Upgrade or for the bin?

col.in.Cr

I have a nephew that has this machine but would like to play a few games on it such as skyrim and I think a few steam ones too.

Dell OptiPlex 745,large case model
CPU: E6400, 2.13, Core Duo-Conroe
2GB RAM

Im not sure of the PSU in it until I take a proper look at it but should we just get rid of it? I was hoping we could upgrade to keep him going for a while and then build something later on.

Thanks in advance

Deano12345

All Opti 745's have proprietary power supplies, except for the mini tower one (the one that looks most like a traditional case) and even then its only around a 300W PSU that wouldn't power a graphics card anyway. If you wanted to spend a moderate amount of money, right now on adverts theres a 650W Corsair TX PSU for €40 and theres an GTX260 for €50, thats a pretty solid upgrade for €90.

uberpixie

col.in.Cr wrote: »

I have a nephew that has this machine but would like to play a few games on it such as skyrim and I think a few steam ones too.

Dell OptiPlex 745,large case model
CPU: E6400, 2.13, Core Duo-Conroe
2GB RAM

Im not sure of the PSU in it until I take a proper look at it but should we just get rid of it? I was hoping we could upgrade to keep him going for a while and then build something later on.

Thanks in advance

If you can get another gig of ram and a Radeon 7750. The 7750 gets recommended a lot here as it us pretty much the best card you can get without having to upgrade the psu, card will run on the power delivered by the slot.

This will get him gaming on lighter modern games. Steam ones will run fine. Skyrim will be playable.

After that start getting him to save for a build :-)

col.in.Cr

Cheers lads for the advice,a card in it for now might do the trick

TerrorFirmer

Instead of buying a new PSU, get a Q6600 and a 7750. Total cost is about 120 and you'd be good for a fair while with that, Q6600 is still a good performer, and Opti 745 should accept it. Q6600 and a 7750 will get through pretty much all modern titles respectfully. E6400 at 2.13ghz is a bit on the slow side at this stage. Wouldn't hurt to add another 2gb of ram either, if you can get that cheap on ebay or adverts down the line.

col.in.Cr

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

Instead of buying a new PSU, get a Q6600 and a 7750. Total cost is about 120 and you'd be good for a fair while with that, Q6600 is still a good performer, and Opti 745 should accept it. Q6600 and a 7750 will get through pretty much all modern titles respectfully. E6400 at 2.13ghz is a bit on the slow side at this stage. Wouldn't hurt to add another 2gb of ram either, if you can get that cheap on ebay or adverts down the line.

Goodstuff,I will check that out,thank you

col.in.Cr

I thought I had bought a HD 7750 but a HD 7700 turned up,anyone know if this can go in this machine? cheers

SterlingArcher

col.in.Cr wrote: »

I thought I had bought a HD 7750 but a HD 7700 turned up,anyone know if this can go in this machine? cheers

7770 is the better card graphic wise. The 7750 has about 55w draw while the 7770 has 80w.
If your PSU is 300w should be ok.

creep

a 7770 won't fit that PC, only a 7750 which is a decent budget card. Don't know how long a q660 will last either. I'd buikd a new PC

TerrorFirmer

A 7770 will fit (you said 7700, did you mean 7770?), not sure if the PSU is up to it though. I think it has a 305w psu which should be OK.

Also depends what model you got. A double slot 7770 may not fit, and a 7770 is far more likely to have a double slot design than a 7750.

Ultimately though, as I originally stated, there's not much point when you're using an E6400 buying a new card of that class unless you replace the CPU with something better as well. New games simply will not run properly at all on such an old 2Ghz Dual Core. You pretty much wasted the money unless you are going to put a Q6600 into it. Q6600 + 7750 would have cost about €120 and would run most new games reasonably.

creep

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

A 7770 will fit (you said 7700, did you mean 7770?), not sure if the PSU is up to it though. I think it has a 305w psu which should be OK.

Also depends what model you got. A double slot 7770 may not fit, and a 7770 is far more likely to have a double slot design than a 7750.

Ultimately though, as I originally stated, there's not much point when you're using an E6400 buying a new card of that class unless you replace the CPU with something better as well. New games simply will not run properly at all on such an old 2Ghz Dual Core. You pretty much wasted the money unless you are going to put a Q6600 into it. Q6600 + 7750 would have cost about €120 and would run most new games reasonably.

7750 does not need a connection while 7770 does from power supply and I'm pretty certain that power supply will have the old style connections

TerrorFirmer

Even if it doesn't have a 6pin you can use a molex to 6pin adaptor which'll come with the card. It should be a 305w PSU and usually they have decent spec's and plenty of power on the 12v.

col.in.Cr

Its this one here: http://www.adverts.ie/graphics-cards/hd-7700-xfx-1gb/4049718


Would it be ok to remove the back plate to try try get this in?
Thanks for the advice

TerrorFirmer

That's a 7750 then, 7700 is just to signify that it's the 7700 series of card. As stated before, a 7750 needs no additional power, a 7770 will have a six pin power plug.

What isn't fitting about the card?

col.in.Cr

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

That's a 7750 then, 7700 is just to signify that it's the 7700 series of card. As stated before, a 7750 needs no additional power, a 7770 will have a six pin power plug.

What isn't fitting about the card?

Thanks for that,the large cpu fan unit seems to be blocking me.

TerrorFirmer

Ah, yeah that's the problem with buying double slot cards, they often don't fit in Dell machines because of their huge cpu heatsink as the end of the card is blocked. Hmmm. Not much you can do I think, if that is the case. You would have needed a 7750 with a reference cooler or single slot cooling. For example like this, I think is what you needed. Or for example, this Asus 7750, I had to fit a 6670 with the exact same cooler (745 as well funnily enough), but to make it fit, I had to take off the plastic shroud as it was being blocked by the cpu heatsink, the card was able to clear it then fine. Here's a pic, showing how it just about cleared the cpu cooler then. Is that pretty much the problem you're facing?



The only other option is to check whether or not whatever motherboard is in the 745, if it supports standard s775 coolers - not sure if the mounting holes are standard or propitiatory. If they were standard, be easy enough replace the heatsink with a free stock intel cooler and that would solve the problem.

col.in.Cr

TF,thanks for that replie and advice,I will open up the machine again at the Weekend and take another look but that seems to be the same problem yeah.

Cheers

col.in.Cr

Card squeezed in with plate removed,the machine is running well and the kid seems happy,thanks for the advice all.