Upgrading old Dell Optiplex 755 for light gaming

[brandon1407]

Hey guys, so I'm on a real tight budget so I bought a refurbished Dell Optiplex 755 SFF and plan to upgrade it for some light gaming. Current specs include: Intel Core 2 Duo E4500 @2.2GHz, 4Gb DDR2 800MHz RAM, 1Tb HDD, and a Asus Radeon HD6450 1Gb. I planned on buying an Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 @2.4GHz and four Samsung 2Gb DDR2 800MHz RAM sticks (max RAM for this PC is 8Gb). I'm stuck on what I should replace the GPU with. Current PSU is 275w and the PCIE x16 slot says its max power output is 25w. Since this is the small form factor case, I need a GPU that is half-height and has a fairly slim heat-sink/fan so it doesn't interfere with the HDD case right next to the PCIE slot. I was thinking about buying a Geforce GT 1030, but the "recommended" PSU output is 300w and it draws 30w from the PCIE slot. Also, my current BIOS version is A19. I don't need a super powerful GPU as my current list of games I play are CS:GO, Minecraft, Terraria, and League of Legends.

[TechyBen]

For the price of a 1030 you could probably get a second hand 600 series or above and a newer PSU to power it.

[PastaDwarf]

There's actually a lot to upgrade here. I recommend just getting a new PSU, maybe a Corsair VS550 would do, for a low power draw it'd be good. Also for the GPU, maybe get a GTX 760, almost same performance as a GTX 1050, at the price of a GT 1030, it's much more powerful. For the RAM, get that thing to at least 8GB, there would be a lot of stuttering if you do not increase your RAM specially with games today, and lastly the CPU, you could go and upgrade that CPU to a Core 2 Quad sometime in the future, it would be better at playing games since it is a Quad Core. The things I've said are more commonly bought as second hand except the PSU tho. Anyways goodluck mate and have fun building!

[Troika]

13 hours ago, TechyBen said:

For the price of a 1030 you could probably get a second hand 600 series or above and a newer PSU to power it.

 

5 minutes ago, PastaDwarf said:

There's actually a lot to upgrade here. I recommend just getting a new PSU, maybe a Corsair VS550 would do, for a low power draw it'd be good. Also for the GPU, maybe get a GTX 760, almost same performance as a GTX 1050, at the price of a GT 1030, it's much more powerful. For the RAM, get that thing to at least 8GB, there would be a lot of stuttering if you do not increase your RAM specially with games today, and lastly the CPU, you could go and upgrade that CPU to a Core 2 Quad sometime in the future, it would be better at playing games since it is a Quad Core. The things I've said are more commonly bought as second hand except the PSU tho. Anyways goodluck mate and have fun building!

Its a Dell SFF, most likely the psu is a proprietary design so you can't just pop in a standard ATX psu and expect it to fit properly.

You can go for a Q9400 because it'll out perform the Q6600 and draw less power too and you can easily fit the GT 1030 on a 275w psu since my friend has the same HP SFF desktop than I'm working on right now with a 240w psu and has a Q9650 and a GTX 1050 ti low profile and it works just fine for him. Q9400s sell for about $15 USD on ebay and you can find 8GB of DDR2 800mhz for about $20 as well. I think GT 1030s are about $85 so that's $120. If you have the budget for it, you can rip out that floppy drive and add in a cheap 120GB SSD for windows and any programs or games you use often. You might want to put CS GO on that and use the hard drive as a mass storage drive. That should easily get ya the performance you want on games and not break the budget.

[PastaDwarf]

1 minute ago, Troika said:

 

Its a Dell SFF, most likely the psu is a proprietary design so you can't just pop in a standard ATX psu and expect it to fit properly.

You can go for a Q9400 because it'll out perform the Q6600 and draw less power too and you can easily fit the GT 1030 on a 275w psu since my friend has the same HP SFF desktop than I'm working on right now with a 240w psu and has a Q9650 and a GTX 1050 ti low profile and it works just fine for him. Q9400s sell for about $15 USD on ebay and you can find 8GB of DDR2 800mhz for about $20 as well. I think GT 1030s are about $85 so that's $120. If you have the budget for it, you can rip out that floppy drive and add in a cheap 120GB SSD for windows and any programs or games you use often. You might want to put CS GO on that and use the hard drive as a mass storage drive. That should easily get ya the performance you want on games and not break the budget.

Well sure he can, but I don't trust that PSU that he would be using though. I guess just getting a new case would probably be the best option, airflow is gonna be hard in his case. 

[Troika]

3 minutes ago, PastaDwarf said:

Well sure he can, but I don't trust that PSU that he would be using though. I guess just getting a new case would probably be the best option, airflow is gonna be hard in his case. 

Same problem, the board is a proprietary design. It won't fit in standard cases due to where the screw holes are located.

Motherboard from a Dell Optiplex 755 SFF. The expansion slots are on top and the back i/o is on the bottom as well.

[PastaDwarf]

3 minutes ago, Troika said:

Same problem, the board is a proprietary design. It won't fit in standard cases due to where the screw holes are located.

Well, Jesus this is a hard upgrading to do. He is so limited, sorry for not having enough knowledge with those OEM PCs tho lol. Well I guess he should just stick to his PSU then. I mean he can go for smaller form factor PSUs but they'd cost a little bit more. 

 

[Troika]

1 minute ago, PastaDwarf said:

Well, Jesus this is a hard upgrading to do. He is so limited, sorry for not having enough knowledge with those OEM PCs tho lol. Well I guess he should just stick to his PSU then. I mean he can go for smaller form factor PSUs but they'd cost a little bit more. 

 

It may be a possibility but there's still a chance that it won't fit and it'll easily cost as much as the parts he's looking at getting, which if I'm right in assuming, it'll double how much he might want to spend. Most oem machines are tricky to fix up, especially older ones. That said, they're a pretty cheap way of getting into pc gaming and odds are, the parts that can be recycler into a better build, i.e storage, gpus and some expansion cards, will save money down the road until those can ultimately be replaced with better ones. Standard tower sized oem machines have more wiggle room as many use standard ATX psus so you can drop in more powerful and better quality ones if your aim is more powerful but budget minded gpus, like GTX 680s for about $120 or GTX 780s for $150~160 that really use more power. There's towers out there that use crappy i3s that can easily be swapped out for i7s so they're not a bad way to go and most of the time go overlooker because they don't stike people as a "gaming computer".

[PastaDwarf]

6 minutes ago, Troika said:

It may be a possibility but there's still a chance that it won't fit and it'll easily cost as much as the parts he's looking at getting, which if I'm right in assuming, it'll double how much he might want to spend. Most oem machines are tricky to fix up, especially older ones. That said, they're a pretty cheap way of getting into pc gaming and odds are, the parts that can be recycler into a better build, i.e storage, gpus and some expansion cards, will save money down the road until those can ultimately be replaced with better ones. Standard tower sized oem machines have more wiggle room as many use standard ATX psus so you can drop in more powerful and better quality ones if your aim is more powerful but budget minded gpus, like GTX 680s for about $120 or GTX 780s for $150~160 that really use more power. There's towers out there that use crappy i3s that can easily be swapped out for i7s so they're not a bad way to go and most of the time go overlooker because they don't stike people as a "gaming computer".

That's why I never went with OEM, I got myself a cheap pc for myself for now so I can play before upgrading to a high end rig, currently saving for $2000 build. This is what I went with tho, most parts are second hand, I guess this was the better option.

Intel X3430 - $7
ASUS H55M-LE - $38
2x4GB Kingston Value RAM - $40
GTX 1050 Ti - $175 (Brand New, bought back on November 2017)
Corsair VS450 - $36 (Brand New)

I am upgrading the CPU to X3470 now, it is almost as good as a Ryzen 3 1200, or I could get the X3480 which is better than the Ryzen 3. I think this was the better way for him, but I guess it is too late. 
 

[Troika]

40 minutes ago, PastaDwarf said:

That's why I never went with OEM, I got myself a cheap pc for myself for now so I can play before upgrading to a high end rig, currently saving for $2000 build. This is what I went with tho, most parts are second hand, I guess this was the better option.

Intel X3430 - $7
ASUS H55M-LE - $38
2x4GB Kingston Value RAM - $40
GTX 1050 Ti - $175 (Brand New, bought back on November 2017)
Corsair VS450 - $36 (Brand New)

I am upgrading the CPU to X3470 now, it is almost as good as a Ryzen 3 1200, or I could get the X3480 which is better than the Ryzen 3. I think this was the better way for him, but I guess it is too late. 
 

Not everyone has that option or the know how to get something like a custom built computer. Believe it or not, custom built computers are only a small percentage of the entire computer market, most of the computers out there are oem computers. Some people have oem computers then want to start pc gaming but have a limited budget or don't want to go through the hassle of selling their current computer. Others just have a limited budget and can't invest in a custom computer so they buy a really cheap oem machine or find one for free and want to build into it. Whatever the case may be, oem computers aren't as bad as they seem. Well, some are, but many aren't and have the potential to make very nice and capable budget gaming computers. It just takes a little research and some know how.

[brandon1407]

So as far as I’ve read here, it should be okay to go with a GT 1030, and buy a Intel Core 2 Quad Q9400 instead of Q6600. My main concern here is the size of the heat sink on the GPU, I know it depends on which one I choose to buy from (Asus, MSI, Gigabyte, Etc.) There’s probably only about an inch of clearance from the PCIE port and the HDD cage.

[Herman Mcpootis]

8 minutes ago, brandon1407 said:

So as far as I’ve read here, it should be okay to go with a GT 1030, and buy a Intel Core 2 Quad Q9400 instead of Q6600. My main concern here is the size of the heat sink on the GPU, I know it depends on which one I choose to buy from (Asus, MSI, Gigabyte, Etc.) There’s probably only about an inch of clearance from the PCIE port and the HDD cage.

Brian from techyescity has tried to get a gt 1030 to work on a 25w PCI-e slot and failed no matter what he tried, save yourself the trouble and get a newer i5 prebuilt without a 25w PCI-e connector.

[TechyBen]

6 hours ago, Herman Mcpootis said:

Brian from techyescity has tried to get a gt 1030 to work on a 25w PCI-e slot and failed no matter what he tried, save yourself the trouble and get a newer i5 prebuilt without a 25w PCI-e connector.

Wow. I'll try and remember that. It's good to have a physical example to refer to, as many here (me included) were convinced the 25w was a cooling/psu limit, and not a motherboard supply limit (IE, 2 slots, 25w total each, or 1 slot 50/75w... guess we were wrong).

[brandon1407]

19 hours ago, Herman Mcpootis said:

Brian from techyescity has tried to get a gt 1030 to work on a 25w PCI-e slot and failed no matter what he tried, save yourself the trouble and get a newer i5 prebuilt without a 25w PCI-e connector.

Well like I said, I’m on a tight budget so buying another PC is not an option here unless it costs under $250 max. So any good GPU you can recommend me that would work in this PC?

[VEXICUS]

7 hours ago, brandon1407 said:

Well like I said, I’m on a tight budget so buying another PC is not an option here unless it costs under $250 max. So any good GPU you can recommend me that would work in this PC?

Better way is...sell ur existing system fr about $85-100...So that ur overall budget becomes around $350.

And build something like this...

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 3 2200G 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($94.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Motherboard: ASRock - AB350M Pro4 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard  ($74.39 @ OutletPC) 
Memory: ADATA - XPG GAMMIX D10 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-3000 Memory  ($84.99 @ Newegg) 
Storage: Western Digital - Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($43.90 @ OutletPC) 
Case: Corsair - SPEC-01 RED ATX Mid Tower Case  ($24.99 @ Newegg) 
Power Supply: Corsair - CX (2017) 450W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  ($24.99 @ Newegg) 
Total: $348.25
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-06-12 04:37 EDT-0400

 

There are many issues in upgrading old sff optiplexes.

Some of the prebuilts use proprietary connectors, so upgrading the PSU becomes a difficult task..

[Troika]

22 hours ago, vexicus365 said:

Better way is...sell ur existing system fr about $85-100...So that ur overall budget becomes around $350.

And build something like this...

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 3 2200G 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($94.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Motherboard: ASRock - AB350M Pro4 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard  ($74.39 @ OutletPC) 
Memory: ADATA - XPG GAMMIX D10 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-3000 Memory  ($84.99 @ Newegg) 
Storage: Western Digital - Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($43.90 @ OutletPC) 
Case: Corsair - SPEC-01 RED ATX Mid Tower Case  ($24.99 @ Newegg) 
Power Supply: Corsair - CX (2017) 450W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  ($24.99 @ Newegg) 
Total: $348.25
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-06-12 04:37 EDT-0400

 

There are many issues in upgrading old sff optiplexes.

