Upgrade a Dell Optiplex with an MSI Seahawk 1080...what else do I need?

January 3, 2022 7:32 PM

I have a Dell Optiplex 3020 (SFF form factor) with a Core i5-4570 @ 3.2 GHz. I luckily happened to get an MSI Seahawk Geforce GTX 1080 from a friend who was getting rid of it - I know graphics cards of any kind are hard to find these days. It's going to be used for iRacing and Halo Infinite (system requirements linked). (By no means do I expect to play these games on the highest settings.) I know I'm going to need a lot of parts to get this to work (case swap, PSU at the very least), but exactly what will I need to buy?
posted by Seeking Direction to Computers & Internet (5 answers total)

those dell sff boxes use proprietary motherboards and power supplies, not standard ATX stuff, so you'll need a new motherboard, CPU cooler, and you might as well max out the ram, in addition to the case and PSU you've already listed. at that point you've done as much work (or even more work considering the dismantling of the old stuff) to build an computer around an 8 year old 4c4t i5 CPU as you would just building a new computer, and you're probably gonna have to buy a used motherboard (that may die tomorrow) to even do it. it's not impossible to do this but imo this project as proposed is well past the point of being worth doing.

if you were dead-set on using that video card i'd think about either building an entire new computer to put it in with a modern processor, or buying a used "gaming" pc with a weaker or non-existant GPU off craigslist or whatever and just popping that 1080 in to it.
posted by glonous keming at 8:36 PM on January 3, 2022 [3 favorites]

seconding glonous keming - business SFF type PCs like that (whether they be Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc.) are as all the way proprietary a PC as you can get before you hit into "we just shoved a laptop motherboard into it" territory. So, you'll need basically everything - you'll need a case, motherboard, CPU, power supply, and memory, and now's a good time to get an SSD if you're not already running one. (The old hard drive can be salvaged, and the CPU and RAM if you go with old parts that would support a Haswell CPU like your i5.) If you want to do new parts, PCPartPicker.com is a good starting point to figure out what you want (just skip the GPU) and there are a bunch of build guides and stuff on YouTube (like this older one from JayzTwoCents - this one is based on a 9th gen Intel but building a PC really hasn't fundamentally changed in the last decade).

If you want, you can do this with used parts if you want to save a bit If you opt to build with used parts (which would be perfectly reasonable - you don't have to build a new 12th-gen Intel or Ryzen 5000-series for this) but I'd not go any older than 8th gen Intel Core (so i5-8400, i7-8700, etc.) or Ryzen 2000-series (R3 2100, R5 2600, etc.) - these are still very performant parts but are also new enough that they'll support more modern versions of PCI Express, have M.2 SSD slots, and support DDR4 RAM. And they'll work with Windows 11. (And, if you go AMD Ryzen, it'll be somewhat easier to find motherboards - AMD Ryzen processors all use Socket AM4 and backwards compatibility is an actual thing on that platform, so even newer/brand-new boards support older 2000 and 3000-series Ryzen chips, even though the latest is the 5000 ones. This is in stark contrast to Intel, where 8th and 9th gen had their own physical CPU socket, then 10th and 11th have their own, and the brand-new 12th gen stuff is yet another.) If you go this route, I'd also keep an eye on what things cost new too just to make sure you're not getting stuck on a, say, Ryzen 5 2600 on an X370-based motherboard for $X that won't support a 5000-series chip when you could just as well put that same chip on a B550-based board and definitely upgrade it to a new Ryzen 5 5600 later on for mostly the same money.
posted by mrg at 5:41 AM on January 4, 2022

Yeah, I'm in the "you probably need a whole different computer" camp. I put a graphics card in a large form factor 7020 (similar computer) a couple years ago, and have fiddled with similar stuff in the past. Even in the best case the 3020 is getting really old for gaming now. If you've got an SSD that may be worth bringing over, your monitor, mouse and keyboard may be worth bringing over.

Your best bet is probably to look out for someone who bought a low end gaming PC and took the video card out of it on CRaigslist, since even if you get good prices on parts, the cost of a new windows license dumps another $100 on top of the rest.
posted by wotsac at 7:25 AM on January 4, 2022 [1 favorite]

There's PSU adapters on eBay and resellers on Amazon for the cut-down connector that the Dells use vs the standard ATX 24-pin power connector. Check the mainboard mounting holes in case it has to be bodged into a conventional ATX case, but you can get it in there.

I have friends who game on 4th/5th/6th generation Intel Core, it'll pass with a GTX 1080. If you can spend on a new mainboard, it's worth getting one with upgrade path to NVMe storage that's an order of magnitude faster than an SSD.
posted by k3ninho at 2:16 PM on January 4, 2022

>cost of a new windows license
There are scammers who'll sell you non-working OEM codes for a few dollars and scammers who'll misuse OEM codes to sell you a working licence for a few dollars more. Note that a Win7 licence will still activate Win10 for no extra cost.
posted by k3ninho at 2:19 PM on January 4, 2022