Dell Optiplex 755 Q9650 vs E8600 Overclocking?

[comprehendo111]

Hi i'm looking into upgrading to the Q9650 from my old E8600 in my Dell Optiplex 755 - will this make much of a difference for browsing/light gaming and can I overclock it?

 

[Atomicdonut17]

The Q9650 has 4 cores versus the E8600's 2-- as well, it has twice the cache (12MB vs 6MB), both fit the LGA775 socket, and the Q9560 can be overclocked. I'm unsure if your motherboard is capable of overclocking, but most likely, it is. The newer the game or program intensity, the more negligible the OC will be. Depends on what you're doing.

 

[jimmysmitty]

The Q9650 can overclock but is limited to overclocking via the FSB and not the multiplier as the multiplier will be locked. However the system will be the bottleneck there. I doubt that Dell will allow it.

CPU support is another matter. There is a BIOS that supports up to the Q9550 and some people claim the Q9650 does work. If it does you will still probably be stuck with the base clock speed.

https://www.dell.com/community/Desktops-General/Optiplex-755-Processor-Upgrade/td-p/3845249

 

[comprehendo111]

The Q9650 has 4 cores versus the E8600's 2-- as well, it has twice the cache (12MB vs 6MB), both fit the LGA775 socket, and the Q9560 can be overclocked. I'm unsure if your motherboard is capable of overclocking, but most likely, it is. The newer the game or program intensity, the more negligible the OC will be. Depends on what you're doing.

Trying to understand what 4 cores really offers me vs 2 as the main game I play only runs on 2 cores I believe (League of Legends) I assume it would still help my computer deal with the background processes though?

Can you tell me what the cache does?

How do newer CPU's rate more powerful than older ones such as LGA775 just based on the socket or is it the GHz or what

 

[jimmysmitty]

The Q9650 has 4 cores versus the E8600's 2-- as well, it has twice the cache (12MB vs 6MB), both fit the LGA775 socket, and the Q9560 can be overclocked. I'm unsure if your motherboard is capable of overclocking, but most likely, it is. The newer the game or program intensity, the more negligible the OC will be. Depends on what you're doing.

Trying to understand what 4 cores really offers me vs 2 as the main game I play only runs on 2 cores I believe (League of Legends) I assume it would still help my computer deal with the background processes though?

Can you tell me what the cache does?

How do newer CPU's rate more powerful than older ones such as LGA775 just based on the socket or is it the GHz or what

4 cores will help with background processes depending on the version of Windows you run.

The cache stores instructions and helps as it doesn't have to go to memory to re-run an instruction, one thing Intel has done for a while is store commonly used instructions in the local cache which is vastly faster than system RAM and even more so than HDDs or even SSDs.

There is a lot more to it than just GHz or cores. There is how the CPU handles instructions and processes and the tech around it such as memory etc. A current quad core from Intel would probably be close to 2x as fast as the old LGA 775. Of course they have gotten faster, most quad cores can easily be OCed to 4GHz on all cores.

https://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/49?vs=1543

There isn't much to compare newer vs older but thats a 6th gen Core i7 quad core vs a Q9650. Its easily 2x as fast.

 

[comprehendo111]

The Q9650 has 4 cores versus the E8600's 2-- as well, it has twice the cache (12MB vs 6MB), both fit the LGA775 socket, and the Q9560 can be overclocked. I'm unsure if your motherboard is capable of overclocking, but most likely, it is. The newer the game or program intensity, the more negligible the OC will be. Depends on what you're doing.

Trying to understand what 4 cores really offers me vs 2 as the main game I play only runs on 2 cores I believe (League of Legends) I assume it would still help my computer deal with the background processes though?

Can you tell me what the cache does?

How do newer CPU's rate more powerful than older ones such as LGA775 just based on the socket or is it the GHz or what

4 cores will help with background processes depending on the version of Windows you run.

The cache stores instructions and helps as it doesn't have to go to memory to re-run an instruction, one thing Intel has done for a while is store commonly used instructions in the local cache which is vastly faster than system RAM and even more so than HDDs or even SSDs.

