CPU for Dell Optiplex 780 DT (400+ watts) Please help me

[cbteger]

I've probably spent days researching different PSU's and graphics cards copatible with this computer.. I would sure appreciate any advice.

Here's what I'm working with:

Dell Optiplex 780 DT (not Mini Tower or SFF one - its kind of a cross between the two and the case size presents problems with PSU - Also the mini Dell motherboard connector - wont work with most PSU.

I am trying to A) find a 400 or 450 watt PSU that will connect to motherboard (fitting in case would be nice however I am open to having the PSU outside the case if need be B) will a Sapphire Radeon HD 7750 1GB DDR5 Micro HDMI/DVI-I/Mini DP Low Profile PCI-Express work with the motherboard - i know hyperspin doesnt require a high end vid card however i wanted to see if PS2 roms would play smoother and possibly some games - primary use is for XBMC and Hyperspin

(see below specs)

Specs:

http://i.dell.com/sites/content/busi...tech-guide.pdf

Intel® Core™ 2 Duo E7500/2.93GHz, 3M, 1066FSB <-- DT is the case size (i have this mb see specs)

The PSU is killing me. I know they make ATX 24/20 pin big to mini adapters but Dell has dif pin settings etc. .

Any help would be greatfully appreciated.


-CBT

 

[swilczak]

Not all but some Dell models have a power supply with a different pin setup. On those models, if you plug in a standard atx psu it will start a fire. You have to check out the pc power and cooling PSU recommendation for Dell systems at www.pcpower.com/dell.html to find out.

 

[Kisianik]

My deepest condolences man, this PSU doesn't look good and not easy to find.

I will find the way to post unresponsive links - Dell just removed a lot of documents from its servers....

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/op780/en/SM/SM_DT/images/SystemBoardReshoot1.jpg

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/op780/en/SM/SM_DT/images/PowerSupplyReshootpreremoval.jpg

This is the PSU Removal Guide so you can see more details http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/op780/en/SM/SM_DT/power_supply.htm

This is 255 watt PSU. Lets see if we really need to look for an upgrade according to the Extreme Power Supply Calculator, I used your approximate data

System Type: 1 physical CPU
Motherboard: Regular - Desktop
CPU Socket: Not Sure - Show All CPUs
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E7500 2933 MHz Wolfdale-3M
CPU Utilization (TDP): 90% TDP

RAM: 4 Sticks DDR3 SDRAM
Video Card 1: AMD Radeon HD 7750

ATTENTION: FOR PERSONAL, NON-COMMERCIAL USE ONLY

Regular SATA: 2 HDDs

DVD-RW/DVD+RW Drive: 1 Drive

USB: 2 Devices

Fans
Regular: 2 Fans 92mm;

Keyboard and mouse: Yes

System Load: 90 %


Minimum PSU Wattage: 198 Watts
Recommended Wattage: 248 Watts

Even this way you are passing with your original 255 watt PSU, also consider the fact that generally Dell PSUs are under rated!

You saved, just get your card and enjoy your life, no worries.

 

[cbtegner]

AMD Radeon HD 7750

3DMark GPU Score:

2500







DirectX:

11



TDP:

55W



P3mark:

45 3DMarks / W




I am going to try putting this in my 780DT when I get home, not sure why i thought i would need 400Watts minimum for this card.

i bought a Dell 400W psu that people have used with other optiplex models - im hoping since its dell it will have the mini motherboard connection.

If im using 2 extenal hard drives with the computer does that affect the PSU needs

 

[Kisianik]

I used 2 SATA hard drives in calculation, so you are ok, which PSU model you got? Would it fit?

 

[cbtegner]

I used 2 SATA hard drives in calculation, so you are ok, which PSU model you got? Would it fit?

The Radeon HD7750 works fine with the origional psu (and yes I did unplug the cd rom and put a sata hdd in - so 2 hdds in comp) Got a disk failure warning and i imagine it is due to the psu load. I also want to eventually upgrade the cpu to a quad core which i would imagine would take a higher watt psu.

So heres where i am (wiring pinout above for both clips to MB)

F5114-350W - Dell F5114 400 Watt Power Supply Upgrade

Product Description:
This 400 watt power supply was retrofitted to fit in place of your original F5114 power supply. It mounts in the same place as your original power supply and uses two screws to hold it in place. This power supply is required to replace power supplies in Dell Optiplex GX280 SD (Small Desktop) computers and others. This power supply has all of the special dell connectors needed to get your GX280 SD back up and running. Plus this power supply was specially designed with a PCI Express plug just for that new video graphics card you may be installing.