Some of the prebuilts use proprietary connectors, so upgrading the PSU becomes a difficult task..

This is an option but you'll have to use the vega 8 gpu that's built into the 2200G. Not that Vega 8 is bad, its great budget option if you're not planning to play anything too intense but its still weaker than a GT 1030. On the upside, it is stronger than the HD 6450 1GB he's currently using so its a start. Having never used a 2200G, I don't know how well it'll perform but it should definitely be enough for league of legends. If the Intel HD 4000 mobile igpu on my old Asus K55A could handle league, war thunder, warframe, skyrim and a bunch of other stuff, Vega 8 should do just fine. If you do need better graphics, you can drop in something beefier like a R9 270X, which is pretty great value if you find one for sub $80.

[JoostinOnline]

Sell it for $100, then check the guide in my signature for a system that you can actually game on.

 

PS: Never buy a 1030.  It costs double what it's worth.

[Troika]

Or you could grab a cheap R7 240 2GB (About $40) or GT 730 2GB (About $30), a Q8400 (About $8) and, depending if your current ram is 4x1GB or 2x2GB, buy 2x2GB of ram for $12 or 4x2GB for $21 then run it for a bit longer while you save up some more money for a better build. Aim for something like the Ryzen 3 system that vexicus365 suggest, maybe even opt to not buy a new hard drive if you want to reuse that existing 1TB and buy a cheap 120GB ssd to boot from and load one or two games that you play a lot for better load times and lower latency.

[Troika]

4 minutes ago, JoostinOnline said:

Sell it for $100, then check the guide in my signature for a system that you can actually game on.

 

PS: Never buy a 1030.  It costs double what it's worth.

A R9 270X cost the same or even a little less than a GT 1030  except its not a low profile card. :c

[JoostinOnline]

3 minutes ago, Troika said:

A R9 270X cost the same or even a little less than a GT 1030  except its not a low profile card. :c

That's definitely not true.  A 290x is going to cost you upwards of $200.

[Troika]

4 hours ago, JoostinOnline said:

That's definitely not true.  A 290x is going to cost you upwards of $200.

I said 270X :0 Here's an ebay listing for one currently for sale and here's one that sold three days ago. Neither are even over $100.

[Bounce788]

I hate to toot my own horn here but I figured this would be  the perfect opportunity to brag about my new build.

[Bounce788]

Its a work in progress but it's supporting a core 2 quad Q9650 ($35.35 used on ebay), 8gb ddr2 ($21.33 new on ebay) , an msi gt 1030 oc ($82.75 used on ebay). Thats a tad under $140.00. For extras I have a BD rom drive, the wire wrap and of course the paint. I added a little 60mm fan on the heat sink mount to add a little push/pull to the combination. I have a 12x12 piece of green plexiglass I plan on gluing to the panel on which I will mount a 120mm fan to shoot air out of the enclosure. I've also ordered a WD caviar green 2tb HDD, once It arrives I will install a fresh version of Win 7 ultimate and run some stability tests. According to the cooler master psu calculator at 90% TDP it should draw a maximum of 275 watts with all of the peripherals, but lets be honest it will probably never have to work at 90% at least for long periods (The most I will be doing is gaming). I will keep you informed once my HDD arrives.

[Bounce788]

Not sure if this thread is still a thing but if anyone is interested, I have managed to get this puppy up and running!!! After running Cenebench and the cpu-z stress test, I never saw my temps rise above 65c! Although it will run older games @ 1080p (F.E.A.R @ 55c and lower) quite easily might I add (Average 150fps, max settings, with odd dips now and then). I would definitely recommend using a rig like this with a 720p monitor. I tried running the newest Guilty Gear Xrd @ 1080p and it was indeed playable, that being said, you can forget about watching the opening cinematic ... As for the psu, I haven't had much time to really see if it is capable of handling all of the extra goodies but it didn't seem to be running any hotter than it usually would

[Herman Mcpootis]

12 minutes ago, Bounce788 said:

 

don't hijack someone's thread, especially a dead one. you can make your own thread at the build logs subforum.