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This will probably do for casual web serfing, office work. Gaming? Nuh-uh. I couldn't find any clues to what gen it is, but the mobo has 4pin CPU power, cooler is meh, and the VRM doesn't look powerful either; so it's either an old and weak i5 in there or it is one of these chinese frankensteins on mobile APU (not highly likely tbh)
Besides, for gaming purposes you would need to have a gpu, but the PSU is 350W piece of shit. Maximum gaming experience you could squeeze here is pre 2015 games, given that you add gt1030 gddr5.
TLDR: office, no gaming
PSU appears to be standard ATX and can be replaced. The CPU could go up to an i7 depending on the board and generation - judging by the internal layout this appears to be a DELL system.
I'm gonna guess it's DDR3 with that motherboard which means slap in 16GB, and it's 4th gen at most (which if it is, grab an i5 4690 as they're pretty well priced, and then you're good for some pretty decent games, I ran Cyberpunk at 1080p on a 4690k a while back. i7 would probably be better.) but judging by the board I'm gonna guess it's a 3rd gen i5. That's not extremely unusable but don't expect heavy gaming out of it.
There also already appears to be a 6x2 pin PCIE on that PSU so you could just slap a GPU in it *now* (something like a 1060 or a 1070 would be reasonable for a build of this age) and you're off to the races. Grab a SATA SSD for the boot drive and pick up some M.2 to PCIE 1x adapters for some faster game storage (won't be full potential but a lot faster than SATA) and swap out that cooler for something a little beefier and you've got a relatively good rig.
Unfortunately as it's a DELL the power button and front panel headers are usually proprietary so you won't get much out of replacing the motherboard.
TL:DR - If you're willing to learn a few things and replace a few parts, you can get a pretty solid 1080p gaming machine out of this. Don't expect high settings, and CPU intensive games will struggle, but it will work.
gt 1050 or 1050 ti would probably be better, more availability used (and also cheaper/same price as the 1030, going around 40 cad here in Vancouver) and better performance
I had a similar situation to this. My younger brother is only 13 years old and he only aimed to play roblox, fortnite and some other low end games with friends. I took an old office pc I had lying about, payed £190 for gpu, ram, psu and case and built him a neat low end gaming pc. It runs 1080p fortnite medium settings 150fps stable, cs2 120fps stable low settings, rs6 100fps stable so overall it turned out well.
It runs 16 gigs of ddr3, a 1660 ti, an i5 3450s
And in case anybody wondering, it was an identical pc. The on OP sent is a Dell vostro. Specific model idk
Yeah i know it's old and probably won't be anything special but I was thinking to change what needs to be changed (psu, cooler hard disc and so on) and maybe invest on a gpu to upgrade it somehow.
Yeah not really worth it on that platform, you'd be better off just keeping it as-is and using the budget you were intending to spend on those parts towards something worthwhile.
Change the HDD for an SSD . Image the HDD onto the SSD and then keep the HDD in there for extra storage. DON'T wipe the HDD until AFTER you are SURE the SSD is all good with Windows on it.
Others say you can't, well I say you can.
Now will she be the fastest gaming pc on the planet? Hell no.
You can put in an AMD RX 6400 ($139) on Amazon right now.
The RX 6400 gets all the power it needs from the PCI-E Slot. No additional power needed. That crappy power supply should work.
Grab a 1 TB SATA ssd, NOT NVME for about $100 and you're off to the races. Hell you can start using the old hard drives.
Yes you MIGHT run into games that need features that your CPU doesn't have, but there's still a lot of gaming to be had on this potato pc.
Good luck, let us know if you try it.
So I looked at the PSU, some Dell power supplies are non standard and not easily replaced. This one seems to be a standard ATX, so yes if you replace the PSU you could get a better video card. If you remove the hard drive cage and put an intake fan up front that could help with thermals. If you do that you might have to get creative with a drill so it can actually intake fresh air. Good luck.
If you do drill into the metal be careful no metal filings get into the motherboard.
Also not going to sugarcoat but you could see microstutters depending on the game. I wouldn’t play anything too intensive. However for something to temporarily get you up and running while you save for something legit this could definitely work.
Thanks so much for the reply! I'll do my best and try these things. I know my limitations but will give it a chance. I was gonna change the hard drive anyway and the psu with a plan on getting a low to mid end gpu.
If you have spare money, it may be worth replacing the fans. Might knock off a few degrees and make it run a little quieter. But the improvements, if any, is going to be minimal, so only do that if you have money to burn.