Technical Specs:

5" Wide X 2.5" Tall X 4.75" Deep
One ATX Connector (20/24 pin)
One P4 Connector
Two PCI Express Connectors (6-pin)
Four Molex Connectors
Three Sata Connectors
One HP video Connector
One 6-Pin AUX Connector
One Floppy Connector
One Dell 6 pin Connector
Weight: 3.0000 lbs
Output Max. Load
+3.3V 12A
-12V 0.8A
+12V 20A
+5V 21A
-5V 0.5A
+5Vsb 3A


I cut the wires from the origional PSU bc of the smaller connector to motherboard. I am carefully looking at the pin layout for both psu's and i am going to splice the wires together.

The thing that throws me off is that the brown and orange wire are in the same pin on the larger atx clip, on he Dell optiplex small one the brown one has its own pin. Also the seperate 4 pin part on the larger atx clip has orange yellow red black, this is not mentioned on the above pin out.

Another question: if I connect a red wire to a red wire (provided its all equal) does it matter which red wire to which red wire etc or is it specific? I am trying to avoid destroying the motherboard and more importantly creating a small fire in my 2 bedroom condo - I do have a little experience with similar tasks. I put a wire with a black one in my light unit a week ago and the light blew and the box near it - embers everywhere and complete blackout - I realize that was stupid, so im asking now before i fiddle with things..

 

[cbtegner]

I used 2 SATA hard drives in calculation, so you are ok, which PSU model you got? Would it fit?

Here is a larger picture of the pin layouts - the top being the clip that i am attaching to the 400w psu (top is layout for optiplex 780dt, bottom is diagram for the 400 watt dell psu i bought that had a standard atx sized clip)

 

[Kisianik]

First impression of you - WHOAAAA , you going nuts with power supply, well my deepest respect for you for doing this, no joking this time.

I would probably look for 24 to 20 pin adapter in this case, but it is too late now, good luck!

 

[mikef845]

I'm running a SAPPHIRE ATI Radeon HD 7750 1GB GDDR5 LOW PROFILE which was advertised on ebay for AUD $154. I got it because the onboard Intel GMA 4500 MultiMedia Accelerator chip isn't adequate for some games. The 7750 is 10-29 x faster than the GMA 4500. The 7750 maximum power draw is 55W. This is well within the PCI-E slot limit of 75W.

The computer is a Dell Optiplex 780 3.3 GHz Core 2 Duo with 2 x 2 Gb DDR3 RAM. Windows 7 Pro 64 bit. I bought it ex-lease for $220. The 265W power supply doesn't even have a PCI-E 4 pin or 6 pin connector. So the graphics card has to draw all of its power from the PCI-E slot. That's why I chose the 7750.

The 7770 is 30% more powerful, but it requires up to 80W. Also it says it needs a power connector. I decided not to spend even more money on a new PS. My electricity bill is already too high. Plus the 7770 requires two slots for the metal bracket. I could modify the bracket and case to make things fit, but it would be messy.

I play games at 1024 x 768 or 1280 x 960. The 7750 is claimed to struggle at resolutions like 1920 on games like the latest Battlefield or Call of Duty. But I don't play those games. I turn off Anti-Aliasing and Anistropic filtering. I can't see any point in these functions at higher resolutions.

I used GPU Caps Viewer from http://www.ozone3d.net/gpu_caps_viewer/
I tried the GL 2.1 Furry Cube benchmark to max out the card. The GPU Utilisation is 99%. The card temp goes up to 73C with the fan at 50% speed. Fan noise was quiet. Power drain of the computer is only 144W. The average FPS is 110 in windowed display. This is way above the 30-50 fps I expect. When playing games, the temp doesn't seems to go above 60C.

For the 3DMark06 GPU test, it manages SM3.0 Score of 7009 compared to the GMA 4500 score of 475, 29 x faster.

For a low power, low profile card, the 7750 is good. It works fine with less than 300 W power supplies.

An alternative is the Zotac GTX 650:
http://www.zotacusa.com/geforce-gtx-650-lp-zt-61008-10m.html
But I can't get it in my country.

 

[cat1092]

So this PSU fits a Dell 780 DT edition OK? I ask because mine shipped with the Intel Core 2 Quad Q9650 (the best of the consumer/business CPU line), and added a Dell OEM Radeon 7570 (1GB GDDR5), sometimes I can hear that PSU under load. Like if a scheduled AV/Malware scan kicks in.

I found the site & is still offered, was there a lot of trouble in making this work? BTW, the Optiplex 780 wasn't listed as compatible, yet I've used PSU's from the same brand & era in other computers (such as a Dell Dimension 3000 PSU in a 2400 tower).

