Optiplex 745 micro gaming rig and upgrades?

[Bmrm145]

Ok so I'm setting up a optiplex 745 sff for my gf for gaming and school. If you want the details I'll give them but what I'm really here for is I want to mod the case and put a 120 fan on the panel... So your thinking " ok what's the problem" the fan connected appears to be perpiotary and I was wondering how to get around this. And also if I could put a small cpu cooler in... like the Thermaltake Slim X3 CLP0534 80mm CPU Cooler. Really anything better than the factory ghetto rig.

Other specs if you want to know: 8gb ddr2, q6600, win 7 or 10 (haven't decided), evga gt 1030 2gb, 1tb hdd

 

[william p]

What do you mean by "Micro". They came in 4 sizes and the biggest Mini Tower is actually a Micro BTX form factor. I assume you mean smaller than the Desktop size which would be SFF , or USFF.
The fan connector is proprietary for a reason. Dell uses very powerful industrial fans from Delta and Nidec. The existing fan may draw from .8A up to 1.8A. BTX uses one fan so it's a big one. if you disconnect the blue PWM wire the fan will run 100% speed. You will probably be impressed. BTX also has it's own heatsink mounying form, take it apart and you'll see. The CPU at 45* angle complicates matters also. I would look for a heatsink from a Quad core version, or old Pentium D of an Optiplex for the smae size case. BTX was designed to cool very fast high Voltage pentium 4 CPUs so the parts are out there. If you put in the wrong fan or remove the existing one you will get a BIOS error message that must be cleared manually. They take fan failure seriously. You can probably find a more powerful Delta fan if you measure the size of the existing one.
This is a start. https://www.amazon.com/Dell-Optiplex-Factor-Heatsink-JP911/dp/B005GFMI1S
But one with heatpipes would be better.
QX6800 is best CPU. Q6700 is next best.
There is really no aftermarket support for any BTX computer, and Small forms it's even worse.