Building a Pretty Incredible Budget Gaming PC Out of a 2013 Dell Optiplex 9020, a GTX 1650, and Various Adapters
Friday, February 19, 2021 at 9:42PM First off, let me warn you, the reader, before you get too far into this post: NERD ALERT! We are going to do a deep dive into purchasing a circa-2013 Dell Optiplex 9020 business-class mini tower PC, with the ultimate goal of turning it into a VERY respectable gaming PC.
Before we get started, we need to answer the question, WHY? Why would we want to do this? The answer to that question is: for very little money, you can purchase a complete PC that, with a few upgrades, can be transformed into a highly functioning gaming rig with the capability of playing nearly any game being sold today. More and more family and friends have been asking me to build them gaming PCs. A recent request from a friend was, "What's the least amount of money we will need to spend and still be able to game?" That was the impetus for this project.
The Dell Optiplex 9020 comes with an i5, or i7 processor, 8 or 16 GB of RAM, and a 290 watt power supply in a mini tower case. It can support up to 32 gigs of DDR3 RAM at 1600 mhz, and is able to integrate and power many video cards such as a GTX 1050, GTX 1060, Radeon RX 470, and GTX 1650. Additionally, with a simple power supply upgrade, even more capable video cards can be installed. If you decide to go with a higher-end video card, you'll need this adapter to convert an ATX power supply 24 pin connector to the Dell 8 pin:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07XRKT7SH/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Image of the inside of a Dell Optiplex 9020 computer:
If you want to get the most out of the installed video card, anything more powerful than a GTX 1650 may also need an i7 4 core/8 thread processor as in some games, the CPU might be running at 100%, bottlenecking the system and resulting in choppy, stuttering gameplay.
Where should you look for a system? I scoured the internet checking out deals for a Dell Optiplex 9020. They can be found for sale on many different websites such as eBay, Craigslist, Amazon, etc. I finally decided on a decent system from Amazon.com. Some of the benefits of buying from Amazon Renewed are the computer comes with a 90 day warranty, and it ships with a new, albeit very janky, keyboard and mouse. One drawback of purchasing from Amazon is that the systems are a bit more expensive than a system purchased from eBay.
The 9020 I bought from Amazon cost $177 and included free shipping. It came with Windows 10 Home (which I promptly reset and reinstalled), an i5 4690 processor, 8 GB of RAM, and a 500 GB hard drive. A similar spec system on eBay right now with Windows 10 Pro is only $149.00 with free shipping:
The first thing I noticed when opening up the case was the lack of a PCIe power connector on any cable coming out of the 290 watt power supply. How then can we power a video card that requires additional power from the power supply? Easy. Just disconnect the SATA power from the DVD drive, connect both ends of this adapter to the two SATA power connectors on that cable, and then connect the 6 pin on the other end to the video card:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01DV1Z5S6/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
It works flawlessly and I have zero need for the DVD drive. Your other option is to purchase a new power supply.
I ended up installing a Gigabyte 1650 Windforce OC* video card in my Optiplex and was shocked to see that with only that one upgrade, many hours of gaming fun was had. Total cost for the gaming PC at this point- $384.49, less than a new console, and significantly more powerful. Power draw at the wall was under 200 watts, well beneath the rating of the 290 watt power supply, and the system was, and still is, rock solid with absolutely no issues.
*I purchased this video card in early January, prior to the explosion in prices of video cards due to the latest crypto-mining craze.
Since that point in time, in an effort to see just how much performance I could eke out of this system, I added some additional upgrades. Using the now unused DVD drive's SATA data cable, I installed a Samsung EVO SSD beneath the hard drive, and powered it with the second SATA power connector on the hard drive power cable. I terminated the other end of the SSD's SATA data cable into the motherboard in the SATA port right next to the port being used by the hard drive. Using Samsung's Data Migration software, I cloned the Windows 10 installation on the hard drive over to the SSD. You can find that software here:
https://www.samsung.com/semiconductor/minisite/ssd/download/tools/
Next, I purchased and installed (2) 4 GB 1600 mhz DDR3 sticks of RAM, and upgraded the Core i5 4690 to a Core i7 4790. The difference was pretty amazing. I was able to change game settings from low-medium in most games with framerate locked to 144, to medium-high and a framerate set to my monitor's maximum of 165. I then turned off the framerate limiter and found Fortnite rendering above 180 FPS at medium-high settings.
Image of Fortnite gameplay rendering 181 FPS:
Right now as I type this, my daughter is playing Valorant and Fortnite, and is oblivious to the fact that she is having all of the fun that she is having on a computer originally built and sold in 2013. I have put additional information into a Google Doc for those of you that are interested. It is here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pCEf7XoRrvTdrUdiqUlolv-9g_uf65CUrTeHvbMZUaI/edit
After all of the additional upgrades, the computer still comes in at less than $450. As of this moment, the most inexpensive gaming PC at Best Buy is $849.00 and comes with an nVidia GT 710 video card. The video card in our Optiplex build is literally 1000% better than the one in the Best Buy system.
Feel free to hit me up on Twitter if you have any questions about this project or a similar one.
Benchmarks:
Cinebench R15
Graphics- 110.17
CPU- 765
Time Spy
Overall- 3727
Graphics- 3691
CPU- 3952
CH
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