If this is an easy & safe install, I'd happily pull the trigger, please advise how things went. 400W would not only give me breathing room, would also allow me to upgrade to a 7750/7770. though I know that the bracket on these must be modified. Or I may find a nVidia alternative. There was a Dell OEM nVidia GeForce GTX 645 that also shipped with some XPS 8700 models & their low profile Alienware series that could be a drop in fit & make it a really decent PC. Not that it's not already, it's just that the current GPU limits me to a WEI of 6.9. Everything else is above 7, and surprisingly, on a SATA-2 connection, get a 7.8 WEI reading, had to re-perform the test to ensure this.

So if this will work, I can further upgrade the GPU & still have breathing room.

Cat

 

[mikef845]

So this PSU fits a Dell 780 DT edition OK? I ask because mine shipped with the Intel Core 2 Quad Q9650 (the best of the consumer/business CPU line), and added a Dell OEM Radeon 7570 (1GB GDDR5), sometimes I can hear that PSU under load. Like if a scheduled AV/Malware scan kicks in.

I found the site & is still offered, was there a lot of trouble in making this work? BTW, the Optiplex 780 wasn't listed as compatible, yet I've used PSU's from the same brand & era in other computers (such as a Dell Dimension 3000 PSU in a 2400 tower).

If this is an easy & safe install, I'd happily pull the trigger, please advise how things went. 400W would not only give me breathing room, would also allow me to upgrade to a 7750/7770. though I know that the bracket on these must be modified. Or I may find a nVidia alternative. There was a Dell OEM nVidia GeForce GTX 645 that also shipped with some XPS 8700 models & their low profile Alienware series that could be a drop in fit & make it a really decent PC. Not that it's not already, it's just that the current GPU limits me to a WEI of 6.9. Everything else is above 7, and surprisingly, on a SATA-2 connection, get a 7.8 WEI reading, had to re-perform the test to ensure this.

So if this will work, I can further upgrade the GPU & still have breathing room.

Cat

The Radeon 7570 sounds like it is as powerful as the HD 7750.

The Dell 780 SFF has a 265W PS. Power usage varies from 75W to 120W when not using the graphics card. So there's plenty of power for a small graphics card. But it can only supply 65W through the PCI-E slot. You mightn't need a bigger PS.
The CPU is a Core 2 Duo E8600 3.3 GHz. It works fine with an ATI HD 7750 which doesn't need a power cable. I was going to buy an ATI HD 7770, but I decided to play it safe and get the 7750. It plugged straight in, and I've been using it on full CPU and GPU load. HD 7750 gives a WEI of 7.4, not really worth upgrading from a GTX 645 by the sound of it.

The ATI HD 7770 is about 20% more powerful, but needs a power cable. It would fry the motherboard without a power cable.
Power cables can be found on ebay by searching for:
sata to video power cable

There must be newer cards than the HD 7750/7770 by now.

 

[cat1092]

Actually, mine isn't the SFF (smallest sized) PC, rather the DT (mid-sized) edition. Dell built these in three sizes, the SFF PC can only hold up to 8GB RAM, while the DT holds up to 16GB DDR3 RAM (1600MHz, though downclocked to 1333MHz). The PSU is a bit larger, 280W if not mistaken, otherwise I don't see a high powered Core 2 Quad Q9650, 16GB RAM, and the Dell OEM Radeon 7570 running all at once, plus using the OC provided by AMD, have squeezed a bit more performance out of it for when needed, like viewing Google Earth.

I'm not a gamer, so much anything beyond 1GB GDDR5 would be a waste on that PC.

Plus there's a mid tower version of the PC, which I'd loved to have had, could had just installed a new PSU & dropped in a GeForce GTX 750 Ti or similar card, maybe even a GTX 960 (2 or 4GB GDDR5) variant. EVGA produces a 4GB model perfect for small computers, though the 128 bit bus limits the 4GB memory of the card, isn't really that much better than the more common 2GB versions, otherwise the price would be more than a $35 difference.

I just like to upgrade where I can, and was hoping that the 400W would had fitted in the Optiplex 740 DT or Desktop Edition (again, not to be confused with the SFF version which is more scaled down). I don't see a dedicated GPU along with a Q9650 in that PC, unless there's a PSU upgrade available.

