of the way up, although thats due to an aging GTX650.

[realpetertdm]

3 hours ago, Curious Pineapple said:

Depends on the games. I had no issues on an OC'd FX6300 and now I'm using a dual Xeon E5530. Light gaming could mean anything. I play happily with 20 FPS on SoT with the graphics settings cranked most of the way up, although thats due to an aging GTX650.

Yeah I meant heavy FPS games and AAA titles

 

If you're going for a bit of a casual walk (i.e. LoL, TF2, etc) then a lower GPU will do fine

 

although why would anyone buy a FX

[Curious Pineapple]

1 minute ago, realpetertdm said:

although why would anyone buy a FX

Mine came bundled with an SSD and was a better choice than a dual core i3 for my use. Still better single threaded performance than my Xeons too.

[realpetertdm]

4 minutes ago, Curious Pineapple said:

Mine came bundled with an SSD and was a better choice than a dual core i3 for my use. Still better single threaded performance than my Xeons too.

 

You got a pretty nice deal tbh

 

I did notice that FX processors had really fast base clock, like in the 4GHz area. Shuffling by clock speed on pcpt shows a lot of FX CPUs

[Curious Pineapple]

1 minute ago, realpetertdm said:

 

You got a pretty nice deal tbh

 

I did notice that FX processors had really fast base clock, like in the 4GHz area. Shuffling by clock speed on pcpt shows a lot of FX CPUs

I poked 5 GHz with mine but it was far from stable, it ran fine for a few years at 4.8 with a CNPS10x air cooler then I got a pair of stupid cheap workstations.

[BobbyPdue]

How much money do you plan on spending on upgrades and the computer itself?

 

I think a basic new computer might be a better way to get into PC gaming rather than spending money this year on parts to get a computer that can barely play 4 year old games. 

On 4/20/2019 at 12:04 PM, GoldenLag said:

dont, grab an rx 570 and get a 50$ CX550 watt PSU. the 1050ti is not worth it atm. 

Supposedly the 1650 will be revealed this week so it might be worth waiting for it instead. 

[Skylon]

Wow  question I'm qualified to answer  since I have this computer and have done a ton of research on the CPUs for it . The board is socket 775 but there is publicly available modded bios to run lga 771 if you use an adapter or buy one with an adapter pre-installed from ebay or aliexpress that will make that board support a Xeon X3 line processor. Now there are good Xeon X5 lines as well but from what I found you would need an optiplex 760 to run those on the modded bios. Im not positive an X5 line like a Xeon X5450 couldn't work but I didn't want to risk it since it was a long shipping time from china. 

 

As for what processor you should buy I would say your best options listed are here listed from highest to lowest price:

 

Intel Core2Quad Q9650 - Quad core 3.00ghz

Intel Core2Quad Q9400-Q9500 - Quad core 2.66-2.83ghz

Intel Xeon X3363 - Quad core 2.83ghz

Intel Core2Quad Q8200-Q8300 - Quad core 2.33-2.5ghz

Intel Core2Quad Q6600 - Quad core 2.40ghz

Intel Core2Duo E8600 - Dual core 3.33ghz 

 

These can all be found for the ranges of 5$-45$ and are your best choices without spending too much or going too low on performance. For reference you can see a full list of these performance on 775/771 processors here:

 

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/socketType.html#id5

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/socketType.html#id9

 

On mine I have a modded Xeon X3363 which is 2.83ghz quad core with 12mb L2 Cache. I got it on aliexpress for 10$ using a new user coupon for 4$ off. Prices seem up right now about 5-9$ higher than I ranges I was looking at last year but they do fluctuate so I would expect they come down a bit depending on when you shop. Here is my full system for reference (needs a gpu upgrade :O):

 

20$ Dell Optiplex 780

10$ Xeon x3363 processor 771>775 Mod (4c/4t 2.83ghz)

45$ 16gb Hynix DDR3 1333mhz

25$ Intel 240gb SSD

20$ GT 730 2gd5

win 7 64 bit professional

 

Total cost : 110$

 

 