There is a lot more to it than just GHz or cores. There is how the CPU handles instructions and processes and the tech around it such as memory etc. A current quad core from Intel would probably be close to 2x as fast as the old LGA 775. Of course they have gotten faster, most quad cores can easily be OCed to 4GHz on all cores.

https://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/49?vs=1543

There isn't much to compare newer vs older but thats a 6th gen Core i7 quad core vs a Q9650. Its easily 2x as fast.

Windows 7

Is there anyway for average consumers to know what CPU's are better than what based on any sort of numbers or is it just this is newer so it's better sort of.

Is it worth it to upgrade you think I will notice any difference ?

 

[Kisianik]

First of all, you can not overclock Optiplex 755, BIOS locked.

Second, why are you thinking about upgrading? What games of today you want to play?
Would you consider playing on the lowest settings, if it is possible?.

Maximum upgrade is Q9650, which is correct. With some extra modifications it is possible to place Xeon 5450 (at least twice cheaper [on eBay] and a tiny bit stronger).

Is it worth it? It depends.
New system. It is at least around $500 at least, plus work to put it all together, plus OS, can you do this and do you have those money, if yes, go for it.

 

[comprehendo111]

First of all, you can not overclock Optiplex 755, BIOS locked.

Second, why are you thinking about upgrading? What games of today you want to play?
Would you consider playing on the lowest settings, if it is possible?.

Maximum upgrade is Q9650, which is correct. With some extra modifications it is possible to place Xeon 5450 (at least twice cheaper [on eBay] and a tiny bit stronger).

Is it worth it? It depends.
New system. It is at least around $500 at least, plus work to put it all together, plus OS, can you do this and do you have those money, if yes, go for it.

I heard you can overclock with SetFSB though is that good?

League of Legends, mostly older games I already play on lowest settings doesn't bother me I just want a better experience as far as playability visual aesthetics don't bother me. If it boosted me 20 fps on League it'd be worth it to me.

There's also QX series and Q9770 but that thing is insanely priced at like 200-300$

I may build a new system in the future but at the moment I can't afford it and i'd just like to make what i've got a bit better i'm just skeptical if it's going to make any noticeable difference i'm thinking it will probably at the very least allow me to run stuff in the background like music, maybe even chrome while i'm playing league or whatever without dropping my frames, as currently I can't run anything in the background without it effecting me.

 

[Kisianik]

SetFSB is a big headache, I heard about it, and even tryed to help someone with it, but we managed to brick CPU with that, so I would not recommend it.

Quad over Dual will always be better, especially noticeable with older games. Do you have video card (GPU), small upgrade here would be beneficial as well.

What heatsink you have. If Aluminum (white, with vertical fins), it wold have to be upgraded to copper (yellow heat pipes with horizontal fins).

 

[william p]

You could try the BSEL pinmod an an E7500 if you think 2 core will do what you want. The 2nd photo is the mod.
http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2125877/tape-mod-bsel-mod-intel-q6600.html
This forces the 266fsb chip to run at 333fsb, and since it's a hardmod it's always there. This will get 3.66GHz.
https://starmicroinc.net/intel-core-2-duo-e7500-2-93ghz-oem-cpu-slgte-at80571ph0773m/?gclid=CjwKCAjwhqXbBRAREiwAucoo-0A6QeY9sEKl7M9Wu16NTxSt2Pqw7gaQwm-8Q_p-wcubRjqTyXv27hoCj7EQAvD_BwE
The 755 doesn't support X54xx Xeons, only the X34xx LGA775 versions.
https://www.delidded.com/lga-771-to-775-adapter/3/#dell

 

[Kisianik]

The 755 doesn't support X54xx Xeons, only the X34xx LGA775 versions.
https://www.delidded.com/lga-771-to-775-adapter/3/#dell

Talking at night has disadvantages as well, things got missed, good catch, grrrh.

Tape MOD might (BSEL) might require heatsink upgrade as well, keep this in mind. Good idea for cheap.

Actually we need more game titles to decide. According to Reddit LOL FPS depends more on single core speed, than on numbers of cores https://www.reddit.com/r/lowendgaming/comments/45gfzc/anyone_playing_league_of_legends_on_a_core_2_quad/
So BSEL MOD is better in this case, but other games could benefit more from QUAD

You could try the BSEL pinmod an an E7500 if you think 2 core will do what you want

You mean getting downgrade to E7500 and speed it up? Would it make a noticeable difference? E7500 at 3.6 GHz vs E8600 at 3.3 GHz. You can not do anything with E8600 since it is already 1333 MHz FSB (E7500 is 1066 FSB and BSEL will make it 1333 MHz, I hope I am not loosing anything here).

