Adding Graphics Card to Dell Optiplex

[Mando]

On 7/8/2017 at 11:58 AM, MVC said:

Hi,  I recently bought a dell optiplex 390 that has a i5 2400,4gb ram and 250gb hard drive. 

I want to add a graphics card to my pc (1050ti)  but I've notice that the i5 2400 supports pcie 2.0 while the 1050ti has pcie 3.0 ....So I want to know if it will work? 

 

Thanks 

the 1050ti will manage just fine on pci-e 2.0 and yes the psu will power it no problem, i know of users running the LP 1050ti on the USFF Optiplexes with 275W Dell psu.

 

even a 970GTX doesnt bottleneck on pci-e 2.0.

[T3X4S]

@Mando
The problem, I feel, is that one doesnt know the real power stability of generic PSUs.
The manufacturers of generic PSUs, when testing, use perfect environments (a cold testing lab) and if said generic spikes for 1 second @ 300W - they slap a 300W rating on it.
When in actuality, that same PSU if it were to receive rigorous testing from Corsair, Seasonic, Silverstone, etc - would probably get a 200W rating.

So any generic PSU claiming 300W, could be as lousy as a stable 150W (of course this is generalization on the known "testing methods" of PSUs)

___________

I read 2 different articles several years ago (1 from Maximum PC's Gordon Mah Ung - now with PC World) they were explaining the reasons why its a guessing game on generic PSU and to always use the good ones)
The other article, I believe, was on OverclockersUK linked from somewhere else.  Reputable PSU manufacturers will test in real world environments, pushing PSUs in a hot room, then if a PSU tests @ 700W stable, they will actually put a 650W rating on it.  I read the same thing from the original President of PC Power & Cooling (before purchased by OCZ) but that could have been a sales pitch, so I didn't really put much faith in it until I researched it...
This is backed up by the fact my old Seasonic Platinum 1000W was actually a stable 1100W according to the testbed docs that came with it.

So, yes, you are correct in stating that some people have been able to do it; but you have no way to know if one generic 300W PSU is the same as another generic 300W PSU.

I dont want you to think I was saying you were wrong, just saying its not safe to assume all are the same.

[MVC]

is it safe to buy refurbished stuff on newegg?

[T3X4S]

42 minutes ago, MVC said:

is it safe to buy refurbished stuff on newegg?

All depends on what that "stuff" is.

Check to see what the return policy is.

The thing you have to consider when buying refurbed stuff is not going to be in some disclaimer @ the bottom of the page, however.

What you have to consider is:
1.)  What is the item you are purchasing
2.) @ what savings are you getting due to it being a refurb.
3.)  Is that savings enough to justify the possibility of failure.
4.) If failure occurs, how long will it take to get a replacement, and @ what cost (time, loss of computer, frustration, etc)

This is really nothing more than breaking down what economists call opportunity cost - basically, what does it cost to make the choice of buying refurbs ?

For instance, there are a couple threads in here I have started about buying refurbed (corporate lease returns) Lenovo ThinkPad Carbon X1 for $500 (new they were around $2000)
It was a great deal because (1) You could get a warranty pretty cheap (2) If something broke, I can fix it myself.  So the risk is low, and the benefit was huge.  I bought around 10 of them, and others have jumped on it as well.

So, it all depends....

Sorry for the long explanation - Im bored, and cant sleep.

 

[MVC]

2 minutes ago, T3X4S said:

All depends on what that "stuff" is.

Check to see what the return policy is.

The thing you have to consider when buying refurbed stuff is not going to be in some disclaimer @ the bottom of the page, however.

What you have to consider is:
1.)  What is the item you are purchasing
2.) @ what savings are you getting due to it being a refurb.
3.)  Is that savings enough to justify the possibility of failure.
4.) If failure occurs, how long will it take to get a replacement, and @ what cost (time, loss of computer, frustration, etc)

This is really nothing more than breaking down what economists call opportunity cost - basically, what does it cost to make the choice of buying refurbs ?

