I am new to the forums so I hope I don't mess up, there are other threads similar to this one but they're a few years old so I am hoping for advice with newer hardware.
I recently bought a dell Optiplex 390 mini tower with i5-2400 on ebay. It was listed as working but without HDD, so I will probably put in the SSD that I have on my current rig, or a 2.5" HDD that was on a laptop that also uses Sandy Bridge (the mobile version anyway) along with the faster RAM.
I also wanted to swap the PSU between the two computers so I could install an Rx 470 on the Optiplex.
However I think I heard Wendell say on a talk show that he had problems running Rx cards to office PCs (I think it was with Joker Productions? I could be wrong though) But I have found no information like that on the forums.
Has anyone else experienced compatibility issues when upgrading older business PCs?
The main reason I am leaning toward AMD is that I also need a monitor upgrade, and Freesync seems like a no-brainer specially since that I will be dipping below 60FPS in games like Witcher 3 due to using an older CPU. Should I use an older GPU?
Thanks in advance! EDIT: My current PC: Phenom II x4 925 clocked at 3.3Ghz 970 chipset AM3+ Motherboard (ASUS M5A97 vanilla) AMD HD 6670 2x4GB DDR3 1600, running at 1333 due to CPU limitations Seasonic S12II 520W 240Gb SSD 2.5" 750Gb HDD 3.5" 500Gb HDD 2.5"
This, everything seems fine, but getting a 'PCI slot power only' GPU would definitely help your chances. Also, seeing as it is a Dell, you may want to check PSU compatibility, as Dell are notorious for using non-standard PSU connection methods, going as far as to use what look like 'standard' ATX power plugs, but with the wiring routed to different terminals! So watch out for that, but if you're confident you could rewire a standard PSU to operate, it has been done a number of times and I'm sure you could find some info on that topic.
it looks like there was a mini-tower and small form factor version - lets hope that you got the mt version...if you got the sff one, well good luck on the video card...keep the side (top?) panel off maybe? assuming that you have the mt version a standard rx470 or even 480 will fit but you may have to move or even totally remove one of the other peripherals so thats really up to you and your priorities...as for the psu this says it uses an ATX power supply connector but without actually looking at it, i cant be 100% sure - that said if you didnt want to rewire it your self usually you can find someone on ebay or somewhere else online selling adapters - i had a similar situation with an HP Z-series workstation i mention rx480 because if youre buying a new power supply then hell yea, go big for the extra few dollars. someone will call bottleneck bubt the fact is some games are more cpu bound and others gpu - get a 480 if you have the cash and maybe it will survive another upgrade (thats my thought anyways) BUT if you dont change the psu then a 460 is a great choice or a 1050 would be as mentioned
Decided to stuff the SSD in there as well so it wouldn't rattle when I moved it. the wires hanging down are the connectors for the GPU and the hard drives.
A quick word of caution. Those prebuilt mobos are notoriously questionable. So I wouldn't really feel comfortable putting any gpu in there that might pull a lot of wattage through the pcie slot. That said, with a decent aftermarket psu, you should be fine for most cards, I would just be concerned about things that rely entirely or heavily on the pcie slot. So that means 460, 1050, and reference 480s (aftermarket 480s that don't only have a 6pin connector should be fine). That might just be my paranoia though.
You might need a cable to translate the power plugs on the mobo to the full atx but those are like 6 bucks. Jealous of your AMD system though... I'd use that rather than the dell. Get some OC out of that, better performance probably too, but thats subjective....
Yeah you should be able to use any GPU in it. You'll probably have 2 PCIe 16 slots but only one is x16, the other is like x2 or some dumb shit. Get a 480, plop it in.
The AMD system needed a new CPU, like an FX-6300 would've been nice, but the Phenom II with its slow memory bandwidth made everything stutter, even in older games like Dragon Age Origins. I had the poor thing overclocked as far as that motherboard would let me go , 3.3Ghz instead of the 2.8 it was supposed to give... I will probably still use it as a NAS since it has a few 3.5" drive bays and nice front-to-back airflow.
Edit: I ran Cinebench CPU benchmark in both and it went from 306 on the AMD system to 439 on Sandy. Surely if i'd just gotten an FX 8320 it would've been even higher, but then again I am only planning on playing games on Windows 7 (or 10 if it asks me to upgrade)
