Upgrading Dell Inspiron 3650 to support VR

[casiodirect]

Hey guys just like the title states i'm upgrading my tower so that it can support the Oculus Rift. I picked up a Dell Inspiron 3650 Desktop a while back and I figured that im going to need a gtx 970 and I believe I need an Intel i5 6500. What im wondering is if the 0c2xkd motherboard will be able to support the two and also were I would even begin with figuring out what type of PSU to upgrade mine to. Thank for any help guys and hopefully ill be able to play soon!

 

[Sakkura]

You don't quite need that powerful of a CPU and graphics card, though they're good choices for VR if you can afford them (they hit the recommended Oculus specs rather than the minimum requirements).

Upgrading these Dell prebuilts can be a little tricky.

For the CPU, it... should work with other Skylake chips. On paper Kaby Lake ought to work too with a BIOS update, but Dell will likely have skipped that kind of update.

For the GPU, there are two things to worry about - one, will it physically fit inside the case (pretty easy to check), and two, is the power supply going to support it or can you upgrade to a compatible power supply. You can check the PSU ratings, should have a sticker on the side of it, or you can check if it has the necessary PCIe power connectors. Chances are it doesn't, and then the question is whether a replacement PSU would fit inside the case, and whether the motherboard uses standard power connectors. There should be a 24-pin (or 20+4-pin) connector and either a 4-pin or 8-pin connector. If the 24-pin is segmented in some other way than 20+4, that's the most common sign that it can't be upgraded.

 

[casiodirect]

You think that I could go lower with the graphics and CPU? From everything I heard I thought that those were the minimum requirements, at least for the CPU. But no there is no way that the 970 will be able to fit inside, I plan on making one of those setups where the guts are all layed out. Unfortunately though it does not have a 24-pin and has an 8-pin in the top right of this picture. Just did a little research and I think that This will be my best bet. Also for the power supply, I've read that with what i'm trying to put together I'm going to need something that pushes around 400w-500w. Do you think that This guy will do the job?

 

[Sakkura]

The official minimum specs are an FX-4350 or Core i3-6100 with a GTX 960 or RX 470. But it's well worth going with the recommended specs instead, as you're doing.

https://support.oculus.com/1633938460220125/

That motherboard should do fine, as long as you can figure out a way to mount it (and the graphics card).

The power supply is sufficient, but not the greatest quality. I'd rather recommend a Corsair CX450M or CX550M.

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/FQ648d/corsair-power-supply-cp9020101na
https://pcpartpicker.com/product/3hkwrH/corsair-power-supply-cp9020102na