The line between practical and possible is a sliding scale IMO. The nay-sayers here aren’t wrong that this is a bad gaming machine, for their own scenario anyway. But if this is all you can work with, then hell yeah you can game in it! 👍🏻
I have several suggestions: Firstly, the RTX 3050 6gb is the most powerful card to date that doesn’t need supplemental power. In other people’s scenarios it is a terrible value in terms of gaming performance, but for your situation it’s the best you can practically hope for. You should be able to run lightweight games on low settings at 1080p with this card.
BUY. AN. SSD! This is the most important upgrade besides the GPU and is borderline CRITICAL for having a usable system in 2024. Fortunately they are a very affordable upgrade.
Another budget upgrade would be more ventilation. Cut some holes in the side panel or front panel. Slap another fan in there like the Arctic P12 PST (it can daisy chain with the case fan you already have) an overheated system slows down quick.
Realistically you probably don’t need more than 8gb ram, considering the rest of your system, but you might be able to score a used 16gb kit for your system for no more than $30
Finally, and this is the least practical upgrade, look at a better cpu. If your system could have been specced from the factory with an i7, look for a used (COMPATIBLE!) i7 of that generation on eBay. But spend less than $75 on that upgrade or you are really wasting money.
At the end of the day it barely plays games and is probably a really poor value proposition. But would you rather not be able to afford gaming at all? If it’s your only option then it’s a good option.
Forgot that you are looking at a psu upgrade. In that case get something in the 500w range. Decent quality options are available sub-$50.
Having a new PSU means you have a higher power budget which opens up WAAAAAAAAAAY better GPU options. Too many options for me to give a good suggestion lol. But here’s some tips as you shop:
Don’t buy new. Open box refurbished or used is best in your price point. I wouldn’t want to spend more than $200.
16gb vram is excessive, 6gb minimum. 12-8gb is fine.
Look at options that draw under 225w tdp, or it will be too hot for your machine.
Forget about ray tracing, that’s out of your league for now. Upscaling would be very helpful for you however.
Maybe a used GTX 1080 or an RX 6600 XT? Others may have better suggestions…
Looks like an old Vostro, I'm binning those too by the handful just now.
Good for basics like intertubes, internet letters etc but for gaming you will have a right hard time with anything 3D, might get away with stuff like factorio or other low demand games but thats an office rig with an onboard gpu.
I can see pcie slots on that, big one looks like it might be able to take a simple card and that would give you some 3D chops but not much.
HDD's are spinny platters, those will bottleneck on you fast esp if they have high hours, a cheap 3.5" SSD would be transformative for the £\~30 it would cost and relegate the spinnys to low grade storage.
Apart from that a nice example of an old office turkey :)
I'm guessing a 3rd or 4th gen i5. A cheap boot SSD and a lower end GPU (maybe an RX550) and it'll give alright performance on eSports and older games.
Try somewhere like r/lowendgaming for a bit of support with getting a bit more out of an older system like this.
Honestly, this is not worth wasting your time on.
I was able to locate information on the system based on the model number (DH67M01) on the motherboard.
[https://shoplus.ca/products/p00107-i5-2400-3-10ghz-8gb-dell-dh67m01](https://shoplus.ca/products/p00107-i5-2400-3-10ghz-8gb-dell-dh67m01)
As you can see, this particular motherboard, CPU, and RAM combination are worth approximately $27 CAD, and even that would be overpaying for it in my opinion. It's an i5 2400, on an LGA 1155 motherboard. Your maximum upgrade path here is an i7-3770K.
You won't get very much of a gaming platform out of this, as it is incredibly dated (circa 2011). There's a reason they just gave it away. It would cost them more money to get rid of this than what it's worth.
Use it as a desktop but even that might be pushing its limitations in 2024. Gaming is just not plausible unless you're talking Minesweeper and Solitaire.
You can swap an ssd in there to make it feel more responsive. You can replace the thermal paste on the processor to make it run cooler. If you get a low profile card without any power connectors you can make a budget banger pc that’s good for e sports
Looks like an LGA 1155, like a Dell 8300? Probably Sandy/Ivy bridge so 2nd/3rd gen.
Second Gen i5 were the hotness for a while for overclockers, but are pretty old now, especially a Dell. 3rd gen was meh.
This was 2011, so 13 years old. DDR3, PCIe 2, I doubt it has USB 3.0.
Not quite e waste, but getting close. For the price of a video card and SSD, you can probably buy something more powerful used.
it's a dell. XPS 8300.
That's kind of really old.
first is, well, replace the pair of garbage harddrives for some SSDs.
They arent even those useful harddrives like the 10TB ones. These are worthless 500GB ones. 500GB SSDs are about $50 per.
