Dell Optiplex 790 - Reuse..

macca72 · 7 Apr 2020 at 12:52

Afternoon all

My 8 year old wants a PC (very light gaming and mostly youtube / school work) and I picked up an old Dell Optiplex 790 a while ago.

I'm not really interested in using any of the parts, just wondered if I could re-use the case and what would fit into it - I assume someone has done this before.

Any tips / tricks / parts that I can use to bring this back to life - it's a perfect size unit for his room.

Thanks

Armageus · 7 Apr 2020 at 13:24

Either keep the machine as is (2nd gen i Series will be fine for youtube/school work), and add a couple of modest upgrades
e.g. cheap SSD - £20-£30
used i5 2400 or i5 2500 (not K) - around £15-£20

or junk the lot, as although the motherboard and PSU look to be standard sizes, I'm not sure that they actually are.

A new £25-£35 case will be miles better, with things like 120mm fan mounts and even RGB (which your kid will likely love) e.g.

My basket at Overclockers UK:

1 x Kolink Inspire Series K5 RGB Midi Tower Case - Black Window= £34.99

Total: £45.49 (includes shipping: £10.50)

Regality · 9 Apr 2020 at 15:27

Can always chuck a low profile graphics card in to cover the gaming, something like a used gtx 1050ti or worse. Would help to know the exact spec of the pc, but like Amrageus said, an i5 2400/2500 would be fine for it. Potentially a RAM upgrade would be good if its 4GB and you should be able to find cheap sticks used as well.

Curio · 9 Apr 2020 at 16:25

790's are pretty solid. As above, if you can throw in a low/mid range video card it will be fine for light gaming. YouTube and school work won't be any problem whatsoever.

JollysH1 · 10 Apr 2020 at 01:18

Armageus is correct,

"or junk the lot, as although the motherboard and PSU look to be standard sizes, I'm not sure that they actually are"

I did a recent build for a nephew using an Optiplex mid tower, and unless you want to start chopping cables, warming up the soldering iron and studying weird non translatable Chinese Pinout documents! don't even go there. The pin sizes/spacings and configs are all proprietary! it's an event just to get it into a new case.

ExoMale · 11 Apr 2020 at 19:42

if its the slim model maybe get an ssd and a gtx 1050 low profile depending on cpu if you wanted it for gaming. if its a tower then replace the internals depending what it is.

we got a dell 620 tower i upgraded with an i5 etc, the old dells are still pretty solid, i made this one into gaming before now into a works pc.