Also though it may risk make everything else I've said invalid but I think you can do better than the option you listed. Optiplex 760-780 are routinely available for very cheap on craiglist as many offices are getting rid of them and unless don't have an OS and don't plan on upgrading any other components this is not a great deal overall when base optiplexs are around for 20-40$. Also for 169$ you can probably find a slightly less old office machine running an i5 that would be far more capable. Techyescity also have done a lot of videos about the slightly newer (2010) 6 core xeons that can be had for very cheap on old machines: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=VMbUXKsMKKA

 

[Jay Deah]

https://www.userbenchmark.com/System/Dell-OptiPlex-780/3883

 

personally i'd keep an eye out for a newer optiplex like a 9010 as the "Core iX" generation systems are a big step up form the "Core2" generation and on the used market theres npt a huge difference in price. you'll also benefit from things like USB3.0 and better PCIe Gen3.0.

 

my old PC was a Optiplex 9010 re-homed in a standard ATX case with a GTX Card in it, and its still a damn useable system now many many years later...

...The Core2Quad systems i had have i either scrapped or sold on facebook marketplace for about £20

[Stefan Payne]

On 4/20/2019 at 11:59 AM, FrostGhost said:

sooo, i was thinking of doing light gaming on pc and thought of buying a dell optiplex 780 and throwing in a gtx 1050 ti. it has 12 gb ddr3 ram and a core 2 duo E8400 3.00 ghz. i wanted to upgrade the cpu as it is crap and was thinking of that what is the best cpu upgrade for this pc.

https://www.amazon.com/Dell-OptiPlex-E8400-DVD-RW-WINDOWS/dp/B01MEDIWHL/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=dell+optiplex+780&qid=1555754162&s=gateway&sr=8-3

uargh, its a BTX System with only support for low Profile Graphics cards.

 

But to be honest, I'd avoid it and look for something else. Sandy Bridge should be the bare minimum.

The reason is that some games just do not run on those old CPUs at all.

 

To be honest, I'd rather look at something like a Ryzen 2200G, better 2400G and some decent Memory (DDR-2666 minimum) and work with the integrated Graphics. Its not great but somewhere around a GT1030, wich isn't too shabby either. ANd you have a modern 4 Core CPU that can run any game. As in: It starts, you can play it....

[Stefan Payne]

On 4/21/2019 at 11:32 PM, BobbyPdue said:

Supposedly the 1650 will be revealed this week so it might be worth waiting for it instead. 

Naa, not worth it.

The Specs don't seem to great either, so it probably won't catch up to the 570.

Also it only comes with low amounts of VRAM as well.

 

[BobbyPdue]

51 minutes ago, Stefan Payne said:

Naa, not worth it.

The Specs don't seem to great either, so it probably won't catch up to the 570.

Also it only comes with low amounts of VRAM as well.

 

How can you say it's not worth it before the product has been released?  No benchmarks, no price, no official spec, nothing, so how can you say it's not worth it?  I wouldn't tell someone an unreleased product with zero performance data isn't any good.  That's just being irresponsible.  I'm not telling them to buy the new card either.  I'm saying it might be worth waiting for third party reviews to see how it stacks up.    Finally VRAM.  The 570 also comes with 4GB or 8GB of VRAM and I don't know of a game a 570 can average above 60fps that would need more than 4GB of VRAM at 1080p.    The 8GB models probably weren't designed for gaming. 

 

The 1650's MSRP is $149.  I haven't found any performance figures, yet. I certainly wouldn't buy one before any benchmarks run by LTT or other tech youtubers and I think the 1650ti if such a things exists would be the sweet spot between price, power usage, and performance.  I'm assuming the 1650ti will be between the 1650 and the 1660 in performance and price. 

[BobbyPdue]

On 4/20/2019 at 11:59 AM, FrostGhost said:

sooo, i was thinking of doing light gaming on pc and thought of buying a dell optiplex 780 and throwing in a gtx 1050 ti. it has 12 gb ddr3 ram and a core 2 duo E8400 3.00 ghz. i wanted to upgrade the cpu as it is crap and was thinking of that what is the best cpu upgrade for this pc.

https://www.amazon.com/Dell-OptiPlex-E8400-DVD-RW-WINDOWS/dp/B01MEDIWHL/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=dell+optiplex+780&qid=1555754162&s=gateway&sr=8-3

What's your budget for a gaming computer?  I have a couple of computers I built to give to a local school, but for tax and other reasons It would have cost more to give them a computer than to just give them money to buy their own. 

