I've seen videos on the internet saying that if you want a cheap gaming PC, you could just buy a used Dell Optiplex on eBay, then throw in a graphics card.
Has anyone on here actually done this? Is it a good idea?
Dell Optiplex gaming PC?
Brandon Smith
Other urls found in this thread:
rover.ebay.com
rover.ebay.com
evga.com
pcworld.com
twitter.com
Tyler Gutierrez
Yeah, the CPUs can be quite pertinent but they are also likely to have proprietary PSUs so the graphic card can't be to intense.
Jacob Myers
I have an i7 2600 machine next to me I paid twenty bucks for, if my graphics card fit in it, it'd be half decent.
Jonathan Rivera
Sure if you want a frankenstein creature with a timebomb(PSU) attached to it.
Dylan Stewart
Yeah that's true, I was thinking I could just throw in a new PSU as well (buying a used PSU is perhaps not such a great idea I would imagine).
You could just cut out part of the case, right? Not ideal but still works. Or you could use a PCI-E extender cable. Or buy a new case and put everything in that - unless the motherboard is some proprietary size?
Anthony Myers
Maybe I should just buy an Xbox One S then. It seems to be way cheaper than I could reasonably get a gaming PC for, and it will play the latest games without having to worry about random issues, incompatibilities, quirks, bugs, lack of optimisation, etc. It's just ironic that people say "LOOK YOU CAN GET A PC FOR JUST AS CHEAP AS A CONSOLE" but when it comes to the reality of it, nobody actually does it.
A gaming PC would be cool, but if the expense is going to be so much greater then I'm not sure if it's really worth it.
Aaron Russell
Stop thinking of it as a "Dell Optiplex" and start thinking of it as the hardware inside. Dell makes a variety of PCs for the business, enterprise, academic, and research markets, and they each have different sets of hardware. Some of them can be turned into very powerful gaming machines.
Nonsense, stop talking about things you don't know anything about.
Justin Hall
60 fps at 1080p is not at all hard. There are low-profile graphic cards that should fit in anywhere.
Christopher Morris
Yes look for one with a 2nd or 3rd gen I7 though, get a 80+ PSU (check out evga bstock) then get a 256gb SSD for like 40$ (you don't have to do this immediately but Windows 10 feels alot better with an SSD) get a used RX 480 or 580 (if its significantly cheaper get a 4gb but no real reason to not get an 8GB one) then you'll be rock solid, it's really easy to put together with a YT video as a guide, stay the fuck away from HPs tho, memes asides Dell prebuilts are fine for this. Make sure you have 8 gigs of ram when you order it and honestly the first upgrade you'll have to make is probably another 8gbs of ram which is like 30$
Alexander Kelly
You'll miss out on a vast library of games not found on consoles by doing so.
I didn't say it was a bad idea, just don't expect to run the newest games at max settings.
A good entry PSU is $60 or even less, don't cheap out too much though.
8GB of ram is still ok, though 16GB start to show its advantage.
An i7 2xxx is plenty fine even today though that might change with the newest console gen.
Slap an RX570 or GTX 1060 into it and you're good to go.
Samuel Smith
i mean, while one can purchase a cheap gaming pc, Xbox One S goes for like 150-200 bucks. Cant beat it really in anything, but the graphics are what youd expect.
Colton Wilson
A used Xbox One S is the cheapest price/performance machine you can buy, but it comes with big sacrifices in graphical quality and you can't use it as a PC or upgrade it further later on.
I recommend looking on ebay for workstation PCs made by Dell or HP which have valuable quadro GPUs in them. You buy the system, then sell the quadro and buy a gaming GPU for the same money with higher performance for your needs. For about $400 you get a great PC that can play games at much higher settings than the consoles.
John Flores
If you live in the US, check if the local universities near you have a wholesale store nearby. The one I used to go to would have warehouse sales every two weeks of the school year with stuff the school's departments were getting rid off.
I was lucky to snag three optiplex 990s with i7-2600 in them for $25 each. Stick a compatible low profile GPU and you should be good to go. worth looking into.
Alexander Sanchez
Depends what you want out of it. 2017 games and lower or emulation is mainly what you'll expect to use it for. The SFF versions like this one are limited to a GTX 1050ti low profile. If you want this variant, make sure they have photos of the insides.
Matthew Peterson
Ryder Jackson
>2017 games and lower or emulation is mainly what you'll expect to use it for
Why do you think later games wouldn't work on an Optiplex + GPU setup? Maybe I should just go for a console then.
>The SFF versions like this one are limited to a GTX 1050ti low profile
Are you saying that purely because of the physical constraints of the case? I.e. if you used a PCI-E extender then could you theoretically use a more powerful card (yes it's not a very elegant solution and would probably require you to leave the case open, but it would still work) , or is there some other reason why you think a 1050ti is the highest you could use?
Oliver Adams
He's saying the 1050ti is too weak for 1080p Ultra in games like Anthem, it would play it at lower settings, an RX 580 would do you good for awhile
Christopher Howard
1050ti or 1650 (and likely upcoming 1650ti) will work without need new power supply. I would add a cheap (sub $50 SATA SSD) as well. Also I would upgrade the ram to 16GB, unlikely any Optiplex being sold second hand will have that much ram.
If you change out the power supply you will need an adapter like the one in the picture. This is because Dell uses a 8 pin connector to power the motherboard.
These are not a bad deal. Seen one guy in my city selling the full factor Optiplex with a 4790, 8GB ram, 128GB SSD, and some 8000 series OEM AMD video card (junk for gaming) for $200 CAD. After upgrading the ram, psu (+adapter), and video card you can have a decent gaming PC for $350 CAD plus the cost of the video card.
