A fun project with Dell Optiplex 990 SFF

raminjan

Hello guys, I have a fun and somewhat stupid project to do just for fun to see whats doable in the world of pc building. I have a Dell Optiplex 990 SFF. I have a GT 730 2 GB Low Profile Card which doesn’t work in this system. :D

I am planning on to swap the motherboard, CPU, and the PSU. I know this may sound crazy but I want to put a very small, yet compatible I/O motherboard for this fun dell optiplex 990 sff project. I want to see if I can modernize it otherwise, I do know this is somewhat crazy. I might as well just buy a new machine. But its not about that. It’s about the experiment of see whats possible if I want to give another life to this old pc.

So, can you all drop your opinion as far as what modern mini/micro atx motherboard would be both suitable for the dell optiplex 990 sff and the GT 730 card I got? Added, what 500 Watts PSU do you recommend?

Also please note that I as far as the CPU, I can do anything since the motherboard is going to get replaced.

Oh one last thing. I got these two DDR4 Sticks which I want to put in it: G.Skill Ripjaws V 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3200 PC4-25600 CL16 Dual Channel Desktop Memory Kit F4-3200C16D-16GVKB – Black

It would be fun to see this work. Thanks in advance.

magarity

Those Dell slim systems have completely proprietary layouts. In order to use an ITX or other standard format motherboard you need power tools (Dremel, etc) and a die and tap set to make new screw holes. So it doesn't matter what you get from a "best fit" point of view. Same for the power supply, the size of the bay and screw holes will be wrong so just get whatever and modify as needed.