[MadmanRB]

Well if this is the proper mid size tower you could make this into a sleeper PC, however if this is a SFF then nothing will be good as those SFF machines are kinda crap when it comes to upgrading

[Stefan Payne]

4 hours ago, BobbyPdue said:

How can you say it's not worth it before the product has been released? 

because we know the technical specs.

RX570 has about double the bandwith and shaderrate of the 1650.

 

Quote

No benchmarks, no price, no official spec, nothing, so how can you say it's not worth it? 

Because you know the technical details and that is more closer to the 1050ti than RX570.

There ain't no magic sauce!

 

Quote

Finally VRAM.  The 570 also comes with 4GB or 8GB of VRAM and I don't know of a game a 570 can average above 60fps that would need more than 4GB of VRAM at 1080p.    The 8GB models probably weren't designed for gaming. 

What the heck are you talking about?!
And no, 4GiB is the bare minimum, if at all avoidable you want the 8GiB, especially so close to the next gen Consoles. 

 

Going with only 4GiB VRAM just makes no sense. And yes, its not uncommon that Games use more than 4GiB these days.

 

But that doesn't chage the main Problem and that's the Core 2 Duo CPU of this System.

Either GPU would be wasted + the Cost of the System.

It makes more sense to get a Ryzen 5/2400G and no GPU instead.

[trevb0t]

On 4/20/2019 at 3:59 AM, FrostGhost said:

sooo, i was thinking of doing light gaming on pc and thought of buying a dell optiplex 780 and throwing in a gtx 1050 ti. it has 12 gb ddr3 ram and a core 2 duo

• How much are you gonna drop on the Optiplex in the first place? 
• What is "light gaming" in your terms?

A new setup might actually be similarly priced, perform better, and be nicely upgradable in the future. 

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD - Ryzen 3 2200G 3.5 GHz Quad-Core Processor	$94.89 @ OutletPC
Motherboard	ASRock - B450M PRO4 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard	$69.89 @ OutletPC
Memory	Corsair - Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory	$78.99 @ Newegg
Storage	Crucial - BX500 240 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive	$29.99 @ Amazon
Storage	Western Digital - RE4 500 GB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive	$23.49 @ Amazon
Case	DIYPC - DIY-F2-O MicroATX Mini Tower Case	$33.76 @ Newegg
Power Supply	EVGA - BR 450 W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply	$43.89 @ OutletPC
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total (before mail-in rebates)	$414.90
	Mail-in rebates	-$40.00
	Total	$374.90
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-04-23 20:14 EDT-0400

Here is an example (including PSU, case, storage, etc.) You could easily find a used R9 280X for around $45 and this thing would trade blows, with a heap of added benefits. 

 

[BobbyPdue]

20 hours ago, Stefan Payne said:

because we know the technical specs.

RX570 has about double the bandwith and shaderrate of the 1650.

 

Because you know the technical details and that is more closer to the 1050ti than RX570.

There ain't no magic sauce!

 

What the heck are you talking about?!
And no, 4GiB is the bare minimum, if at all avoidable you want the 8GiB, especially so close to the next gen Consoles. 

 

Going with only 4GiB VRAM just makes no sense. And yes, its not uncommon that Games use more than 4GiB these days.

 

But that doesn't chage the main Problem and that's the Core 2 Duo CPU of this System.

Either GPU would be wasted + the Cost of the System.

It makes more sense to get a Ryzen 5/2400G and no GPU instead.

My point was not to judge something until it actually came out.  Specs don't tell the whole story actual performance does.  

 

My point about VRAM was a lower performing card wasn't going to be able to perform well enough to ever need more than 4GB of RAM.  That being said if the difference between a 4GB card and a 8GB card was $10 I would of course get the 8GB card.  

 

I will be more than happy to listen to your evidence of an game being run on an entry level card actually using, not just reserving, more than 4GB of RAM while getting playable frame rates: above 60FPS most of the time.  Unless the 1050ti is a lot more powerful than the 1050 I don't think it's going to be necessary. I could easily be wrong and it happens to me all the time, but I just haven't been convinced without any actual evidence.  A benchmark showing a 570 4GB not getting playable frame rates while a 570 8GB did would be convincing. 

