[SOLVED] Upgrade my old Dell Optiplex 760 or sell it and buy another prebuilt PC instead?

[testsubject2575]

Is it cost effective to upgrade my Dell Optiplex 760 with 1x 2GB DDR2 RAM, a GTX 750 Ti and an Intel Core 2 Quad Q9650 or just sell my optiplex and buy an Intel i5 2400 prebuilt system unit instead? I'll use this unit only for a span of 4 years and I'll switch to a Ryzen 5 build when I start my work after grad. Also, upgrading my Optiplex might take a year since I can't spend that much money for my computer and I have daily expenses.

I don't play that much other than Dota 2 and few old FPS games, but I do video editing and programming. I would like to mod my pc as well but buying another pc might be a better idea since I am stuck with my 235 watt PSU. I don't know.

 

[testsubject2575]

So here is my uneducated computation of how much power does all of the components I want to upgrade would be:

95w = Core 2 Quad Q9650 3.0 GHz
60w = GTX 750 Ti
12w = 4x 2GB DDR2 800MHz RAM
1.74w = Samsung Evo 250GB SSD

which sums up to 168.74 watts. My PSU will have 66.26 watts remaining for other components inside my System Unit which I guess is fine? I don't know man.

 

[william p]

That's absolutely true. Dell rates their PSUs as much by how many things you can connect as what they actually put out.
People always like to rag on Dell PSUs for their low ratings but they're quality parts and always enough for the sytems they come in. If you have any problems (usually not).
Here is the Dell SFF 275W PSU.https://www.amazon.com/Genuine-Dell...=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=B003BMACHK
The extra 40W was for the old PentiumD 130W CPUs. Dell uses a contuinuos rating and not a peak output for advertising purposes. So what you're doing is tehcnically correct. A DVD drive will use some of that extra.
I get a lot of questions here about modding the SFF. But the MT size is so much better in the heatsink, PSU and GPU areas.

 

[william p]

Some people just stick an ATX PSU on the desk like a giant wall wart for those. The wires are long enough.

 

[testsubject2575]

Some people just stick an ATX PSU on the desk like a giant wall wart for those. The wires are long enough.

That's weird, but it works, but I really need a small form factor PSU that is atleast 300-350 watts so I will not bother having a high TDP GPU in my PC. Also, I want to make my desk to look clean and have all of the stuff inside the PC Case so that external PSU might not work for me.

 

[testsubject2575]

That's absolutely true. Dell rates their PSUs as much by how many things you can connect as what they actually put out.
People always like to rag on Dell PSUs for their low ratings but they're quality parts and always enough for the sytems they come in. If you have any problems (usually not).
Here is the Dell SFF 275W PSU.https://www.amazon.com/Genuine-Dell...=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=B003BMACHK
The extra 40W was for the old PentiumD 130W CPUs. Dell uses a contuinuos rating and not a peak output for advertising purposes. So what you're doing is tehcnically correct. A DVD drive will use some of that extra.
I get a lot of questions here about modding the SFF. But the MT size is so much better in the heatsink, PSU and GPU areas.

I do not have a DVD Drive but I have an External DVD Drive which makes the modding much easier because of the empty space inside and less power consumption. The PSU you linked might work for me if there are stocks of it near my location.

Based on the Opti 760 Tech Guidebook v2.0 from Dell's website: https://www.dell.com/downloads/ap/products/optix/optix_760_tech_guide.pdf , a DVD Drive requires 5V and 1A so it uses 5 watts of power, am I correct?

 

[william p]

Yes. The Dell PSU is big enough to run anything that there is a bay or expansion slot for, and any CPU thay offered in that. You shouldn't have a problem. The overclocked 2 core will even be within the 95W CPU limit. The SFF seems to be popular it's just more limited in it's possibilities. The 275W PSU I listed is very old. 2005 or so. But all the Optiplex 745 SFF had them. Most of then never had more than a 65W E6700 in them.
I like the MT because I can get a big cooler, 375W Dell PSU, and a GTX1060 GPU to go with my 120W X5470 Xeon 3.33GHz. In fact my fan is 150x50mm and 1.8A. 12V. The Dimension E520 at the bottom of my sig. was an MT BTX. There are just a lot more options with them.