What aftermarket motherboards fit in the dell xps 710

micmunch24

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I recently got a dell xps 710 for cheap. I really like the case, but its about time to redo the internals. I want get an aftermarket motherboard compatible with usb 3.0 ect ect. I am aware about the copy of windows being tied to the bois, and the io being proprietary. I want more information about that, and what other motherboards fit in the case. Is it even possible to replace it? Thanks.
 
Dell XPS 710 uses BTX (for Balanced Technology eXtended) form factor for its motherboard. BTX was originally intended to be the replacement for the aging ATX motherboard form factor in late 2004 and early 2005. However, future development of BTX retail products by Intel was canceled in September 2006.

BTX was abandoned years ago, but you will find Gateway and Dell products from that era that used it. Current retail box motherboards aren't available in that form factor. BTX cases are also discontinued.
 

micmunch24

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Thank you for answering, my friend has a newer xps (he claims its pre 2010 but it think its a bit newer) it has an i7 8gb ram. Hypothetically could his motherboard fit in my case? I really like my case :)
 
Dell MB swaps are very risky. They use proprietary front panel connectors and change the pinouts on them, the rear I/O is built into the case so metal work is required, and there are metal supports under the MB at various places that can cause problems if they don't match. You can add USB3 via expansion cards, and front headers that go in the floppy bay (some with SSD mounts also). It is possible to overclock one of these beasts, and dual GPU support is pretty cool. A QX6800 SLACP can go 3.73GHZ." Throttlestop" software gives control of voltage and multiplier. Powering the fan off of a Molex frees up some watts for the overclock( use sleep mode to ignore BIOS error message at boot). You already have a good cooler, I'm not sure which fan you have, or how much room there is for an upgrade but they do exist if needed. Heatsinking the VRM chips also.
 
Intel BTX has a locked down BIOS as far as I know. The board you have is about as good as it gets in BTX. What board# do you have. I've seem some listed as DDR3 some DDR2. You have 4 phase VRM, rare in a Dell. Your AGP16x slot is 1 slot back from the cooler mounting so 2 slot video card will fit (rare in BTX). There's another AGP slot so you still have one left after GPU covers the 1x slot. XPS has more Bios options than other Dells. Don't know which though. I think it should support 1333fsb. QX9650 can be overclcoked,QX6850 also. In 1066fsb QX6800SLACP, X6800 also. DDR2-800=DDR3 1066 due to lower latency. In LGA775 speeds there's not much in it either way. I've been looking at BTX MBs for years, yours is one of the best already. I'm getting 3.73GHZ on a 1st Generation Quad. You should get that or more with 45nm chips. Better video card support. You probably already have a good heatpipe cooler D9729, or T9303(better). Forget the MB swap just overclcock what you have, max. out the memory, and good GPU. You can look at my posts and pics. at Overclock.net as Retrorockit. Throttlestop software gets control of volts and Multiplier in Windows, with Core2Extreme it allows overclcocking. I'm actually jealous of what you already have .