[SOLVED] GPU to pair with old Dell Optiplex 990

[RamenNoodles2000]

Hey guys,

So I got an old dell optiplex 990 MT a couple years back for 90 bucks. It came with an i7 2600, no ram, no hard drive, a radeon hd 5450, and all the other stock components. I started by swapping out the powersupply and removed the crappy 260w stock powersupply and popped a Thermaltake smart 500w in there. Next I purchased 16 gigabytes of ddr3 memory, it defaulted down to 1333hz due to the cpu as expected. I bought a seagate barracuda as some storage and I do plan on buying a SSD soon.(I can live without the speed for now). Now all I had to do was replace the crappy radeon hd 5450. after some research, I bought a gtx 1070 and i'm still waiting it to come(coronavirus shipping sucks). I was wondering if I'll have any problems with the 1070, I mean I expect it to bottleneck but is it going to be too bad? The card is a full size card so I had to mod my case a little bit as the gtx 1070 runs into the drive cage. No biggie, ripped out the drive bay lol. So is there anything I should be worried about?

Thanks

 

[william p]

You should be OK with that. I see some unlocked CPUs running in those here. 2500K,2600K, and 2700K.
https://www.userbenchmark.com/System/Dell-OptiPlex-990/578
Intel XTU, or Throttlestop 8.0 should allow an overclock from inside Windows if you need more out of that.
The i5-2550K is a sleeper. No GPU on the chip and no Hyperthreading should allow a decent OC without huge cooling issues.

 

[RamenNoodles2000]

You should be OK with that. I see some unlocked CPUs running in those here. 2500K,2600K, and 2700K.
https://www.userbenchmark.com/System/Dell-OptiPlex-990/578
Intel XTU, or Throttlestop 8.0 should allow an overclock from inside Windows if you need more out of that.
The i5-2550K is a sleeper. No GPU on the chip and no Hyperthreading should allow a decent OC without huge cooling issues.

Awesome! I'm sorry I'm kinda new to the whole overclocking deal. Wouldn't it be unstable if I overclocked my i7-2600? it only turbos up to 3.8. Would it be safe to OC my 2600?

 

[william p]

The locked BIOS on Dell Optiplexes can only be overclocked with unlocked CPUs in Windows using Intel XTU, or Throttlestop. I think for Sandy bridge XTU is the one. This is very different than normal FSB overclocking. You get control of Voltage and multiplier only.
HWBOT is tied in with Intel to promote XTU tuning. You might be able to get turbo speed on all cores with the 2600 using XTU. But only the unlocked CPUs have adjustable Voltage control for real overclocking.
Cooling mods are the key to safe overclocking. That's why the i5-2550K looks good, less threads and no GPU to add heat. With an unlocked i7 heat and MB VRM cooling will come into play sooner. But you may be the first one to try overclocking an Opti 990 so no telling how far you might get with it.

 

[ChumP]

I'm not here to nag or something, but that Thermaltake Smart 500W PSU is a craptastic unit too.

It uses an old group regulated design and it's actually a 420W unit(that's how much it supplies on the +12V) and not a 500W one.

Thermaltake Smart Series is their bottom tier junk/garbage quality product line, using really low quality components.

Upgrading to a GTX 1070 will bring the power draw quite a bit under full load, so keep that in mind. Think about upgrading that PSU too, if you have the budget, in the future... Corsair CX/CXM(2017) models are a nice improvement.

 

[RamenNoodles2000]

I'm not here to nag or something, but that Thermaltake Smart 500W PSU is a craptastic unit too.

It uses an old group regulated design and it's actually a 420W unit(that's how much it supplies on the +12V) and not a 500W one.

Thermaltake Smart Series is their bottom tier junk/garbage quality product line, using really low quality components.

Upgrading to a GTX 1070 will bring the power draw quite a bit under full load, so keep that in mind. Think about upgrading that PSU too, if you have the budget, in the future... Corsair CX/CXM(2017) models are a nice improvement.

Good to know! Is it fine if I temporarily still use it though. I have a couple more important upgrades currently that I still need to make. SSD, monitor, etc so I will need to prioritize those but if this power supply is really THAT bad then I can put it to the top of priorities

 

[ChumP]

Good to know! Is it fine if I temporarily still use it though. I have a couple more important upgrades currently that I still need to make. SSD, monitor, etc so I will need to prioritize those but if this power supply is really THAT bad then I can put it to the top of priorities

You can run off that thermaltake temporarly... remember to change it in the future though.