For instance, there are a couple threads in here I have started about buying refurbed (corporate lease returns) Lenovo ThinkPad Carbon X1 for $500 (new they were around $2000)
It was a great deal because (1) You could get a warranty pretty cheap (2) If something broke, I can fix it myself.  So the risk is low, and the benefit was huge.  I bought around 10 of them, and others have jumped on it as well.

So, it all depends....

Sorry for the long explanation - Im bored, and cant sleep.

 

https://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817438070&leaderboard=1

[Rippleman]

coincidentally, son picked up a gtx1050 ti today. He has 2 pc's, an older Dell xps 420 and an opitplex 780 sff. The xps 420 has a q6600 while the 780 sff has an e8400. He would have preferred to use the 780 sff but the gtx1050 ti doesn't fit with out some very big modification (talking about cutting metal) . Would have been neat to see if it could get by with only a 265 watt supply. The e8400 uses max 130 watts while the 1050 ti uses a max of 75. would have been extremely close to its limit. In the end, it had to be in the xps 420 (475 supply i think) and works shockingly well with NO 6 pin connector. He is happy with the card and will last him a long long time since the only game he plays is overwatch.  

[T3X4S]

6 hours ago, MVC said:

https://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817438070&leaderboard=1

I think if it is for this particular computer - you can get a 500W eVGA new (not refurbed) on amazon for about $39.

[Mando]

20 hours ago, T3X4S said:

@Mando
The problem, I feel, is that one doesnt know the real power stability of generic PSUs.
The manufacturers of generic PSUs, when testing, use perfect environments (a cold testing lab) and if said generic spikes for 1 second @ 300W - they slap a 300W rating on it.
When in actuality, that same PSU if it were to receive rigorous testing from Corsair, Seasonic, Silverstone, etc - would probably get a 200W rating.

So any generic PSU claiming 300W, could be as lousy as a stable 150W (of course this is generalization on the known "testing methods" of PSUs)

___________

I read 2 different articles several years ago (1 from Maximum PC's Gordon Mah Ung - now with PC World) they were explaining the reasons why its a guessing game on generic PSU and to always use the good ones)
The other article, I believe, was on OverclockersUK linked from somewhere else.  Reputable PSU manufacturers will test in real world environments, pushing PSUs in a hot room, then if a PSU tests @ 700W stable, they will actually put a 650W rating on it.  I read the same thing from the original President of PC Power & Cooling (before purchased by OCZ) but that could have been a sales pitch, so I didn't really put much faith in it until I researched it...
This is backed up by the fact my old Seasonic Platinum 1000W was actually a stable 1100W according to the testbed docs that came with it.

So, yes, you are correct in stating that some people have been able to do it; but you have no way to know if one generic 300W PSU is the same as another generic 300W PSU.

I dont want you to think I was saying you were wrong, just saying its not safe to assume all are the same.

its cool mate, didnt think that for a second, i just know of a workmate who has the same Dell optiplex and also runs that exact card in it mate  the psu uses custom headers in that model of optiplex, so if the unit is still using the psu that shipped with it (an sfx type) it will work

[MVC]

5 hours ago, T3X4S said:

I think if it is for this particular computer - you can get a 500W eVGA new (not refurbed) on amazon for about $39.

I'm from Canada and a 500w psu on amazon is 57$ usually its 60$

[Mando]

2 minutes ago, MVC said:

I'm from Canada and a 500w psu on amazon is 57$ usually its 60$

cant you buy from EVGA direct? 

 

I cant recc EVGa kit and psus enough tbh, i have the 650GS and i love it, such a beefy PSU and 5yr warranty.

[MVC]

1 hour ago, Mando said:

cant you buy from EVGA direct? 

 

I cant recc EVGa kit and psus enough tbh, i have the 650GS and i love it, such a beefy PSU and 5yr warranty.

What do you mean by evga direct? 

[gregwilson88]

From the EVGA store on their website:

https://www.evga.com/products/productlist.aspx?type=10

 

I'm from Canada as well, bought my EVGA 750 G2 from NCIX when it was on sale.

[Mando]

52 minutes ago, MVC said:

What do you mean by evga direct? 

you can buy directly at evga.com mate

[Unobscured Vision]

I agree with the majority on this. Never ever go lowball on the PSU. Minimum you want is a 350-400 Watt. That headroom will save you bunches when it comes to undervolting your mobo, CPU, GPU, etc. That's the one thing that one should never skimp on.