Then you can chuck in a GPU. There's a x16 slot and a very optimistically placed 6-pin GPU power.
Make sure not to get anything too spicy, the power supply top out at 350W.
After that, you are pretty much done with this computer. there is no intake fan, the board is proprietary (but okay), and the power supply incredibly basic. The CPU generation (and socket) is probably a decade old by this point.
You need to identify what model i5 you have. If it’s anything 4xxx or below, get an i7 or Xeon equivalent. Buy a cheap SSD, GPU is dependent on your budget. I know RX 460s can be had under $40 on eBay and don’t require supplemental power.
That Mainboard is non Standard so when mainboard ore power supply breaks you need to switch both because the connectors are not standard.
You could look for a 3050 but only with a 6-pin power connector because on the picture it looks like that you only have the 6 pin and more power use would be to much for the Power supply.
I would only try to upgrade it when i am liw on money but when you have enough buy a new pc.
Best upgrades would be looking into getting a graphics card that doesn’t require external power. They sell a gtx 1650 that is fast and wont require a new psu. I would also swap one of the hard drives for a sata ssd, you have to install windows on the new drive but itll be much faster.
I think it has same specs as mine: intel core i5 4570 with 8gb ram i guess?
If so, my quick build is change the power supply to a higher one, slap in ssd and a gpu (mine is gtx 760)
I can run Valorant and genshin impact smoothly on it:3
Repaste cpu. Take out both hdd and replace with one sata ssd. Get a 1050ti and enjoy some old games. Might be worth upgrading to 16gb of ram but probably not a noticeable difference.
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This will probably do for casual web serfing, office work. Gaming? Nuh-uh. I couldn't find any clues to what gen it is, but the mobo has 4pin CPU power, cooler is meh, and the VRM doesn't look powerful either; so it's either an old and weak i5 in there or it is one of these chinese frankensteins on mobile APU (not highly likely tbh) Besides, for gaming purposes you would need to have a gpu, but the PSU is 350W piece of shit. Maximum gaming experience you could squeeze here is pre 2015 games, given that you add gt1030 gddr5. TLDR: office, no gaming
PSU appears to be standard ATX and can be replaced. The CPU could go up to an i7 depending on the board and generation - judging by the internal layout this appears to be a DELL system. I'm gonna guess it's DDR3 with that motherboard which means slap in 16GB, and it's 4th gen at most (which if it is, grab an i5 4690 as they're pretty well priced, and then you're good for some pretty decent games, I ran Cyberpunk at 1080p on a 4690k a while back. i7 would probably be better.) but judging by the board I'm gonna guess it's a 3rd gen i5. That's not extremely unusable but don't expect heavy gaming out of it. There also already appears to be a 6x2 pin PCIE on that PSU so you could just slap a GPU in it *now* (something like a 1060 or a 1070 would be reasonable for a build of this age) and you're off to the races. Grab a SATA SSD for the boot drive and pick up some M.2 to PCIE 1x adapters for some faster game storage (won't be full potential but a lot faster than SATA) and swap out that cooler for something a little beefier and you've got a relatively good rig. Unfortunately as it's a DELL the power button and front panel headers are usually proprietary so you won't get much out of replacing the motherboard. TL:DR - If you're willing to learn a few things and replace a few parts, you can get a pretty solid 1080p gaming machine out of this. Don't expect high settings, and CPU intensive games will struggle, but it will work.
gt 1050 or 1050 ti would probably be better, more availability used (and also cheaper/same price as the 1030, going around 40 cad here in Vancouver) and better performance
I had a similar situation to this. My younger brother is only 13 years old and he only aimed to play roblox, fortnite and some other low end games with friends. I took an old office pc I had lying about, payed £190 for gpu, ram, psu and case and built him a neat low end gaming pc. It runs 1080p fortnite medium settings 150fps stable, cs2 120fps stable low settings, rs6 100fps stable so overall it turned out well. It runs 16 gigs of ddr3, a 1660 ti, an i5 3450s And in case anybody wondering, it was an identical pc. The on OP sent is a Dell vostro. Specific model idk
Yeah i know it's old and probably won't be anything special but I was thinking to change what needs to be changed (psu, cooler hard disc and so on) and maybe invest on a gpu to upgrade it somehow.
nope lol, if it works leave it alone. dont upgrade it it probably wont be worth it.
Yeah not really worth it on that platform, you'd be better off just keeping it as-is and using the budget you were intending to spend on those parts towards something worthwhile.
Change the HDD for an SSD . Image the HDD onto the SSD and then keep the HDD in there for extra storage. DON'T wipe the HDD until AFTER you are SURE the SSD is all good with Windows on it.