Again, am open to hearing if this 400W PSU works in the Optiplex 780 DT, may email or call the seller of the component, need to check the warranty for the PSU anyway. Don't know if it's new, or has been modded into a 400W version using smaller cases, someone with the skills can do much anything desired, these are the same folks who builds (or rebuilds) AC/DC motors, generators & presume could do a PSU the same way. ;-)

Cat

 

[mikef845]

Actually, mine isn't the SFF (smallest sized) PC, rather the DT (mid-sized) edition. Dell built these in three sizes, the SFF PC can only hold up to 8GB RAM, while the DT holds up to 16GB DDR3 RAM (1600MHz, though downclocked to 1333MHz). The PSU is a bit larger, 280W if not mistaken, otherwise I don't see a high powered Core 2 Quad Q9650, 16GB RAM, and the Dell OEM Radeon 7570 running all at once, plus using the OC provided by AMD, have squeezed a bit more performance out of it for when needed, like viewing Google Earth.

I'm not a gamer, so much anything beyond 1GB GDDR5 would be a waste on that PC.

Plus there's a mid tower version of the PC, which I'd loved to have had, could had just installed a new PSU & dropped in a GeForce GTX 750 Ti or similar card, maybe even a GTX 960 (2 or 4GB GDDR5) variant. EVGA produces a 4GB model perfect for small computers, though the 128 bit bus limits the 4GB memory of the card, isn't really that much better than the more common 2GB versions, otherwise the price would be more than a $35 difference.

I just like to upgrade where I can, and was hoping that the 400W would had fitted in the Optiplex 740 DT or Desktop Edition (again, not to be confused with the SFF version which is more scaled down). I don't see a dedicated GPU along with a Q9650 in that PC, unless there's a PSU upgrade available.

Again, am open to hearing if this 400W PSU works in the Optiplex 780 DT, may email or call the seller of the component, need to check the warranty for the PSU anyway. Don't know if it's new, or has been modded into a 400W version using smaller cases, someone with the skills can do much anything desired, these are the same folks who builds (or rebuilds) AC/DC motors, generators & presume could do a PSU the same way. ;-)

Cat

According to
http://ark.intel.com/products/35428/Intel-Core2-Quad-Processor-Q9650-12M-Cache-3_00-GHz-1333-MHz-FSB
The Q9650 draws max 95W. Let's say the motherboard uses 50W and 30W for drives. This still leaves 100W for a graphics card if you use a PCI-E power cable.
I invested in a power wattmeter. This gives the real power usage, not a calculation. Then you'll know how much power you really have to spare. The wattmeter can also tell the power usage of other electrical devices in the building. It could pay for itself in the first 3 months.

 

[cat1092]

You're right, I do need one, because I probably went overkill with a PSU purchased just minutes ago for an AMD AM3+ build, running a FX-6300, a MSI AMD Radeon 7770 OC edition (1GB GDDR5), 12GB RAM, two SSD's & two 500GB WE RE4 HDD's.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?item=N82E16817438054

Yet I did look at lower powered options, way too many negatives for my comfort. Plus it's replacing a Thermaltake 600W model, when the HDD's are connected, the system won't post beyond the ASRock splash screen. It's probably a dying PSU, has ran at a lot of hours in a 6 year span.

The other thing with the lower priced PSU's were that the 'good ones' weren't that lower (maybe $10 or so), so why purchase Bronze with 15-20% one & two egg ratings (plus only a 2-3 year warranty), when for a few bucks more get one so far w/out negative reviews, plus a 7 year warranty. EVGA will stand behind what they sell, would had went with an EVGA GPU if it weren't for my loyalty to MSI, the brand has never failed me.

Hopefully this is indeed a killer PSU, because am going to be performing a build, if it's good, will buy another when the time comes.

And yes, I need that wattmeter, that way, I can see what anything is using.

Cat

 

[cat1092]

I know this Topic is a bit dated, just want to know one thing, is this the PSU used & did it fit the Optiplex 780 DT w/out modification? Noticed that there's a Dell MB adapter included, so maybe all of the wires aren't needed, may be an AIO type of PSU to fit several brands/models of SFF computers.

http://www.atxpowersupplies.com/350-Watt-Dell-F5114-Power-Supply-F5114-350W.php

What I want to do, and will require some modding (the dual slot can carefully be cut in half, or removed altogether), is to make my MSI R7770 AMD Radeon GPU to work with this PC. It was my first upgrade of a new GPU, and has been in at least three other PC's since. May have to remove the cover also for clearance. Considering that many SFF PC GPU's has no cover, I don't see it to be an issue, I keep cans of air on hand to blow my computers out regularly.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127687

At any rate, can this PSU be used w/out splicing of wires? I would have asked them by email, though there was none for customer service, only a phone number. Don't want to speak with someone who may or may not know if this will work & only knows to say 'Yes' to gain sales.

Thanks for any input!

Cat