Dell Optiplex Cheap Gaming PC - YouTube

Hey guys, it's been awhile.

I've had some things on hold for quite a bit now.

But, hoping to start getting back into creating content for this channel.

Especially considering all of these clips have been sitting on my PC for the better part of five months now, or so?

At the time, a friend of mine brought me this Dell PC,

and wanted to see what I could do with it for around $100.

So, let's hop into it.

So, the Optiplex I'll be working with is the 3020.

I'm not sure if all of these come in a standard spec or not, but this one is pretty decent.

While the case itself isn't too much to look at,

nor does it provide much for cooling, or expansion,

it is housing an i5 4670. That was a nice surprise, was expecting it to be an old 775 system.

The processor itself may not be brand new,

however, it will hold up for most, if not, all games, and everything else.

While the i5 was a nice surprise,

the "eh" power supply wasn't.

Which means, that will have to be replaced.

On top of that, the motherboard is only sporting 4gb of RAM, and there isn't a GPU.

But, it's all easy to take care of.

Now,. as you can see, we aren't really working with much.

One rear mounted 90mm fan, a top mounted power supply,

a motherboard with a very modest I/O,

and only four expansion slots on the bottom.

Not any major problem, but, it could also be better.

Bear in mind, when working with one of these PC's, you may run into a similar problem.

Dell uses a proprietary 8pin power plug, instead of a 24pin power plug.

You can see it highlighted within the red circle.

The only approach I have found is to buy an adapter from ModDIY, I paid $15 for mine.

I'll leave a link in the description.

I picked up a 500w Cooler Master PSU on eBay for only $24.

The model number is RS-500-PSAR-J3.

It isn't modular, however, saves some money, and we have plenty of room to work with.

More than enough to power this build too.

At the time, I looked around for a little bit, and for this price point, I couldn't really find a better card.

I snagged an HD7850 on eBay for $60.

This card is definitely quite a bit older, however, there's still some use in it.

I bought a generic 4gb stick of RAM for $13 on eBay.

The brand is "Hynix", if any of you are interested.

Alright, so this was all relatively easy to put together.

Just plug the ModDIY connector into the motherboard, swap the PSU,

install the GPU, and the extra stick of RAM, and you're pretty much set.

Though, this is a MicroATX case, it was still relatively easy to work in, even with a non modular PSU.

Patience and zip-ties are your friend.

Unsurprisingly, everything went as planned.

The PSU adapter worked like a charm, with no hiccups anywhere,

everything booted correctly, Windows 10 was installed,

drivers installed, of course, and now, time to benchmark.

Pardon the benchmark footage though. Something screwed up during the stabilization of each shot, and now, well, they're all screwed up.

So for the Heaven Benchmark, I ran the Medium Preset @ 1080p.

As you can see, 60fps in some areas, and dips down to the 30's in others.

Not entirely surprised due to the age of the card. But it will do just fine for the games he wanted to play.

I ran Killing Floor 2 on the High Preset @ 1080p. This card had no issues.

Maintaining 60fps in most scenarios, it's easy to say in some titles, a card this age is still relevant.

I ran the Metro Benchmark Utility on the High Preset @ 1080p.

Which, pleasantly surprised me with how well this card handled it.

Maintaining an average of 30-40fps isn't exactly something to brag about,

but at the same time, for a $60 card, you can't really complain either.

For The Forest, I used the highest preset @ 1080p.

This card had no problem at all.

Not a solid 60fps, but definitely a more than playable experience.

So, all-in-all, for around $100, this performs pretty well.

I know five months later, my friend is still happy with it.

None of the parts have had any issues, and everything he plays, he plays fine.

Apart from Overwatch.

So is upgrading a prebuilt office PC good?

For $100, I'd say yes.

In some cases, you could probably getting away with buying a new GPU, and just using that.

But either way, it's hard to beat this route if you have a used PC just laying around.

Though, honestly, the only catch is that you have to have a used PC first. But, it's still a good route.

So with all that, thanks for watching.

If you haven't already, check out some of my other videos.

Leave a comment about what you think about the whole "upgrading an older PC process",

and subscribe if you enjoyed the content.

Credits to the music can be found here, and in the description.

More content coming 'soon'? No promises.

But I definitely do have some things lined up that I do want to get on here.

Stick around.

See you, space cowboy.