- Joined
- Jun 13, 2017
- Messages
- 3,207
- Motherboard
- Gigabyte A520i AC
- CPU
- Ryzen 7 4700G
- Graphics
- Radeon Vega 8
- Mac
- Classic Mac
- Mobile Phone
craighazan's [WIP] Build:
Dell Optiplex 7040 MT — i5-6600 — RX 560
Dell Optiplex 7040 MT — i5-6600 — RX 560
Components
Dell Optiplex 7040 MT motherboard JCTF8. Amazon — Newegg — Ebay
6th gen Intel i5-6600 @3.3GHz, boost 3.9GHz, HD 530. Amazon — Newegg
Crucial 16GB Kit (8GBx2) DDR4 2400 MT/s (PC4-19200) SR x8 DIMM 288-Pin Memory. Amazon — Newegg
Thermaltake Gravity i2 95W 7-Bladed 92mm 4-Pins PWM Aluminum Extrusion CPU Cooling Fan. Amazon — Newegg
MSI AERO ITX RX 560 4 GB GDDR5 OC. Amazon — eBay
Dell Optiplex 7040MT SATA power cable. eBay
Already Owned
Dell Optiplex 7010/9010 MT power button cable. Salvaged from a Optiplex 7010
Intel CPU cooler.
HP SSD EX920 M.2 256GB. Amazon — Newegg
Dell 250W SFF PSU. Salvaged from a Optiplex 9020
Gigabyte RX 570. Amazon — Newegg
Dual Band BCM94360CS2 PCI-E 867Mbps 802.11AC BT4.0 Wifi PCI-Express adapter card. Amazon — Newegg
Comments
The Story: After using new motherboards for my last two builds, I wanted to get back to starting from a budget board. I felt restricted by the Optiplex 9020 SFF and couldn't upgrade it as much as I wanted to, but the Dell 7040 gave me much better options for a mid range gaming build. Fortunately the only parts I had to buy for this build were the motherboard, RAM and processor, I salvaged the power switch cable and PSU from the 9020, I already owned a HP EX920 256GB NVMe, stock Intel CPU cooler, Dual Band BCM94360CS2 PCI-E 867Mbps 802.11AC BT4.0 Wifi PCI-Express Adapter Card and a Gigabyte RX 570.
BIOS: I came across pastrychef's $62 Dell Optiplex 3050 Clunker and used the same BIOS settings from his build.
General > Boot Sequence > UEFI | System Configuration > SATA Operation > AHCI | System Configuration > Serial Port > Disabled |
|
|
|
Installation: I already had a Catalina 10.15.4 USB installer and using this EFI folder, (attached at the bottom of the post). I was able to boot to desktop pretty quickly. I updated to 10.15.5 without any issues.
Benchmarks: The GB5 score surprised me!, my Mac mini has H110 chipset paired with a 13-7100 and it just gets over 2000. This Q170 chipset paired with 1 generation older i5-6600 scores far higher.
HP recently supplied me with a new EX920, replacing one I returned after it burned out after 1 month!. This one though seems much happier, it even reached 67 C under benching and managed to survive. Technically there are three slots you can install an NVMe, the regular slot and via an adapter, the X4 slot and X16 slot.
M.2 Slot | X4 Slot via adapter | X16 Slot via adapter |
|
|
|
Attachments
Last edited: