The 4K Dell OptiMac - 9020 MT - Core i7-4790 - Radeon RX 570 - LG 4K IPS Monitor

[trs96]

I didn't know if you still wanted this, but below is a link with the specs to the discontinued HP Z27q.

It looks like it could work. Will your wife be using the full 5K resolution ? It will probably need HiDPI scaling for reading text and even viewing icons. Also make sure you have return rights if for some reason it doesn't work out.

 

[XmasGiftWIP]

It looks like it could work. Will your wife be using the full 5K resolution ? It will probably need HiDPI scaling for reading text and even viewing icons. Also make sure you have return rights if for some reason it doesn't work out.

The plan hopefully is to use 2560x1440 at 200% HiDPI scaling.

Figure that's about as close as I can get to the actual 27" iMac display.

 

[lcann25]

Has anyone tried this graphics card? https://www.visiontek.com/ocpc-radeon-rx-560-4gb-gddr5.html

I can get one fairly reasonably priced right now if it will work

 

[trs96]

I

I'm in Canada, A Canadian online retailer called Mike's computer has it for $129

The MSI RX 560 is slightly better but I see it's not for sale at Newegg.ca
I think that card should work ok though I've never heard of that brand before.
Just make sure you've got 30 day return rights.

 

[trs96]

A really good deal right now at Newegg in the US is for an RX 570 by Sapphire for $110 after promo code. Think you must be a US resident to take advantage of that. Has free shipping too. It performs much better than the 4GB RX 560. It's a mini-itx version of the 570 Pulse.

SAPPHIRE PULSE Radeon RX 570 DirectX 12 100412P4GITXL 4GB 256-Bit GDDR5 CrossFireX Support ITX Video Card - Newegg.com

Buy SAPPHIRE PULSE Radeon RX 570 4GB GDDR5 CrossFireX Support ITX Video Card 100412P4GITXL with fast shipping and top-rated customer service. Once you know, you Newegg!

www.newegg.com

Free shipping but they will add local + state sales tax for US residents.

 

[trs96]

A good basic Corsair case to transplant your Dell Optiplex MT into​

If you haven't fallen for all the latest RGB and tempered glass fads and just want a reliable well designed case to move your system into take a look at the Corsair Carbide 200R. $54 shipped after rebate. These are said to be going out of production soon but are still available until stock runs out.

https://www.newegg.com/black-corsair-carbide-series-200r-atx-mid-tower/p/N82E16811139018?Item=N82E16811139018

It's a mostly toolless design with good airflow and more than enough room for your system. You must use a standard ATX power supply in this. The Dell OEM cables are not long enough. You will also need the moddiy.com 24 to 8 pin adapter for the 3rd party PSU to work. https://www.moddiy.com/products/Dell-OptiPlex-9020-PSU-Main-Power-24%2dPin-to-8%2dPin-Adapter-Cable-(30cm).html

The one last note is that you must mod the 5 pin power switch connector on the motherboard to be able to hook up the case power switch. Until you do that you can use the pwr button cable from your Dell case. Shorting the two pins together as in the image below will also work. I'll be posting long term solution later on for anyone that's interested.

 

[XmasGiftWIP]

Hi @trs96,

Most of my parts finally came in, but I'm having quite a time with the NVMe drive.

CCC had no problem duplicating my Sata SSD,

1) I've added the supplied NVMe driver to my SATA Drive;
2) I've repaired permissions using Disk Utility;
3) I've run Kext Utility as a just in case measure.

The NVMe drive shows up once I log in to Mojave, but is not available in the Clover boot menu.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Edit:Interestingly, reading back through the thread, I saw that @tofeeq mentioned that they found success formatting to HFS+ instead of APFS.

I tried it and immediately had success in Clover. Now my next problem is me Geek Bench scores. They are fairly awful compared to the figures posted on the first page with the exception of the NVMe.

To add a little more info, as shown in the photos, I'm using Geek Bench 5 and have 32GB of 1600Mhz RAM installed.

Video card is AMD WX 4100.

NVMe is WD Black SN750 (1TB) in a PCIe x4 adapter.

Once again, any and all help is greatly appreciated.

 

[trs96]

Most of my parts finally came in, but I'm having quite a time with the NVMe drive.

The GB5 scores are going to be much lower than what we're used to seeing from GB4, the ones that I posted in the fourth post of this thread. If you run GB4 on your system you'll likely see scores higher than what I got in GB4 testing.

The NVMe speed test scores are lower because the PCIe x4 slot you have it installed in is PCIe 2.0 revision and not 3.0 as the x16 is. If you were to use the x16 slot those scores would be much higher. Well over 2,000 MB/s reads and writes.

What you're getting for read write speeds is perfectly ok for everyday use and the things your wife will be doing. Almost 3x faster than a Sata SSD. The higher reads/writes are only a real benefit for things like 4K or higher video editing. Also, I just tested my i7-4790 system with GB5 and got scores slightly lower than you did. I've got much less ram installed than you. Less ram will give you lower scores. I got about 1000 single core and 3600 multicore for my scores.

 

[XmasGiftWIP]

The GB5 scores are going to be much lower than what we're used to seeing from GB4, the ones that I posted in the fourth post of this thread. If you run GB4 on your system you'll likely see scores higher than what I got in GB4 testing.

The NVME speed test scores are lower because the PCIe x4 slot you have it installed in are PCIe 2.0 and not 3.0 as the x16 is. If you were to use the x16 slot those scores would be much higher. Well over 2,000 MB/s reads and writes.

What you're getting for read write speeds is perfectly ok for everyday use and the things your wife will be doing. Almost 3x faster than a Sata SSD. The higher reads/writes are only a real benefit for things like 4K or higher video editing. Also, I just tested my i7-4790 system with GB5 and got scores slightly lower than you did. I've got much less ram installed than you. Less ram will give you lower scores.

Thanks, @trs96. I was just getting ready to edit my post after reading an article on Mac World explaining the differences between GB 4 and 5 with the quote:

“There’s a new scale: Geekbench 4 used a Microsoft Surface Book with an Intel Core i7-6600U processor as its baseline, with a score of 4,000 points. Geekbench 5 uses a Dell Precision 3430 with a Core i3-8100 processor as its baseline, with a score of 1,000 points. You can expect the same hardware to produce a score 75 to 80 percent lower on Geekbench 5.”

The NVMe performance seems pretty good considering the lower bandwidth/speed of the PCIe 2 lane.

On a separate note, any idea why the NVMe drive is bootable as HFS+ but not APFS?

 

[trs96]

any idea why the NVMe drive is bootable as HFS+ but not APFS?

Not completely sure why that is. I'm assuming that you let CCC do the NVME formatting for you automatically. Or did you use Disk Utility first to format APFS ? I tested out NVME in my Optiplex so long ago I don't remember exactly what I did then. It's actually now installed in my Win10 PC I use for work. I don't need those speeds in my Dell OptiMac for any reason.

I do know that it's best for any NVMe drive or SSD to be using the APFS file system with Mojave as that is what APFS is designed for. Gives you the best performance and all the new features that make APFS more desirable than the ancient HFS+ file system. Maybe some other NVMe owners that are booting with their drive as APFS can add some insights here. I can't take my NVME drive out of my work PC for testing in the OptiMac. It's the only NVMe I own currently.