Have OP tried tweaking LOL settings? I found interesting guide for this purpose https://hubpages.com/games-hobbies/Increase-FPS-League-Of-Legends

Another thought. Dedicated Video card. In control panel (GPU) there is an option to use hardware acceleration, so GPU will take some load from CPU to run a game, therefore increasing FPS.
You can not stick much in Optiplex 755, as it requires single slot, relatively short GPU, so GT 730 or 740 most likely would be the only ones, which can fit. I tried to find (in the near past) single slot short GTX 1050, but could not - all have beefy fan shroud, which might not fit over tall capacitors on motherboard.

Would you want to consider this approach (video card upgrade)?

Did I miss anything?

 

[william p]

Zotac makes a GTX1050Ti Mini that fits in an Optiplex MT. I have one in my Opti 380MT . The Zotac GTX1050 mini might be a better match for a 2 core though.
It's only as long as the PCIe slot and has a single slot bracket. No BIOS isssues either. D9729 heatsink will cool anything you can run in that if it's a tower.
RW134 for the DT, and JP911 for the SFF.

 

[comprehendo111]

SetFSB is a big headache, I heard about it, and even tryed to help someone with it, but we managed to brick CPU with that, so I would not recommend it.

Quad over Dual will always be better, especially noticeable with older games. Do you have video card (GPU), small upgrade here would be beneficial as well.

What heatsink you have. If Aluminum (white, with vertical fins), it wold have to be upgraded to copper (yellow heat pipes with horizontal fins).

Yeah idk i'm kinda interested still in trying to use SetFSB cause I just wanna attempt to learn overclocking and its an old computer

I currently have a GTX 750 TI Not sure how good that is, pretty sure heatsink is aluminum

You could try the BSEL pinmod an an E7500 if you think 2 core will do what you want. The 2nd photo is the mod.
http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2125877/tape-mod-bsel-mod-intel-q6600.html
This forces the 266fsb chip to run at 333fsb, and since it's a hardmod it's always there. This will get 3.66GHz.
https://starmicroinc.net/intel-core-2-duo-e7500-2-93ghz-oem-cpu-slgte-at80571ph0773m/?gclid=CjwKCAjwhqXbBRAREiwAucoo-0A6QeY9sEKl7M9Wu16NTxSt2Pqw7gaQwm-8Q_p-wcubRjqTyXv27hoCj7EQAvD_BwE

Does this mod work on E8600 my CPU already run's at 3.3GHz so why would I downgrade to E7500 does that really make it better than my current chip for 3.66GHz with 333fsb?

Tape MOD might (BSEL) might require heatsink upgrade as well, keep this in mind. Good idea for cheap.

Actually we need more game titles to decide. According to Reddit LOL FPS depends more on single core speed, than on numbers of cores https://www.reddit.com/r/lowendgaming/comments/45gfzc/anyone_playing_league_of_legends_on_a_core_2_quad/
So BSEL MOD is better in this case, but other games could benefit more from QUAD

You mean getting downgrade to E7500 and speed it up? Would it make a noticeable difference? E7500 at 3.6 GHz vs E8600 at 3.3 GHz. You can not do anything with E8600 since it is already 1333 MHz FSB (E7500 is 1066 FSB and BSEL will make it 1333 MHz, I hope I am not loosing anything here).

Have OP tried tweaking LOL settings? I found interesting guide for this purpose https://hubpages.com/games-hobbies/Increase-FPS-League-Of-Legends

Another thought. Dedicated Video card. In control panel (GPU) there is an option to use hardware acceleration, so GPU will take some load from CPU to run a game, therefore increasing FPS.
You can not stick much in Optiplex 755, as it requires single slot, relatively short GPU, so GT 730 or 740 most likely would be the only ones, which can fit. I tried to find (in the near past) single slot short GTX 1050, but could not - all have beefy fan shroud, which might not fit over tall capacitors on motherboard.