I agree with the original purpose of this post and neither card would be a good match for such a low powered system and I don't think either card would fit it in anyway.  A 2400G would work and would be money better spent, but its a temporary solution.    Perhaps the rumored 3400G would be even better?  I'm hoping so I have a Chopin case I've been wanting to use for a no-GPU portable gaming build. 

 

[Stefan Payne]

17 minutes ago, BobbyPdue said:

My point was not to judge something until it actually came out.  Specs don't tell the whole story actual performance does.  

Yes and we know the technical specs of that card. so its really hard to imagine that it might beat the RX570. And we know today, that I was right and the "wait for nVidia GPU xxx" was bullshit because the GPU was pretty bad, especially at that pricepoint.

 

17 minutes ago, BobbyPdue said:

My point about VRAM was a lower performing card wasn't going to be able to perform well enough to ever need more than 4GB of RAM.  That being said if the difference between a 4GB card and a 8GB card was $10 I would of course get the 8GB card.  

That's total bullshit...

Why do you claim this shit? Is it just to justify the 1650 over the RX570?!

 

I hear this shit all the time from people who want to sell someone something from their manufacturer.

Fact is: With lowest end Cards like RX550 that might be true. WIth higher end Cards that have enough bandwith like the RX570 it is not.

And we are also at the end of the lifetime of this generation of consoles. Its not hard to imagine that they might have a bit more Memory (I hope at least 24GiB, if possible 32GIB), wich then in consequence will also increase the needed amount of memory for Desktop Games.

And that said: How long have 4GiB VRAM been the standard or on the Market??

November 2013...

Yeah, 5,5 Years ago...

 

And you seriously claim that an amount of memory, introduced more than 5 Years ago is enough?! 

You really don't have much experience, do you??

 

 

4GiB is the absolute bare minimum for a graphics card these days. If you want it to last, you get at least 6 but even that is still on the lower end. 8GiB totally makes sense. Even if you disagree with that

You can come back 2 years later and see that I was right and the amount of Memory does matter - it already does.

 

 

17 minutes ago, BobbyPdue said:

I will be more than happy to listen to your evidence of an game being run on an entry level card actually using, not just reserving, more than 4GB of RAM while getting playable frame rates: above 60FPS most of the time. 

Yeah, just look at GTX 680 vs Radeon HD7970. In some cases the 7970 trades blows with the 780.

Just look at GTX 780 vs R9-290. 

17 minutes ago, BobbyPdue said:

A benchmark showing a 570 4GB not getting playable frame rates while a 570 8GB did would be convincing. 

Its not (just) about the Benchmarks, its also about what happens when the Memory isn't enough. That doesn't necessarily show in benchmarks.

Because its "just" stuttering, wich doesn't feel particularly good.

 

And also its not just about the Performance. The Textures are just loaded into the Memory and kept there until needed. More = more Textures can be kept in the Video Memory.

 

 

If you have a Bottleneck in a System, its the PCIe Bandwith! That is a fraction of the Bandwith of the GPU Memory...

 

 

An extreme case of this might be Geothermal Valley for example.

With Texture Streaming and SSDs that might have become a bit better but there is still a need for a certain amount of Memory. And if the VRAM isn't enough, the Performance goes down the drain.

[BobbyPdue]

1 minute ago, Stefan Payne said:

I was right and the "wait for nVidia GPU xxx" was bullshit because the GPU was pretty bad, especially at that pricepoint.

You were right it is a terrible card, but you didn't know the price at the time.  If it was $99 it would have been an okay buy for people without a PCIE power connector. I never said it was going to be good.  I said "wait and see". 

 

3 minutes ago, Stefan Payne said:

Its not (just) about the Benchmarks

 

I never said it was.  I said it was about playable frame rates.  A 4GB card of the same performance should perform worst than a card with 8GB of VRAM, but if neither card can push more than 60FPS for nearly all of the time, what's the point?  

 

The 1650 isn't powerful enough to need more than 4GB of RAM.  With that card the GPU is the bottleneck and not the VRAM. 

 

The amount of VRAM a video card gets depends on the performance of the GPU.  So you are right a 4GB 2080 would perform much worst than an 8GB model except on modern AAA games at 1440p, but no one pairs small amounts of RAM with powerful GPU's.