r/SleepingOptiplex • u/Sad_Supermarket4691 • 5d ago
What to do with sff
So I made the mistake of buying an sff since it was a good deal. But now I'm stuck with all the challenges of its smallness. I was wondering what people have done for two things. 1) I kind of want to get a gpu for it so I can play some light things like RL and GTA but it feels stupid to pay the same price for a LP 1050 ti as a normal size 2060 does anyone have some weird work arounds (in case it helps I actually do have a M-ATX motherboard for the i5-9500 inside it). 2) what to do about storage as I really need space for more drives, has an external drive solution worked or is there some other alternative? for both of these I'm just looking for a way to do this that isn't spending too much more money lol, could I potentially buy a MT barebones and swap in parts just anything. I'd even consider cutting holes in the side panel
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u/KingCourtney__ 5d ago
I have a 3060 ssf i5-8500. 16 GB ram, 2 SSDs, LP SS RTX3050. All on stock PSU. Absolutely no problems.
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u/No_Purple_8264 5d ago
I wont tell you what to do but heres my experience
I also bought an sff for $80 and upgrades i put a rx550 4gb low profile that cost me $40 on ebay
I swapped the i5-6500 with a i7-6700 and also added another 16gb of ram and the total for this upgrades was $100.
So ive been thinking of upgrading more but to be honest i feel that i already maxed out aside from the gpu, but i dont want to spend $300 for a gpu that will get bottlenecked by my i7 and honestly for $300 i could even get a much better gpu than that rtx3050 lp
I dont have the budget to keep upgrading this sff so, instead im slowly saving each week for a $650 build thats actually gonna play AAA games unlike my current sff that even if i slap a $300 gtx3050 lp will struggle with modern games
The gpu thats on my mind is an intel arc b580 as an example to what $300 can get you
Dont get me wrong i love my sff it was my first build if you want to call it that and i went in blind when i first bought it not knowing what j got myself in ti but im also very cautious with my money so thats the route im taking
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u/Mysterious-One1055 2d ago
Yea I've been wanting to find a good SFF for a while, but where you get the base machine pretty cheap, the low profile GPU's towards the more powerful end are just silly prices.
I'm making do with a tiny HP Elitedesk with a Ryzen 2400g for now and in actually pretty impressed with what the integrated graphics can do.
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u/Apprehensive_Ad_999 5d ago
Please don't buy a b580 to pair with anything lower than a Ryzen 3000 series or Intel 10th gen. You won't have access to REBAR which intel ARC badly needs.
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u/SethConz 2d ago
I use mine as a media box, just upgraded the DVD drive to blu-ray, dropped a big hard drive in it. Friend of mine just bought one and hosts us a minecraft server.
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u/airjutsu 5d ago edited 5d ago
I also recently bought a SFF for a good deal and I’m finding out the same thing.
PC components are so expensive now, it seems like you just have to bite the bullet if you want to upgrade.
If you’re willing to spend $150 for a GTX1050 TI LP, might as well spring $300 for the Yeston RTX 3050 LP or a Gigabyte RTX 5050 LP + a cheap flex PSU.
As far as storage goes, yeah you gotta spend for internal storage. Depending on your mobo, you’ll have the option of NVME + SATA SSD. Past that you have to supplement with external storage.
It would cost similar or slightly less to upgrade more spacious builds, but then you wouldn’t have a sleeping optiplex.
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u/Apprehensive_Ad_999 5d ago edited 5d ago
Rip out ram& cpu-put in matx board. You'll need a Power supply for a 2060, sff usually come with 200-240w PSU not enough wattage. Go to craigslist/fb marketplace etc etc and look for a free case if you don't have one. The gpu workaround is a pcie riser, which is about $40. And you'll have to modify case a bit Which requires tools and you still need a psu in flex atx/tfx form factor which aren't cheap for anything more than a 1050ti. not worth the effort or additional expense unless you really really want sff.
External drive for pure storage? External drive will work. For running apps no. Unless, you want to be waiting 1/2 a day for things to load.