Log Dell Optiplex 7060 Gaming Build UPDATED.

[Knoxtane]

So ever since I got into PC gaming/building I've always wanted to turn a Optiplex or some sort of Small Form Factor business PC into a gaming system. Well, seeing how my previous PC was a bit older and somewhat lacking in the CPU department with an i7-7700 and an Entry level RX 570 4GB Card. I decided to browse Amazon for a "NEW" refurbished Dell Optiplex that had a MINIMUM i7-8700 with no less than 16GBs of RAM, everything else could be ironed out later.

I ended up finding this system for around $370 USD, it didn't come with a GPU. It had the CPU, RAM, 500GB M.2 and some free "e-waste" peripherals.

Next was my choice of GPU, it was either the AMD RX 6400 4GB Single slot card, Intel's Arc A310 4GB Single Slot card OR the small but mighty Nvidia RTX A2000 6GB ECC Dual Slot Small Form Factor GPU. My dilemma was buy a single slot card to fit into the PCIe x16 slot but have a "less" powerful card OR buy the RTX A2000 and have it slotted into the PCIe x4 slot, where I'd lose around 4% to 7% of the cards performance. After looking at tons of benchmarks on YouTube, Userbenchmark, Toms Hardware and Versus; I decided to purchase the RTX A2000 knowing I'd lose some performance but have a beast of a card that has some great features such as DLSS and DLAA. Ray tracing is not something I use as I still game on 1080p and I'm a casual gamer for the most part. The RTX A2000 was $400 Refurbished as well but "Like New" from Amazon. Overall the cosmetic appearance of both the system and GPU are not that bad as you can see from the photos posted below.

Having a six core CPU with a new coat of thermal paste paired with the RTX A2000 and AtlasOS v0.4.0 this system is BLAZING fast as far as using it as a daily driver! Gaming is more than enough for my expectations with CS2, War Thunder, Horizon Zero Dawn, MGSV, and Overwatch 2. I have played Call of Duty Warzone but that does require bumping the settings to minimum OR High/Normal with DLSS set to Quality to achieve my monitors max refresh rate of 75hz.

Well here it is! The, "Dell Optiplex 7060 SSF KNX"

Here are the following specs:

• CPU: Intel Core i7-8700 (6 Cores, 12 Threads) @ 3.20 GHz
• COOLER: STOCK with Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut High Performance Thermal Paste
• RAM: 32GB DDR4 (4x8GB) @ 2133MHz (Planning on upgrading to 2666 MHz)
• GPU: Nvidia RTX A2000 6GB GDDR6 ECC
• STORAGE (OS): 512GB m.2 NVMe SSD
• STORAGE (PRIMARY): 1TB SAMSUNG 860 EVO SSD
• OS: AtlasOS v0.4.0 (W10)

I'll post some benchmarks of games I play here. probably around 2 minutes or so of footage per benchmark.

Some images of my set-up.

 

[rfarmer]

On Intel 300 series motherboards there are 24 PCI lanes on the chipset and that is what the M.2 will use, the 16 PCI lanes from the CPU will be used for the 3.0x16 PCI slot.

 

[RAAM]

I have a 7040 I modded up a bit then bought a 5080 which is a stripped down 7080 with bad MB so swapped it to a 7980MB.
I am preparing both to sell and have parts to supe them up a bit of leave them more stock and sell that way.
I was starting putting to much money into the 7080 and decided to build a new(mostly used parts) i5 13600k SFF.
I even had the new version 7010 MB for the 15,13600k.

Anyway, I really like these computers and if interested I have some parts for sale.

300 Watt PS, tested in the 7080, will test in the 7040 as well.
CPU cooler, I have to look it up but far more effective Dell as has heat pipes( have to mod the drive bays and use angled cables with it but could do a trade for stock ones, etc.
Front case fan, better than stock, with dust filter
Other parts like RAM you do not need
PCI and NVME WiFi/BT cards
Various drives but going to keep most of them likely for the 7040, 7080 and wife's laptop though I might end up with an HDD or two available as I just use SSD and NVMe now.

Rick

 

[Knoxtane]

Well, so far so good! I've added what I needed/wanted into the PC!

I added the RTX A2000 6GB GDDR6 ECC and my 1TB 2.5" SSD.

Below are some pictures of it and a benchmark video with Horizon Zero Dawn.

 

[RAAM]

Very cool indeed

My buddy has a 7060 i7 and the NVME was getting pretty hot so he added a front case fan. He used one of the 10 Arctic PMW P9 fans I bought for my Ridge build and it lowered the temp from something like 72c to mid 40s.

I installed an OEM fan in the 7080 and had to use a splitter and barely fit, his turned out much better and the wire was long enough to reach back to the CPU header.

I was going to use the i7-10700k thus bought the 300 watt PS and OEM higher end heat sink. I ended up with a bad 7080 MB so bought a new model 7010 and an i7-1300k, like me to get too carried away, decided it was time to build the Fractal Ridge instead. Got a MB that had locked BIOS I could not unlock so sent it back along with the 300 watt PS that it needed...

I really like the Dell SFF units, even thought of retrofitting in a M-ITX MB....but in the end the FR is better for me so now getting the 7080 ready to sell but would keep it if I had a need for it. I might decided to try the i7-10700k and a good graphics card, I can borrow one from him, just to see how well I can make it work before I sell it.

 

[Knoxtane]

RESERVED FOR BENCHMARK VIDEOS.

 

[Snerual]

It's truly baffling Dell put the PCIe 16x slot in the bottom position. Every other motherboard puts the fastest PCIe slot closest to the CPU for better signal integrity. Truly the only reason to do it this way is to deter people from installing the A2000 and similar cards... I guess it would make these Optiplexes "too good" and Dell would lose an upsell to some more expensive system...

 

[RAAM]

I wonder if anyone has tried flipping the card upside down and using a riser cable, mod or make a new bracket, might need additional support, etc...that way a double wide card would work I would think, perhaps even a bit wider than that.

Rick

 

[milesvw]

PSA if anyone wants to attempt this, make sure you are getting a good deal. Prices on ebay currently:

DELL 7060 SFF $85
i7 8700 $95
2666 32gb $50

Amazon
RTX 3050 $180
RTX 4060 $300

Although I'll be honest I think trying for a 12th gen or newer (a different model number) is a good idea, as even an $80 i3 12100 is faster than an i7 8700.

I highly recommend the 2TB Silicon Power US75 NVMe as it is on sale.

 

[RAAM]

I think you meant Dell 7060, not HP.

To run a 12th gen CPU it requires the new version of the 7000 series, the prior versions, 7060, 70 and 80...will not support the 12th gen. I bought the newest 7010 MB and power supply to replace the 7080 MB as it would only run the 10th gen, as I wanted to run the 13th gen i5-13600k (overkill by a fair margin)

Rick

 

[milesvw]

I think you meant Dell 7060, not HP.

To run a 12th gen CPU it requires the new version of the 7000 series, the prior versions, 7060, 70 and 80...will not support the 12th gen. . . I bought the newest 7010 MB and power supply

Rick

Fixed