[MVC]

why can't you buy a graphics card from evga but can buy a psu??

[Mindovermaster Moderator]

2 hours ago, MVC said:

why can't you buy a graphics card from evga but can buy a psu??

What you talking about?

 

https://www.evga.com/products/productlist.aspx?type=0

[ThaCrip]

It will work as i got i bought a 'Geforce GTX 1050 Ti 4GB' (EVGA brand, single fan) recently and it was a huge upgrade over my Radeon 5670 512MB which i had since 2010. now i can play modern games on my aging system and play them well. basically that 1050 Ti 4GB is the best graphics card you can get for $150 or less right now as it's a great bang-for-the-buck GPU as i only got a i3-2120 CPU (which is a dual core CPU but has hyper-threading technology so games think it's a quad core even though it's not) and it plays GTA 5 well even on MAX graphics (i disabled MSAA though which is just a performance killer for negligible visual gain) @ 1080p as my frame rates are generally around 40-50fps give or take most of the time and a fair amount of the time it's 60fps and i don't think it's dropped below the low 30's and i am roughly 25% through the game currently (as everyone knows... 60fps+ is perfect experience and you don't want to go much below the low 30's otherwise the game will start to become unplayable and effect your enjoyment of the game. so as long as your 30fps+ it's at least 'good enough'). since you got a true quad core you can likely expect to see more consistent frame rates i would imagine since your CPU likely won't max out like mine does as i suspect any bottlenecks you get will be from the GPU itself (at least on GTA 5) but the card is a great card as this is the best card i had in a long time now and i been using graphics cards since the Diamond Monster 3D (i.e. 3DFX Voodoo 4MB) which was like 1997 or so (pretty much the first good graphics chipset for the PC to my knowledge).

 

as for bottleneck... given i have been running 'MSI Afterburner' since i played GTA 5 i can keep a eye on CPU/GPU usage (along with frame rate) and for the most part my CPU is the limiting factor even though the GPU bottlenecks once in a while but even when the GPU is the bottleneck the frame rates are still pretty high as i want to say 50fps+ off the top of my head from my observations as when i get those lower FPS drops it seems to be the CPU in general. but since your CPU is noticeably better than mine, as you got a quad core and i only have a dual core, i suspect you will be fine. either way, you will clearly have a enjoyable experience with that setup you got on the vast majority of games. but i will say i do have 8GB of RAM which if you only got 4GB that could be a bit of a issue but if you got 8GB than RAM will not be any issue for playing games on your PC.

 

even the temps of that card are quite good as even under a full load, with benchmarking programs (along with GTA V playing for hours), it's not exceeded 67c and i think my room temp was in the 80f+ range to(according to the clock in my room). it idles around 30c and at the moment as i type this it's idling at 28c with about a 78f room temp. also, the fan defaults to 30% usage (like when at idle etc) and even when i had those 67c peak temps (i.e. full load on GPU) the fan speed has not exceeded 40% yet which means it's not even close to struggling to cool it since, if the card gets hot enough, it will eventually ramp up to 100% if needed but if you keep the dust buildup off the heatsink half way decently then over-heating will never happen with that card. i typically blow out my computer case thoroughly at least twice a year with a air compressor.

 

also, my motherboard is PCI-E 2.0 (i.e. ASUS P8H61-M LX) and the card works perfectly fine. just use the latest drivers from Nvidia's website which is currently v384.76. i got a quality PSU (i.e. Seasonic 520watt(which i think this model is fairly low in $$$ the last i checked)) but they say if you got a 300watt PSU or higher it should work fine. as a general guideline... i avoid using low quality PSU's as i have had worse luck with PSU's than hard drives as i have had one hard drive die on me vs three PSU's (thankfully it did not take out any of my computer components when they did die though) and the PSU's that did die i would say 1 or 2 out of the 3 were more on the quality side of things which is why i am likely going to stick to Seasonic as i think they got the best all around reputation for long lasting PSU's the last i checked and have a 5 year warranties (or more) to as in Nov 2017 my 5 years will be up (i bought it Nov 2012) as in the past the PSU's seem to fail not long after the warranty is up which typically had either 2-3 year warranties. i expect my Seasonic to go comfortably beyond the 5 year warranty based on their reputation. in fact, they still sell the same PSU i got on Newegg here... https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?item=N82E16817151094 ; it's pretty cheap at the moment at basically $50 but has a $15 mail-in rebate if you want to mess with it which means it could be about $35 when is all said and done for you.

