Finally converted my old Dell Optiplex case into a sleeper build

I always thought sleeper builds were kinda pointless. Why hide a good PC inside some ugly beige box from 2003? Then my buddy showed me his Optiplex build at a LAN party 2 months ago. He had a Ryzen 5 and an RTX 3060 crammed in there. Ran like a dream and nobody looked twice at it. So I grabbed a beat-up Dimension 4600 off Facebook for free and spent 3 weekends cutting the inside out. Temps actually stay under 75C with a little modding. Anyone else find a weird old case that worked way better than you expected?

2 comments

2 Comments

danielmartinez11d ago

Yeah, @taylorcarr, the drive cages were the worst part for me too. I had to cut out two of them with an angle grinder in my Dimension 4600, and then I spent an extra hour sanding down all the sharp edges so I wouldn't slice my fingers off. But once I got a micro ATX board in there with a 5600X and a 2070 Super, temps stayed around 70C under load... totally worth the hassle for those surprised looks when people hear it boot up.

taylorcarr23d ago

Did you have to cut out the drive cages too? That was the worst part of my build. Worth it for the surprised looks though.