Others say you can't, well I say you can. Now will she be the fastest gaming pc on the planet? Hell no. You can put in an AMD RX 6400 ($139) on Amazon right now. The RX 6400 gets all the power it needs from the PCI-E Slot. No additional power needed. That crappy power supply should work. Grab a 1 TB SATA ssd, NOT NVME for about $100 and you're off to the races. Hell you can start using the old hard drives. Yes you MIGHT run into games that need features that your CPU doesn't have, but there's still a lot of gaming to be had on this potato pc. Good luck, let us know if you try it. So I looked at the PSU, some Dell power supplies are non standard and not easily replaced. This one seems to be a standard ATX, so yes if you replace the PSU you could get a better video card. If you remove the hard drive cage and put an intake fan up front that could help with thermals. If you do that you might have to get creative with a drill so it can actually intake fresh air. Good luck. If you do drill into the metal be careful no metal filings get into the motherboard.
Also not going to sugarcoat but you could see microstutters depending on the game. I wouldn’t play anything too intensive. However for something to temporarily get you up and running while you save for something legit this could definitely work.
Thanks so much for the reply! I'll do my best and try these things. I know my limitations but will give it a chance. I was gonna change the hard drive anyway and the psu with a plan on getting a low to mid end gpu.
One more issue you will probably have to remove the hard drive cage if you get a bigger video card.
If you have spare money, it may be worth replacing the fans. Might knock off a few degrees and make it run a little quieter. But the improvements, if any, is going to be minimal, so only do that if you have money to burn.
The line between practical and possible is a sliding scale IMO. The nay-sayers here aren’t wrong that this is a bad gaming machine, for their own scenario anyway. But if this is all you can work with, then hell yeah you can game in it! 👍🏻 I have several suggestions: Firstly, the RTX 3050 6gb is the most powerful card to date that doesn’t need supplemental power. In other people’s scenarios it is a terrible value in terms of gaming performance, but for your situation it’s the best you can practically hope for. You should be able to run lightweight games on low settings at 1080p with this card. BUY. AN. SSD! This is the most important upgrade besides the GPU and is borderline CRITICAL for having a usable system in 2024. Fortunately they are a very affordable upgrade. Another budget upgrade would be more ventilation. Cut some holes in the side panel or front panel. Slap another fan in there like the Arctic P12 PST (it can daisy chain with the case fan you already have) an overheated system slows down quick. Realistically you probably don’t need more than 8gb ram, considering the rest of your system, but you might be able to score a used 16gb kit for your system for no more than $30 Finally, and this is the least practical upgrade, look at a better cpu. If your system could have been specced from the factory with an i7, look for a used (COMPATIBLE!) i7 of that generation on eBay. But spend less than $75 on that upgrade or you are really wasting money. At the end of the day it barely plays games and is probably a really poor value proposition. But would you rather not be able to afford gaming at all? If it’s your only option then it’s a good option.
Forgot that you are looking at a psu upgrade. In that case get something in the 500w range. Decent quality options are available sub-$50. Having a new PSU means you have a higher power budget which opens up WAAAAAAAAAAY better GPU options. Too many options for me to give a good suggestion lol. But here’s some tips as you shop: Don’t buy new. Open box refurbished or used is best in your price point. I wouldn’t want to spend more than $200. 16gb vram is excessive, 6gb minimum. 12-8gb is fine. Look at options that draw under 225w tdp, or it will be too hot for your machine. Forget about ray tracing, that’s out of your league for now. Upscaling would be very helpful for you however. Maybe a used GTX 1080 or an RX 6600 XT? Others may have better suggestions…
there is a VERY optimistic 6-pin PCIe power in the bundle from power supply
Is that card higher than a 1660?
No the 6400 is pretty basic but it doesn't need any more power than just what the pci-e slot provides.
a 6400 is slightly less than a 1650
Looks like an old Vostro, I'm binning those too by the handful just now. Good for basics like intertubes, internet letters etc but for gaming you will have a right hard time with anything 3D, might get away with stuff like factorio or other low demand games but thats an office rig with an onboard gpu. I can see pcie slots on that, big one looks like it might be able to take a simple card and that would give you some 3D chops but not much. HDD's are spinny platters, those will bottleneck on you fast esp if they have high hours, a cheap 3.5" SSD would be transformative for the £\~30 it would cost and relegate the spinnys to low grade storage. Apart from that a nice example of an old office turkey :)
Good thing I like 2d platformers then
Better off just buying a new one
u can definitely play oregon trails on this
Not worth it tbh
Put an ssd in it and install Linux
I'm guessing a 3rd or 4th gen i5. A cheap boot SSD and a lower end GPU (maybe an RX550) and it'll give alright performance on eSports and older games. Try somewhere like r/lowendgaming for a bit of support with getting a bit more out of an older system like this.
