[SOLVED] Small Form Factor Dell Optiplex 3020 power supply upgrade?

Feb 28, 2020
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So yesterday i ordered a Radeon R5 240 graphics card for my Dell Optiplex 3020 (SFF). It says that it has a 50W power consumption whilst the computer i'm putting it in has a 255W. Will I be able to fit this graphics card without needing to change the power supply? Or will I need to upgrade to a slightly more powerful power supply?
PC Specs: https://i.dell.com/sites/csdocument...dz/CSG-EN-XX-ALL-Optiplex-3020-Spec-Sheet.pdf (Small Form Factor column, I also have 8GB of RAM)

R5 240 (LP/Half Bracket)Specs: https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/radeon-r5-240-oem.c2531
Thanks for reading 😃
 
Solution
A thank you for the response so quickly!
Could I ask that you slightly reword the second paragraph as I don’t completely understand what you are saying.

Also, I’m looking to upgrade my CPU, but I have found a website with everything that is compatible with this chipset. However it specifically says at the top of the site that these CPU’s are only compatible with the chipset and possibly not the motherboard. Could you check which ones would work with the motherboard?

Cheers
George

On the 2nd paragraph I was refering to the max power output of your power supply. The +12V rail feeds most of the components on your PC(cpu, gpu, ram, storage, etc). On your power supply one of the two +12V rails will be allocated for your CPU...
Yes... you'll be fine runnning the R5 240 on that PSU.
The card won't need auxilliary power, also it'll fit in the SFF cas since it's 1 slot wide and the low profile version.

Although low capacity, the PSU is ok... chinese manufacturer, but at least has the 80+ bronze efficiency rating. It has a multi rail design (2 of them to be more exact)... first one will be reserved for the mainboard and the eps12v(CPU). The second +12V rail has 13A(156W) from where your GPU will draw it's power and the other components(for the rest power draw is insugnificant) .

The R5 240 tdp is really low so you'll have no problems running it from the original 255W PSU.
 
Last edited:
Feb 28, 2020
18
0
10
Yes... you'll be fine runnning the R5 240 on that PSU.
The card won't need auxilliary power, also it'll fit in the SFF cas since it's 1 slot wide and the low profile version.

Although low capacity, the PSU is ok... chinese manufacturer, but at least has the 80+ bronze efficiency rating. It has a multi rail design (2 of them to be more exact)... first one will ve reserved for the mainboard and the eps12v(CPU). The second +12V rail has 13A(156W) from where your GPU will draw it's power and the other components(for the rest power draw is insugnificant) .

The R5 240 tdp is really low so you'll have no problems running it from the original 255W PSU.
A thank you for the response so quickly!
Could I ask that you slightly reword the second paragraph as I don’t completely understand what you are saying.

Also, I’m looking to upgrade my CPU, but I have found a website with everything that is compatible with this chipset. However it specifically says at the top of the site that these CPU’s are only compatible with the chipset and possibly not the motherboard. Could you check which ones would work with the motherboard?

Cheers
George
 
A thank you for the response so quickly!
Could I ask that you slightly reword the second paragraph as I don’t completely understand what you are saying.

Also, I’m looking to upgrade my CPU, but I have found a website with everything that is compatible with this chipset. However it specifically says at the top of the site that these CPU’s are only compatible with the chipset and possibly not the motherboard. Could you check which ones would work with the motherboard?

Cheers
George

On the 2nd paragraph I was refering to the max power output of your power supply. The +12V rail feeds most of the components on your PC(cpu, gpu, ram, storage, etc). On your power supply one of the two +12V rails will be allocated for your CPU and motherboard. The second one feeds the other components such as GPU, RAM, storage and it has a max power output of 156W which should be enough for the R5 240... your GPU will draw 50W and the others will draw an insignificant ammount. No worries there.


For the CPU upgrade... your motherboard supports a max 84W TDP 4th gen haswell processor.
So something like an I5 4590 and I7 4790 will be compatible.
Still I'd stick with the lower 65W TDP CPUs... The I7 4790S and the I5 4590S for the upgrade.
 
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