Michael Barnes
You know what, go for a console, it'll save you some headaches and some money.
Evan Torres
for that gen cpu you wouldn't want to throw in anything stronger than a 590 or a 1660, you need at least a 450w psu which shouldn't cost more than $30
Evan Phillips
>Are you saying that purely because of the physical constraints of the case? I.e. if you used a PCI-E extender then could you theoretically use a more powerful card (yes it's not a very elegant solution and would probably require you to leave the case open, but it would still work) , or is there some other reason why you think a 1050ti is the highest you could use?
Both aesthetics and practical use. Even if you do something Frankensteinish like throwing in a RTX 2080 with a separate PSU, you're limited to the CPU capabilities.
Just get a console if this is becoming a headache.
Carson Adams
The SFF is limited due the case width, I have seen pics on /g/ of people cutting the case to allow wider cards to fit. 1050ti or 1650 are the highest you can use because don't need auxiliary power connectors, PCIe provides the 75W they need.
Benjamin Clark
What about having to pay for xbox live lol
Eli Bennett
wouldn't be hard to by a $25 case off ebay
Carter Lee
Just don't buy the SFF optiplex but the normal desktop one or buy the SFF and move it to another case I have no idea why retards would cut up the case when a Matx Case can be had for 20$ new on Newegg
Parker Hall
Well you definitly lose in the long run but that's the price to pay for ease of mind.
Landon Ramirez
i'm running a 3.4 i5 haswell, would this thing be that much of an upgrade over what i'm currently using?
Jaxon Rivera
I'm running Sekiro on a used HP z800 with
>2x X5650
>reference design GTX 980
>16gb ddr3 ram
>7200 rpm hard drive separated into fast and slow partitions (Sekiro on fast)
I get between 45-60 fps most of the time, usually hovering in the 55-60 range. All settings set to maximum except AA off running in 2560x1600. I turn the FPS off and forget about.
You can still buy dual Xeon z600 systems on ebay for not very much, and a 980 is about $150-$200.
Nathan Mitchell
most of those pc's are ivy bridge 3570's or haswell
Lincoln Wilson
no, the I am pretty sure the best used Optiplex you will find will be i7-4790. In your case if I ever saw a cheap one with a 4790 I would buy it just for the CPU. Hyperthreading will help you out in some recent titles, especially when it comes to the minimum framerate.
Jose Stewart
I'm running 150 Dell Optiplexes.
In the past 3 years only had 2 of these have a PSU fail.
They are left on almost 24/7 and some of them are 8 years old.
The ones that died were all at least 7 years old.
I'd never buy a used PC that was older than a year anyway.
Christian Gonzalez
i have done exactly this and yes, it's pretty good
optiplexes go for less than what their parts are worth desu. kinda miffed that you big jerks are onto my tactics now though.
Nathan Bailey
That's pretty cool. Fast and slow partitions? Surely all partitions on a drive will have the same read/write speeds? Unless one of them is using an exotic file system or something.
Damn, 150 is a lot. What do you use them for?
>I'd never buy a used PC that was older than a year anyway.
But then you say your Optiplexs are 8 years old...
Anyway, I know that some components are a bad idea to buy used (e.g. hard drives because they have a limited life span, and probably PSUs as well because they can wear with use). But processors and GPUs don't generally degrade, do they? Unless they've been run at very hot temperatures with insufficient cooling (I'm not sure if that's even possible these days due to thermal throttling, right?), then they should be good for a very long time shouldn't they?
Jason Diaz
On a hard drive the outer sections of the disk will have faster read/write speeds compared to the inner section.
pcworld.com
So on a terabyte drive I have a 200gb fast partition for games and a 800 slow partition for other data or games that don't need fast read times.
Levi Rogers
didnt need the adapter when i set mine up
Gabriel Howard
What CPU is it? I thought all of the Optiplexs with Sandybridge, Ivybridge, or Haswell all had 8 pin power connectors on the motherboard.
Eli Rogers
>people keep saying optiplex with i7 gen 4 is $100
>its actually $300 in my shithole
Feels bad. For OP, as long as you get it cheaply, go for it. It's also a good learning opportunity.
You will learn to hate proprietary bullshits.
Xavier Green
>old pre-built with decent specs
>throw in a new GPU
>psu can't handle it
>get new psu
>motherboard blows up
and that's why I built my first of many PC's from the ground up
Nolan Long
I didn't know this, that's pretty cool, thanks.
Easton Stewart
The secret is to go for used Xeon systems with lower clock speeds and more cores. Games are optimized for multiple threads now and having 8 or more cores finally being put to use. Xeons also have large amounts of cache so the speed comparison is not 1:1 with i7's with lower cache.
The only time you want a really fast CPU in a budget build is to enable good emulation of recent console generations.
Isaac Cox
>be a brainlet that can't calculate power load
>burn out PSU and motherboard
There's nothing wrong with Dell, HP, or Lenovo's PSU's on any of their product lines. They use the same suppliers as your custom PCs.
Luke Foster
is this some kind of inadvertent cope or shill? gtfoh
Brandon Jackson
HEY OP I built a gaming PC this way, but I fucked up and I recommend you take this route as long as you don't fuck up like I did: MAKE SURE THE MOTHERBOARD IS NOT SFF. You will have to buy an extension cable for your graphics card if you do, and then find a way to suspend the graphics card so it won't disconnect.
Pic related, my retarded son of a PC. At least she 60FPS's literally everything.
Anyway craigslist has optiplex's with i7's in them for like $50, at least where I live. Look for offices liquidating their old shit.