A Good Deal? Or a Waste? (i7 8700 Dell)

[bmichaels556]

TLDR: Have a shot at an i7 8700 system that is probably worth much more than I'm paying with the only MAIN drawbacks basically being PCIe 3.0 (but doesn't seem to be as bad as I originally thought), and that it's a prebuilt, but PSU can be easily upgrade, I checked. Total value something like $750+, but basically costing me $400 after I sell the included GTX 1060 6GB... Should I worry a whole lot about the 8700? Primary purposes are gaming and video editing etc and almost exclusively using GPU for encoding, but might mess with Intel QSV... I don't think there's anything too big holding back, but anything I could be missing is super helpful! Thanks!

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Hey gang, could use a quick eyeballing of a PC I just won on Ebay. After everything, $550.

 

Prebuilt Dell (but compatible with other PSU's etc, so not much problem generally for me..) but let's say I'd be paying $50+ on the cheap for a small PSU.

 

- i7 8700 (non-K), (I'll price it as a Ryzen 3600, so $150, but these do go for more) - A 3600 or similar is where I was prob gonna' go anyway.

- 32GB RAM (I figure ~$150)

- 500GB NVMe SSD (figure $50+?)

- GTX 1060 6GB (don't need it, but $150 considering falling prices..?)

- Motherboard (solid $100?, ballpark? I know, it's not going to be an epic premium motherboard, but whatever.)

- Case (I'm picky, so I'd probably be spending $100+ on a case, but this looks pretty sharp!)

 

I mean, if you subtract the 1060 6GB and figure on $150, it's basically ~$400. Actually pricing out the components if building myself, this seems like a solid value, I'd be spending a solid $750+. And I know there are other factors, but I'd actually say the 8700 would be better for me than an R5 3600 because of something like Intel QSV.

I do have an extra PSU fit for something like a 3060Ti (or more, but haven't been able to get my hands on one, yet.) The highest I'd go with RTX 4000 is a 4060Ti, or Radeon equivalent at 1440p-ish. Barring any issue with PSU I'd have to dink with..

 

I was thinking PCIe 3.0 would hold me back, but I saw a very interesting post at Tech Powerup showing very little bottlenecking of an RTX 3080 even on PCIe 2.0, which is staggering. I also doubt I'd notice slower NVMe SSD speeds, generally speaking...

 

Overall, I'm not sure I see a ton of downside here to use this as my main rig for a couple years at this point. My current rig is... Very old, I'll say that. Lots of cores, but SO lacking modern features. It technically does do everything I need, but slowly. Not snappy for sure, and at this point, I'm tired of "bottlenecking" my work flow, whether it be with video editing, lack of Intel QSV (which would be a nice addition), yes it's that old LMAO (Westmere). Am I missing anything? This FEELS overall like a no-brainer. Thanks!

 

P.S., I put this in CPU, Motherboards, Memory section mostly because CPU is probably my biggest question here, other than overall value.

[Robchil]

since you can't OC it anyway look for a H series mainboard, last was 300 series that support gen 9 and older. ddr4 3200mhz should be plenty . 

 

 

[4PcBuilder]

Try to look for something with at least am4 or lga 1700 like this one is really good value and you can customize it albeit it is own but the one you put is also oem.It has a 5300g and an rx 5500 for 549 but for 20 more bucks you can get a 1650 super which is much better. And don’t pay extra for the ram it’s overpriced just add your own 16-32 go kit later on.https://www.hp.com/us-en/shop/ConfigureView?langId=-1&storeId=10151&catalogId=10051&catEntryId=3074457345619965322&urlLangId=&quantity=1

[bmichaels556]

6 minutes ago, 4PcBuilder said:

Try to look for something with at least am4 or lga 1700 like this one is really good value and you can customize it albeit it is own but the one you put is also oem.It has a 5300g and an rx 5500 for 549 but for 20 more bucks you can get a 1650 super which is much better. And don’t pay extra for the ram it’s overpriced just add your own 16-32 go kit later on.https://www.hp.com/us-en/shop/ConfigureView?langId=-1&storeId=10151&catalogId=10051&catEntryId=3074457345619965322&urlLangId=&quantity=1

I'm not 100% sure if you understood the point of the post tbh. I'm long-winded to be fair...

