I've recently bought a bargain price Micro 7000 and wanted to share my experiences and notes upgrading it for my needs. Hope this is helpful to whoever gets one of these new Alder Lake / Raptor Lake machines.
There are still two variants, 35W and 65W. I first bought the 35W but it was throttling so hard the 12700T wouldn't outrun a 1135G7, so I returned it. Maybe something was defective with it as it wouldn't even hit base CPU clocks.
Motherboard/CPU: The 35W and 65W boards physically differ (likely VRMs). The 65W board has markings "D12 ADL 8L".
The power delivery limit appears to be somewhere around 125W. Contrary to specs, I was able to swap in a 12700K which can run at base and sometimes all-core boost clocks if thermals allow. I wouldn't push it farther though, but I am very happy with the performance.
Memory: Crucial DDR5-4800 2x32GB worked fine. No idea on higher speeds, Dell specs say 4800 max. I want one of these 2x48GB kits but they're beyond my budget now. Hopefully they should work.
dGPU: Likely no hope for this one. There are "SLOT1" pins on the motherboard which are for a x8 PCIe slot, but there are only traces and the slot is physically absent.
Another day maybe I will try to wire up one of the M.2 slots to a Oculink adapter and get a eGPU.
Expansion port: Mine came with an empty slot but I wanted USB-C with DP alt mode. It is possible to buy this part separately - it will connect to the "VIDEO" and "TYPEC" headers on the board. The part is "GMHY5" (ASSY,CRD,PORT,TYPEC,MFF/TC,D12) and Dell should be able to sell it to you. I got mine for $26.99 - not cheap, and as expected it can't deliver power to the unit so no one-cable-does-all setup if you want to use it as a Desktop.
Wi-Fi: This is what I really hate about this new generation, the new "Internal Antenna" Wi-Fi has horrible signal. The older Optiplex Micros had regular SMA antenna headers. Luckily, that option is still available, after a lot of digging and hours with Dell we figured the part was "KYMWV" (KIT,RCVR,EXT,220,SMA,BRKT,D12). Now I'm happy with the Wi-Fi / Bluetooth signals.
There are still two variants, 35W and 65W. I first bought the 35W but it was throttling so hard the 12700T wouldn't outrun a 1135G7, so I returned it. Maybe something was defective with it as it wouldn't even hit base CPU clocks.
Motherboard/CPU: The 35W and 65W boards physically differ (likely VRMs). The 65W board has markings "D12 ADL 8L".
The power delivery limit appears to be somewhere around 125W. Contrary to specs, I was able to swap in a 12700K which can run at base and sometimes all-core boost clocks if thermals allow. I wouldn't push it farther though, but I am very happy with the performance.
Memory: Crucial DDR5-4800 2x32GB worked fine. No idea on higher speeds, Dell specs say 4800 max. I want one of these 2x48GB kits but they're beyond my budget now. Hopefully they should work.
dGPU: Likely no hope for this one. There are "SLOT1" pins on the motherboard which are for a x8 PCIe slot, but there are only traces and the slot is physically absent.
Another day maybe I will try to wire up one of the M.2 slots to a Oculink adapter and get a eGPU.
Expansion port: Mine came with an empty slot but I wanted USB-C with DP alt mode. It is possible to buy this part separately - it will connect to the "VIDEO" and "TYPEC" headers on the board. The part is "GMHY5" (ASSY,CRD,PORT,TYPEC,MFF/TC,D12) and Dell should be able to sell it to you. I got mine for $26.99 - not cheap, and as expected it can't deliver power to the unit so no one-cable-does-all setup if you want to use it as a Desktop.
Wi-Fi: This is what I really hate about this new generation, the new "Internal Antenna" Wi-Fi has horrible signal. The older Optiplex Micros had regular SMA antenna headers. Luckily, that option is still available, after a lot of digging and hours with Dell we figured the part was "KYMWV" (KIT,RCVR,EXT,220,SMA,BRKT,D12). Now I'm happy with the Wi-Fi / Bluetooth signals.