First post, by tayyare
- Rank
- Oldbie
I just acquired a Dell OptiPlex GX280 Small Form Factor for just 30 USD with the below specs:
- Pentium 4 CPU @2.4GHz, 800 FSB, 1MB L2
- 1.5 GB DDR400 RAM (1GB + 512MB)
- 80 GB Seagate SATA HDD
- Slim ATA DVD and Slim 3.5" FDD
- Onboard GPU with VGA and DVI (and 8MB shared RAM! 🤣)
- Onboard Gigabit NIC
- Windows XP Professional License.
It was an impulse buy, but not a totally random one. I was looking for a PC that is small enough to place under my TV (inside the cabinet besides my other home electronics) and the case dimensions are actually exactly what I would want.
My purpose of having that kind of a machine is occasional lurking around the web, accessing family photos and movies from the media server, and maybe some XMBC goodness.
When it comes to upgrade options, it really sucks, but there are still some opportunities that I can fulfill:
- RAM will go up to 2GB with sticks already on hand (max allowed by the board, according to the available info on the net).
- Will have a low profile PCIe HD 5450 with HDMI out (needed by myself - additional 30 USD NIB)
- HDD will be replaced with a WD Black 500GB SATAII Drive which is already on hand.
- Will install an idle genuine Dell Windows 7 Pro 32 copy on it instead of XP.
Unfortunately, the PSU is only 160 watt, and un-upgradable as far as I can see. I have no idea about CPU capabilities of this specific board but should be next to nonexisting with such a tremendous available power. 🤣
So the questions are:
- Have any one has direct experiences with this specific model? (OptiPlex GX280 comes in 5 different sizes with all different motherboards, mine is SFF - small form factor) Have any idea about what better CPUs it is capable of supporting?
- What do you think about a regular P4 @ 2.8 GHz? Is it somehow capable of doing something useful in this configuration? (i.e. 2GB RAM, ATI HD5450 1GB, Windows 7 32b)
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GA-6VTXE PIII 1.4+512MB
Geforce4 Ti 4200 64MB
Diamond Monster 3D 12MB SLI
SB AWE64 PNP+32MB
120GB IDE Samsung/80GB IDE Seagate/146GB SCSI Compaq/73GB SCSI IBM
Adaptec AHA29160
3com 3C905B-TX
Gotek+CF Reader
MSDOS 6.22+Win 3.11/95 OSR2.1/98SE/ME/2000