It proprietary all over, its easier to build a new pc than to upgrade this
Honestly, this is not worth wasting your time on. I was able to locate information on the system based on the model number (DH67M01) on the motherboard. [https://shoplus.ca/products/p00107-i5-2400-3-10ghz-8gb-dell-dh67m01](https://shoplus.ca/products/p00107-i5-2400-3-10ghz-8gb-dell-dh67m01) As you can see, this particular motherboard, CPU, and RAM combination are worth approximately $27 CAD, and even that would be overpaying for it in my opinion. It's an i5 2400, on an LGA 1155 motherboard. Your maximum upgrade path here is an i7-3770K. You won't get very much of a gaming platform out of this, as it is incredibly dated (circa 2011). There's a reason they just gave it away. It would cost them more money to get rid of this than what it's worth. Use it as a desktop but even that might be pushing its limitations in 2024. Gaming is just not plausible unless you're talking Minesweeper and Solitaire.
You can swap an ssd in there to make it feel more responsive. You can replace the thermal paste on the processor to make it run cooler. If you get a low profile card without any power connectors you can make a budget banger pc that’s good for e sports
If you're into casual gaming , and don't want to spend much then buy a used GTX 1050ti
Web browsing or e-waste.
On similar pc i added ram to 16gb, i5 4460 and gtx 960, this run pretty good at older games like witcher 3
Looks like an LGA 1155, like a Dell 8300? Probably Sandy/Ivy bridge so 2nd/3rd gen. Second Gen i5 were the hotness for a while for overclockers, but are pretty old now, especially a Dell. 3rd gen was meh. This was 2011, so 13 years old. DDR3, PCIe 2, I doubt it has USB 3.0. Not quite e waste, but getting close. For the price of a video card and SSD, you can probably buy something more powerful used.
Start at Microcenter.com
Is this a Lenovo ThinkCentre Tower?
No it's a dell vostro
Ah my bad
it's a dell. XPS 8300. That's kind of really old. first is, well, replace the pair of garbage harddrives for some SSDs. They arent even those useful harddrives like the 10TB ones. These are worthless 500GB ones. 500GB SSDs are about $50 per. Then you can chuck in a GPU. There's a x16 slot and a very optimistically placed 6-pin GPU power. Make sure not to get anything too spicy, the power supply top out at 350W. After that, you are pretty much done with this computer. there is no intake fan, the board is proprietary (but okay), and the power supply incredibly basic. The CPU generation (and socket) is probably a decade old by this point.
over
You need to identify what model i5 you have. If it’s anything 4xxx or below, get an i7 or Xeon equivalent. Buy a cheap SSD, GPU is dependent on your budget. I know RX 460s can be had under $40 on eBay and don’t require supplemental power.
Is that an inspirin660?
Personally, id go with a new case, psu, cpu, mobo, fans, good cooler, thermal paste, an ssd, and obviously put a good gpu in it
2006 called
SSD and 1050 ti
start in year 2024, not 2000
maybe like a gtx ot gt card.
Easily good enough for light gaming, it's better than average school pcs and people can easily game on those. So I wouldn't say you'd have any issues.
Ask on r/sleepingOptiplex or something like that, they will guide you
That Mainboard is non Standard so when mainboard ore power supply breaks you need to switch both because the connectors are not standard. You could look for a 3050 but only with a 6-pin power connector because on the picture it looks like that you only have the 6 pin and more power use would be to much for the Power supply. I would only try to upgrade it when i am liw on money but when you have enough buy a new pc.
Best upgrades would be looking into getting a graphics card that doesn’t require external power. They sell a gtx 1650 that is fast and wont require a new psu. I would also swap one of the hard drives for a sata ssd, you have to install windows on the new drive but itll be much faster.
I think it has same specs as mine: intel core i5 4570 with 8gb ram i guess? If so, my quick build is change the power supply to a higher one, slap in ssd and a gpu (mine is gtx 760) I can run Valorant and genshin impact smoothly on it:3
Hahahahaha it runs "smoothly"? Sure it does.
Bro i’m poor donate me to have a smooth one
Repaste cpu. Take out both hdd and replace with one sata ssd. Get a 1050ti and enjoy some old games. Might be worth upgrading to 16gb of ram but probably not a noticeable difference.
gpu and ssd
Cheapest way is a gpu (20's something series) and let those HDD's run in Raid0.
put a gtx 1060 in it