u/Beerdididiot

I happen to be the recipient of an old Optiplex 980 from my neighbor who took the hard drive out and gave everything else to me for free. I haven't quite decided what I want to do, but i'm hoping to be able to run Counter Strike Source on it bare minimum, maybe hope it can stream my main PC.

It's a stock prebuilt with a soon to be added 250gb SSD. Realistically, would I get ANY benefit from running SteamOS? Is it worth it? If I do decide to use SteamOS, what can it do that windows can't?

I'm still kinda new to having a PC and I am very new to building one. Any advice helps. I am happy to provide pictures and any information you need to help me further.

Neighbor had an old Optiplex 980 and no longer needed it. The PC has been barely used, and has sat in the corner collecting dust. At first, I knew almost nothing. But i'm getting there.

1.) I was lucky and after contacting several friends I am picking up a 250gb SSD tomorrow evening.

2.) I just learned that it uses ddr3 ram. I'm still kinda learning how ram works, so would there be anything wrong with getting a bunch of ram? I know i'm asking a stupid question, I just don't k ow why.

3.) I want to put in a GPU and the best fit seems to be a GTX 1050 Ti Low Profile but every GPU i see has ddr5. Is that going to work in the optiplex? (My guess is no)

4.) Any advice going forward? I'm hoping to use it to stream my games through OBS or use it to play Counter Strike lan party.

I'm very new to this, and just don't want to do anything stupid.

The thing is an old pc from back in 2018 or so, and looks nothing like the gamkng PC I own that has a GPU and RGB lighting. It's got metal boxes, weird slots on the motherboard, and a bunch of other stuff.

Realistically, what can I do with it even if I do get a new hard drive for it? Is it worth keeping for any gaming reasons? If you were to get it, what would you do with it?

I had a plan to get through more games this year than last year...which was 1 game. I beat Diablo 4, and got stuck on it. I'm not complaining about it, quite the opposite. The game was amazing, and I'm still addicted to it. I had plans though.

So, beginning of the year I spent playing Minecraft with my kid, and then crimson desert came out. Spent the first week it was out playing...maybe longer. Then I heard about Lord of Hatred for Diablo 4. I was extremely excited, and switched back to Diablo 4 to finish up season 12 and get into the mood for season 13, the release of Lord of Hared.

Here's the problem...there's more than two games on this planet. I have other games, too. Like RDR2, No Man's Sky, Wukong, and there's the Middle earth series I haven't touched yet, space marine 2, dragon age...promised myself I would do a run of Skyrim this year because I skipped it for the first time last year.

Not complaining...just wish I had more time. So many great games have come out. Too bad there's not 50 of me.