 

Configuring the HP prebuilt to be comparable to the Dell system as far as core count, SSD, RAM etc... It'd be priced at basically $900. Even if I sold the included GPU that I wouldn't need (let's say an additional $20 for the 1650 super for total of $920), I'd recoup like $200 for a total out the door price of about $720. If I sell the included 1060 in this prebuilt, I'm basically paying $400, even slightly less out of pocket for a comparable system.

 

So I'm not really seeing the comparison here, unless I'm missing something obvious. 

[KaitouX]

The 8700 is decent, but while it does retain some value when selling, it's probably a bad idea to buy one unless they are $100 or less as it's performance is on par with the i5 10400 which goes for 130. The GPU could probably be worth a bit more than $150 when selling used, $200~$250 is closer to what it's being sold currently. The memory is probably 2133Mhz with bad timings, so likely not really worth that much. I wouldn't buy/use a used consumer SSD, but it's probably worth $30 or so at best considering how much a new one costs. Motherboard is likely a proprietary if it's on a "recent" Dell prebuilt, so probably also not worth much, also if it's proprietary, you probably can't use a standard case. If the motherboard is actually proprietary, the case is also kinda useless, as you likely can't use it with standard boards.

 

The PC itself is decent, but I probably wouldn't say it's a good deal. Assuming you only want the CPU, MB, RAM and storage,you can probably build something new much better under $500.

 

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: Intel Core i5-12400F 2.5 GHz 6-Core Processor  ($179.98 @ B&H)
Motherboard: MSI PRO B660M-A DDR4 Micro ATX LGA1700 Motherboard  ($139.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: Silicon Power GAMING 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory  ($104.97 @ Amazon)
Storage: Western Digital Blue SN550 500 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive  ($49.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $474.93
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2022-03-18 09:35 EDT-0400

A significantly faster and upgradable system. Another option would be to get a 10400 for ~$400, which would probably perform around the same as a 8700, possibly faster if the memory is actually 2666MHz or less with bad timings. While both options are a bit more expensive then that system when you consider the GPU sale price, I would say the difference is worth it.

[bmichaels556]

7 minutes ago, KaitouX said:

The 8700 is decent, but while it does retain some value when selling, it's probably a bad idea to buy one unless they are $100 or less as it's performance is on par with the i5 10400 which goes for 130. The GPU could probably be worth a bit more than $150 when selling used, $200~$250 is closer to what it's being sold currently. The memory is probably 2133Mhz with bad timings, so likely not really worth that much. I wouldn't buy/use a used consumer SSD, but it's probably worth $30 or so at best considering how much a new one costs. Motherboard is likely a proprietary if it's on a "recent" Dell prebuilt, so probably also not worth much, also if it's proprietary, you probably can't use a standard case. If the motherboard is actually proprietary, the case is also kinda useless, as you likely can't use it with standard boards.

 

The PC itself is decent, but I probably wouldn't say it's a good deal. Assuming you only want the CPU, MB, RAM and storage,you can probably build something new much better under $500.

 

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: Intel Core i5-12400F 2.5 GHz 6-Core Processor  ($179.98 @ B&H)
Motherboard: MSI PRO B660M-A DDR4 Micro ATX LGA1700 Motherboard  ($139.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: Silicon Power GAMING 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory  ($104.97 @ Amazon)
Storage: Western Digital Blue SN550 500 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive  ($49.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $474.93
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2022-03-18 09:35 EDT-0400

A significantly faster and upgradable system. Another option would be to get a 10400 for ~$400, which would probably perform around the same as a 8700, possibly faster if the memory is actually 2666MHz or less with bad timings. While both options are a bit more expensive then that system when you consider the GPU sale price, I would say the difference is worth it.

VERY useful, thanks! Yeah, I think it's fair to say I'm overestimating value in some areas, but underestimating GPU value... Although then if I figure $200 for GPU (and actually, I see Dell's 1060's going even for over $200), I could be paying more like $350 out the door for the other parts... But then even if I pay a little more for main components, they're also new... But then the above prices also discount case and PSU, although I have a spare so that may not even matter...

 

It's really a tough balance lol, mostly because I'm strapped for cash at the moment. Crap, this is tough.. Although actually, I do use optical drive more than a lot of people still, and a built in card reader is nice as well, which I didn't put a ton of consideration into before, which certainly count as added value here... I feel like the more I think about it, maybe I should just go with it for simplicity..?