Yeah I was told on another forum that you need to like get a special heatsink and modify it or some shit really complicated sounding to fit on dell optiplex boards cause it's dell or something.

I mostly just play LoL, GunZ the Duel, older games I may want to play some somewhat newer games but probably nothing too graphically intense stuff - I thought the Quad might run better still though just cause my CPU usage playing league is usually still at like 100% im already on lowest settings only getting about 80 fps which is okay but when teamfights happen and 10 people are all using abilities sometimes it drops low

I have not seen this information that you posted i'm definitely going to try it looks useful but i'm still interested in upgrading my computer a bit
edit: unfortunately most of it doesn't seem to work anymore

Not sure how to enable hardware acceleration I have my whole computer pretty tweaked for performance my NVIDIA Control Panel I don't see hardware acceleration though

Zotac makes a GTX1050Ti Mini that fits in an Optiplex MT. I have one in my Opti 380MT . The Zotac GTX1050 mini might be a better match for a 2 core though.
It's only as long as the PCIe slot and has a single slot bracket. No BIOS isssues either. D9729 heatsink will cool anything you can run in that if it's a tower.
RW134 for the DT, and JP911 for the SFF.

My GTX 750 Ti is by Gigabyte and it looks almost exactly like a GTX1050Ti Mini I don't think upgrading to 1050 ti will make a huge difference though as upgrading to the 750 ti from my old old nvidia 7600 gt didn't make much difference

Will that heatsink fit and keep it cool enough to use SetFSB for some light overclocking though? It's Dell Optiplex 755 MiniTower

 

[Kisianik]

Zotac makes a GTX1050Ti Mini that fits in an Optiplex MT. I have one in my Opti 380MT . The Zotac GTX1050 mini might be a better match for a 2 core though.
It's only as long as the PCIe slot and has a single slot bracket. No BIOS isssues either. D9729 heatsink will cool anything you can run in that if it's a tower.
RW134 for the DT, and JP911 for the SFF.

William P the problem fitting Zotac is not only overall size. Pay attention to 2 tall capacitors near PCIE blue lock handle

This is your Optiplex 380 MT

Zotac shroud fits here probably right next to those capacitors.

Now look at Optiplex 755 MT

It seems to be that those 2 capacitors are a bit closer to blue handle.

Found it, another perfect picture to illustrate my point.

And another one

Here what someone recently installed in 755, GIGABYTE GeForce GT 1030 DirectX 12 GV-N1030OC-2GI 2GB 64-Bit GDDR5

I requested confirmation:

oreyes1222 said:
I managed to fit and snug in the GPU good. I made sure it was secured and snapped it in to place with the lever that holds the GPU. It was only touching the 2 capacitors near the GPU card holder (The Blue Lever). I lightly moved and saw if the GPU moved at all or was loose fitting but with wasn't it was a snug fit, it barely almost didn't fit but it fited. I carefully sanded the part where it was touching the capacitors and made sure there was no dust or pieces flying mother board. Thank goodness it fit, I thought it was not going to fit but it did.

here is similar Zotac picture.

Is it me or Zotac shroud seems to be a bit more "fat", wider. This is my concern.

Found it. Zotac is thicker than Gigabyte by 9 mm.
Here are the links, look for the smallest numbers in dimensions
Zotac is 35.3 mm thick
Gigabyte is 26.8 mm thick

And oreyes1222 said that it was snug fit.

So?

At least now we know what size can fit.

 

[Kisianik]

Can you provide your video card model, so we can see which dimensions can fit for sure.

BSEL is not going to work with your current CPU, because your CPU already runs at maximum FSB speed.
Only SetFSB. All those methods were designed for Dells only due to Dell locked BIOS. So there is nothing to learn here and use in the future. So considering that E8600 already runs st 1333 MHZ (max for this Dell), most likely it is not going to work as well.
It was actually like this in the past, first try BSEL MOD as the easiest one, if not possible, SetFSB next.
I don't think many people here know how to do this.

Regarding hardware acceleration. The oldest card I have in use is GTX 660. I will see control panel about it (my main PC has 1080 now). Not home now.

 

[Kisianik]

NVIDIA Control Panel

open, next

Use my settings emphasizing (default is quality). You can slide this bar to the left and see if this improve FPS.

