Dell OptiPlex 7020 SFF — Upgrade Notes¶

System Specs¶

Model: Dell OptiPlex 7020 SFF (Dell Inc. 02YYK5)
BIOS: A18 (2019-05-30) — latest
CPU: Intel Core i5-4690 (Haswell, 4th gen, 4C/4T)
Chipset: Intel Q87
RAM: DDR3 (max 16GB supported officially, 32GB unofficially)
GPU: Integrated Intel HD Graphics 4600
Form Factor: Small Form Factor (low-profile brackets required)
PCIe: Physical x16 slot, but electrically x1 via PCH (PCIe 2.0, 5.0 GT/s)
Power: ~255W–290W PSU, no extra PCIe power connectors

CPU Upgrade¶

CPU	C/T	Freq	L3	PassMark ST	PassMark MT	Est. Price
i5-4690 (current)	4/4	3.5-3.9 GHz	6MB	~2120	~5100	—
i7-4790	4/8	3.6-4.0 GHz	8MB	~2220	~7700	~$30-40

Notes¶

i7-4790 is the best CPU this board supports. K-series (4790K) may not work on OptiPlex BIOS.
Real-world gain: ~5% single-thread (similar desktop feel), ~50% multi-thread (compilation, archiving, VMs, multitasking).
Hyper-Threading is the main differentiator.
That said, it's still Haswell — same platform limits (DDR3, SATA-only, PCIe 3.0).

GPU: Realistic Expectations¶

A discrete GPU will not make general desktop / Hyprland feel snappier. The HD 4600 is sufficient for 2D compositing. The bottlenecks are CPU single-thread speed and DDR3 latency.

Where a dGPU does help: - Gaming - Video playback (HD 4600 lacks HEVC/h.265 decode — any modern card offloads this) - Multi-monitor at high refresh - GPU-accelerated apps (Blender, DaVinci Resolve, ML)

Low-Profile GPU Options (with HDMI)¶

Card	Est. Price	Power	Notes
GT 1030 GDDR5	~$50–70 used	30W	Best bang-for-buck. Must be GDDR5 version. HDMI 2.0b, no power cable needed.
RX 550	~$50–70 used	50W	Similar tier. HDMI+DP+DVI.
GT 710	~$30–40	20W	Much weaker, budget option only.
Intel Arc A310	~$80–100	50W	Best video encoding (AV1), good for media.

Key Considerations¶

All options need a low-profile bracket (included or purchased separately)
No card should require external PCIe power
GT 1030 GDDR5 is the sweet spot for general performance + video playback
Even on PCIe 2.0 x1, any of these is a massive upgrade over HD 4600 for media/gaming

Storage¶

Current Layout¶

Device	Model	Size	Role
sda	Crucial CT250MX500SSD1	250GB	Root + home + var (btrfs subvols)
sdb	Kingston SA400S37240G	240GB	Unmounted / idle
sdc	Samsung SSD 840 EVO 120GB	120GB	Unmounted / idle

All SSDs. No spinning disks.
/ and /home are btrfs subvolumes on sda2 (MX500), not separate partitions.
Usage: 47 / 231 GB (21%) on sda.
Mount options: noatime, compress=zstd:3, ssd, discard=async, space_cache=v2, commit=120.

Separating /home to the 120GB Samsung 840 EVO?¶

Not recommended. - The 840 EVO is slower than the MX500 (older 2013 TLC, known performance degradation issues). - MX500 has DRAM cache; 840 EVO does not in the same class — real-world performance is worse. - No capacity pressure (21% used). - btrfs subvolumes (@home) already isolate /home. - Adding a slower drive for /home would reduce desktop snappiness, not improve it.

Recommended Use for Idle Drives¶

Drive	Recommendation
120GB Samsung 840 EVO	Timeshift / snapshot target (so root drive snapshots survive failure)
240GB Kingston SA400	Bulk storage: games, media library, ISOs, torrents

Overall Assessment¶

The OptiPlex 7020 is a capable but aged platform. Practical upgrades ordered by impact:

i7-4790 CPU (~$30-40) — biggest general improvement
dGPU — only if you need gaming, HEVC decode, or multi-monitor
Use idle SSDs — for snapshots and bulk storage, not for /home migration

For true generational improvement — modern CPU + NVMe + DDR5 — a full platform swap is needed.

Display Output Identification¶

Connector	Description
HDMI	Smaller, wider USB-like shape
DVI-D	Larger, white, wide connector with flat pin on one side
VGA	Trapezoid, blue, 15 holes
DisplayPort	Similar to HDMI, has a notch on one corner

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