 

also, it appears that graphics cards powered from the PCI-E slot cannot draw more than 75watts MAX as it appears that's the standard MAX power output of a PCI-E slot from what i have been reading. i think the card comes close to maxing that out when under full load though and idles with much less than that as i want to say around 10watts, maybe a bit more, at a idle off the top of my head from reviews i have seen.

 

p.s. it's a bit late now but don't pay more for the SC version as the regular version of that graphics card is pretty much the same (basically no real difference in overall performance) as i would get whatever is cheaper. i just got the regular version myself for $134.99. hell, you can always overclock yourself if you want to but i don't really see much need for it as from tests i have seen you 'might' get 2-3fps more tops. i just leave mine at stock as i figure there is no way 2-3fps TOPS would make any difference in a game. i am running Windows 10 Pro x64 build 15063.483 (basically newest build)

Edited July 13, 2017 by ThaCrip

[MVC]

18 hours ago, Mindovermaster said:

What you talking about?

 

https://www.evga.com/products/productlist.aspx?type=0

why can't I buy a 1050ti ?

[MVC]

16 hours ago, ThaCrip said:

It will work as i got i bought a 'Geforce GTX 1050 Ti 4GB' (EVGA brand, single fan) recently and it was a huge upgrade over my Radeon 5670 512MB which i had since 2010. now i can play modern games on my aging system and play them well. basically that 1050 Ti 4GB is the best graphics card you can get for $150 or less right now as it's a great bang-for-the-buck GPU as i only got a i3-2120 CPU (which is a dual core CPU but has hyper-threading technology so games think it's a quad core even though it's not) and it plays GTA 5 well even on MAX graphics (i disabled MSAA though which is just a performance killer for negligible visual gain) @ 1080p as my frame rates are generally around 40-50fps give or take most of the time and a fair amount of the time it's 60fps and i don't think it's dropped below the low 30's and i am roughly 25% through the game currently (as everyone knows... 60fps+ is perfect experience and you don't want to go much below the low 30's otherwise the game will start to become unplayable and effect your enjoyment of the game. so as long as your 30fps+ it's at least 'good enough'). since you got a true quad core you can likely expect to see more consistent frame rates i would imagine since your CPU likely won't max out like mine does as i suspect any bottlenecks you get will be from the GPU itself (at least on GTA 5) but the card is a great card as this is the best card i had in a long time now and i been using graphics cards since the Diamond Monster 3D (i.e. 3DFX Voodoo 4MB) which was like 1997 or so (pretty much the first good graphics chipset for the PC to my knowledge).

 

as for bottleneck... given i have been running 'MSI Afterburner' since i played GTA 5 i can keep a eye on CPU/GPU usage (along with frame rate) and for the most part my CPU is the limiting factor even though the GPU bottlenecks once in a while but even when the GPU is the bottleneck the frame rates are still pretty high as i want to say 50fps+ off the top of my head from my observations as when i get those lower FPS drops it seems to be the CPU in general. but since your CPU is noticeably better than mine, as you got a quad core and i only have a dual core, i suspect you will be fine. either way, you will clearly have a enjoyable experience with that setup you got on the vast majority of games. but i will say i do have 8GB of RAM which if you only got 4GB that could be a bit of a issue but if you got 8GB than RAM will not be any issue for playing games on your PC.

