Optiplex 3010 MT, cpu upgrade

Thanks for the info, bud.  (Or should I just shorten your username and call you Brad?  Hmmm.....)

I am already "running out" of memory when I run TANE (a railroad simulator).  Especially when I run a really huge route that goes from London to Edinburgh.  And it takes a long time to load that big old route.

I just upgraded to an SSD, a Crucial MX500.  I forgot all about mounting the darned thing, so have an adapter on the way so I can physically mount it in a 5 1/2" bay.

I'm finding the SSD isn't performing to its full potential.  Guessing that the SATA ports in this machine are all SATA 2.0, so that's what I seem to be stuck at.  And it's STILL a huge amount faster than the hard drive it replaced, so I'm not TOO aggravated at the situation.

I'm thinking of changing out the rear case fan, the one that's in there now doesn't seem to move very much air.  What about the fan headers, am I correct that I'll have to rewire a connector to get an aftermarket fan to work?

There's currently no fan installed at the front of the case, although there is a fan header up there.  Same question -- standard or proprietary?

Thanks again for being there with the information.

The rear case fan, as is the heatsink fan, is temperature controlled.  In order to add a front 90mm l.e.d. fan to my 7010, due to the uneven grill, I superglued it to the top of the HDD cage.  I take it you also have the MT.  To plug it in, I used a SATA power splitter and a SATA to 4-pin (molex) adapter.

As for plugging into the MB, like if you replaced one of the other fans, please see screengrab:

If the above isn't right, please let me know.

Outside of specs, some users have successfully put 16GB RAM in their 3010's.  I don't know if that would help you though.  The 3010, around 9-10 yrs. old(?), might not be doing you any favors.  A 9020 or XE2 might better suit your needs, especially if Google showed me the wrong system requirements.  Those are minimum by the way vs. recommended.

I'll immediately agree with you on one thing -- the 3010 is NO gaming machine.  That being said, the only two games I use are Microsoft Flight Sm X and TANE.  Currently can't even try FSX because of frame rate -- it's simply "unflyable".

Is that the wiring harness I'd need to use a standard fan with the fan header in the 3010?  What's the SKU or perhaps a link?

I'm in the habit of starting SpeedFan when I'm going to play a game, in order to get a little ahead of the temperature rise.  It seems to help, normal temperatures hardly get above 50C for the cores and maybe 43C-45C for the GPU boat anchor 5450.

I also have a Geforce 6800XT Xtreme 256MB that was given to me.  Not sure if it even works, but if it does, I might get a bit more video performance than I currently have.  Only problem is the 3010 PSU doesn't have any way to power it.

I'm currently gathering parts for the new-to-me machine.  Still have a lot of decisions to make, as far as what MB, processor, video card ($$$ YIKES!!!), etc.  Planning to keep my current SSD and h2 TB hard drive.  I think it's going into a Cougar Challenger case I already own.

Here's the link:  https://www.amazon.com/Pocaton-Female-Socket-Connector-Cooling/dp/B073XJV5L9/ref=mp_s_a_1_13?dchild=1&keywords=5+pin+female+to+4+pin+male+adapter&qid=1620875492&sr=8-13. It's the same adapter 1 or 2 of our Rockstars have suggested/recommended.

If using an aftermarket fan plugged into a Dell MB, you might get a fan warning message at startup, then I believe it's F1 to continue.  Reason being is Dell OEM fans give RPM feedback to the MB.

MX500 isn't all that fast (590 MB/s read speed, 510 MB/s write speed) but it is reliable - I've had several of these running for years.

As for mismatched memory (4GB + 8GB modules) - as well as running at the slower speed it will be taking twice as many cycles as it should to retrieve larger blocks of memory as you can't run interleaved unless the RAM modules in the bank are the same size. I'd reccomend changing the 4GB module for an 8GB module which is a perfect match to the one you already have if you need the best speed possible.

As for Gen 2 i7s, they're good but consume a lot of power (over 100W) & this may be pushing the PSU towards overload was well as running unacceptably hot.

Fans - if you have the type with 3 wire connectors they should be OK. With 2 wires only there is no speed sensor.

I'm in agreement on most of what @bj11213 said with a couple of exceptions.

I7-2600 is 95w.  It won't overload a 275w PSU.  The potential is there for heat issues as heatsink was possibly designed for 77w CPU's tops.  However, @Clovis Man is keeping an eye on the temps.  Lower end games probably won't heat it up that much as @Clovis Man's 3010 doesn't run higher end.  Also, wattage listed is tops; not a consistent wattage.  Both CPU's and GPU cards only run listed top wattage when maxed.

https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/52213/intel-core-i7-2600-processor-8m-cache-up-to-3-80-ghz.html 

Though m.2/NVMe SSD's are fastest, SATA SSD's are still much faster than HDD's.

Thanks to both you guys.  I'm thinking to add one fan in the front of the 3010 and stick a fork in it.

And thanks for the link, I'll get on that this weekend.  I'm sitting on two different juries today and tomorrow.