 

[william p]

I have an Opti 745 here with the 2 capacitors as shown. I pulled the Zotac GTX1050Ti mini out of my Opti 380 to see what the deal is.
The card will fit. It latches down in the PCIe slot and you can close the retainer at the bracket. It is touching the capacitors with some slight pressure. it fits well enogh to test it before deciding whether to trim it.
The plastic just bends out of the way. I don't have a 755 MB.
if you want to look into overclockinga Dell BTX here's a tutorial.
http://www.tomshardware.com/faq/id-2897377/overclocking-dell-btx-computers.html
But most of it won't apply to normal computers.
You could get more speed out of a BSEL mod to an E7600 but you will need to find some more Voltage, which can get complicated.
The coolers I listed are the Dell coolers they used in the Pentium D and Pentium 4 BTX computers, they bolt in and will cool up to a 130W CPU. They're also cheap.
Basically a built Opti 755 is a Q9650 and a GTX1050 Mini with 8GB RAM.
If you run Task manager (Ctrl Alt Delete) and then click Performance you can see how many cores your game is using.

 

[Kisianik]

I have an Opti 745 here with the 2 capacitors as shown. I pulled the Zotac GTX1050Ti mini out of my Opti 380 to see what the deal is.
The card will fit. It latches down in the PCIe slot and you can close the retainer at the bracket. It is touching the capacitors with some slight pressure. it fits well enogh to test it before deciding whether to trim it.
The plastic just bends out of the way. I don't have a 755 MB.
if you want to look into overclockinga Dell BTX here's a tutorial.
http://www.tomshardware.com/faq/id-2897377/overclocking-dell-btx-computers.html
But most of it won't apply to normal computers.
You could get more speed out of a BSEL mod to an E7600 but you will need to find some more Voltage, which can get complicated.
The coolers I listed are the Dell coolers they used in the Pentium D and Pentium 4 BTX computers, they bolt in and will cool up to a 130W CPU. They're also cheap.
Basically a built Opti 755 is a Q9650 and a GTX1050 Mini with 8GB RAM.
If you run Task manager (Ctrl Alt Delete) and then click Performance you can see how many cores your game is using.

Thanks for 1050TI fit clarification.

Excellent guide for Dell Intel overcloking. I seen the same statement about SetFSB somewhere - settings erazed during reboot, so every time PC reboots user has to set SetFSB again, very impractical.

I have created similar guide, which is applicable to all AMD based Dells. This article is based on Inspiron 570, https://www.dell.com/community/Desktops-General/Inspiron-570-Ultimate-quot-Uber-quot-Upgrade-Guide-including/td-p/4087463

It also applies to today Ryzen CPUs, but using a bit different software, AMD Ryzen Master. I don't have one, so I can not verify 100% Ryzen overclock on Dell, but most likely it works the same.

 

[comprehendo111]

NVIDIA Control Panel

open, next

Use my settings emphasizing (default is quality). You can slide this bar to the left and see if this improve FPS.

Oh this is what you ment by hardware acceleration? I already have this set to performance and all the individual options in manage 3d settings tweaked for performance.

Wow, so the BSEL E7500 Mod makes that actually the best dual core LGA775 chip then not the E8600 interesting.

Also unfortunately it seems Riot has patched the League mod's and was also a lot of reported banning cases for it it was a great idea though I have played other games with modded low quality maps to improve fps

 

[william p]

I have few GPUs modded for Dell micro BTX sitting around so i decided to try a few more. Kisianik was right there are a lot of them that aren't going to work.
Heatpipes, large heatsinks and metal fan shrouds can all hit those caps. I did mod an MSI GTx1060 3GB to fit. But had to remove some extra plastic underneath for the Opti 745/755 situation.
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814137047R&cm_re=MSI_GTX1060_3GB-_-14-137-047R-_-Product
This was a classic BTX mod. Cut the bracket in 1/2, trim the cover to end at the edge of the card, and for the Opti 745 open it up underneath. I bought this card just to see if the 3GB 1060 had fewer resource conflicts than the GTX1050ti 4GB on 8GB computers.
I'm not the only one doing this. There are several Opti 755 running modern GPUs here.
http://www.userbenchmark.com/System/Dell-OptiPlex-755/3939
But I guess fitment is going to be on a card by card basis.