 

even the temps of that card are quite good as even under a full load, with benchmarking programs (along with GTA V playing for hours), it's not exceeded 67c and i think my room temp was in the 80f+ range to(according to the clock in my room). it idles around 30c and at the moment as i type this it's idling at 28c with about a 78f room temp. also, the fan defaults to 30% usage (like when at idle etc) and even when i had those 67c peak temps (i.e. full load on GPU) the fan speed has not exceeded 40% yet which means it's not even close to struggling to cool it since, if the card gets hot enough, it will eventually ramp up to 100% if needed but if you keep the dust buildup off the heatsink half way decently then over-heating will never happen with that card. i typically blow out my computer case thoroughly at least twice a year with a air compressor.

 

also, my motherboard is PCI-E 2.0 (i.e. ASUS P8H61-M LX) and the card works perfectly fine. just use the latest drivers from Nvidia's website which is currently v384.76. i got a quality PSU (i.e. Seasonic 520watt(which i think this model is fairly low in $$$ the last i checked)) but they say if you got a 300watt PSU or higher it should work fine. as a general guideline... i avoid using low quality PSU's as i have had worse luck with PSU's than hard drives as i have had one hard drive die on me vs three PSU's (thankfully it did not take out any of my computer components when they did die though) and the PSU's that did die i would say 1 or 2 out of the 3 were more on the quality side of things which is why i am likely going to stick to Seasonic as i think they got the best all around reputation for long lasting PSU's the last i checked and have a 5 year warranties (or more) to as in Nov 2017 my 5 years will be up (i bought it Nov 2012) as in the past the PSU's seem to fail not long after the warranty is up which typically had either 2-3 year warranties. i expect my Seasonic to go comfortably beyond the 5 year warranty based on their reputation. in fact, they still sell the same PSU i got on Newegg here... https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?item=N82E16817151094 ; it's pretty cheap at the moment at basically $50 but has a $15 mail-in rebate if you want to mess with it which means it could be about $35 when is all said and done for you.

 

also, it appears that graphics cards powered from the PCI-E slot cannot draw more than 75watts MAX as it appears that's the standard MAX power output of a PCI-E slot from what i have been reading. i think the card comes close to maxing that out when under full load though and idles with much less than that as i want to say around 10watts, maybe a bit more, at a idle off the top of my head from reviews i have seen.

 

p.s. it's a bit late now but don't pay more for the SC version as the regular version of that graphics card is pretty much the same (basically no real difference in overall performance) as i would get whatever is cheaper. i just got the regular version myself for $134.99. hell, you can always overclock yourself if you want to but i don't really see much need for it as from tests i have seen you 'might' get 2-3fps more tops. i just leave mine at stock as i figure there is no way 2-3fps TOPS would make any difference in a game. i am running Windows 10 Pro x64 build 15063.483 (basically newest build)

Yup , I've seen people on youtube use the 1050 ti with the same processor I have , it doesn't bottleneck the 1050ti at all . I've seen people pairing it with a 1060 too which would be the maximum as you start seeing the bottleneck with a 1060-1070

[The Evil Overlord]

It's beginning to seem like you've already made up your mind and want reinforcement for your decision, if this is the case then go ahead and pull the trigger, worst case scenario, you may need a more powerful PSU down the line.

[Mindovermaster Moderator]

3 hours ago, MVC said:

why can't I buy a 1050ti ?

Open your eyes man! Geez! https://www.evga.com/products/productlist.aspx?type=0&family=GeForce+10+Series+Family

[JustGeorge]

The 1050Ti is a great little card. I play AAA  games on High/Ultra settings @ 720p on my old Phenom II x4 rig in the living room. 

 

My newer i5 rig got one as well when I cashed in my rx480 on eBay I get about the same performance but @ 1080p. 

 

 

 

[MVC]

On 13/07/2017 at 10:18 PM, Mindovermaster said:

Open your eyes man! Geez! https://www.evga.com/products/productlist.aspx?type=0&family=GeForce+10+Series+Family

can't buy any of the 1050 ti's , says auto-notify...

[MVC]

what would you guys recommend .... 200$ for
Option : 1- 1050 TI
               2- 1050 + 4gb ram ( or new psu instead)
               3 - gt 1030 + new psu + 4gb ram 

Edited July 15, 2017 by MVC

[The Evil Overlord]

The 7XX and 9XX series cards will work just as well, I'm rocking a GTX760 and can game on ultra (stuff like Hatred) and Extreme (SC2) settings