Business pc conversion

[Laine]

Budget (including currency): soft 500$

Country: south east us

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: EU4 75% and Way Of The Hunter 25%

Other details (existing parts lists, whether any peripherals are needed, what you're upgrading from, when you're going to buy, what resolution and refresh rate you want to play at, etc): I’m comfortable with all my current peripherals just need the pc and any upgrades

 

I don’t know anything about what’s good and what’s bad when Im looking to get a retired business pc then add on ram and a gpu possibly even run off on board graphics until a decent gpu comes up at a decent price 

[emosun]

well you'll get a better pc for 500$ if you skip having a gpu for now. If you try to work the pc and gpu into 500 the pc itself will need to be much slower or older.

[manikyath]

i've been saying "you can pick up at least haswell for dirt cheap" for a few years now, so i'm sure even newer options should be possible.

 

basicly, these are the things you should look for:

- as local and "close to the source" as possible (buying directly from a business flipping a wiped box will be the most cost-optimized, but also usually the most difficult to find)

- newest gen that isnt ridiculously more expensive than older gen. anything about 4-6 years old should be fairly widely available.

- try to find a chassis with full-height slots for the GPU, even if the power supply is still proprietary you still have more options there than you have in an SFF box. CMT is usually more expensive than SFF though...

- some specific series might have ATX (compatible) power supplies, some might have an odd connector but have the same voltage rails. if you can score one of these it might be possible to upgrade PSU and get a propper graphics card in there.

- find something with an i7 (or ryzen 7) out the gate, dont go and spend less on a desktop to then also put money into a separate CPU.

- RAM.. really depends on local availability, and if you score a DDR3 or DDR4 box.

- GPU: if you cant find a full height system that's affordable, you're limited to a 1050Ti, if you find a full height one, you can get a GTX1650.

[Laine]

14 minutes ago, 8tg said:

Coffee lake optiplex 5060’s are the budget king now, i5 8500 models being 150-180$

though I don’t recommend going that route if any kind of higher wattage gpu is in play, since all the office PCs are propriety now, the cost of the system + psu adapter cables generally sits on par with finding an old cpu/mobo combo anyway.

 

Example, $500 budget is a Ryzen 5 1600 on B450 with 16gb of ddr4 3600, a 512gb ssd and a gtx 1080

including a new case and a new psu

nothing fancy at all, but it’ll work and it’s cheap:

 

gpu in particular is kinda just whatever, used gpu prices are all over the place, I snagged a vega 56 for 95$ recently, and a first gen Titan for $70
 

and then it’s just a regular system, add an nvme ssd, swap to a Ryzen 5 5600x, change up the psu, add case fans, whatever 

you can start with something functional at best and change parts as needed later

The drawback of an office pc build is that one it’s capped out, that’s it. An optiplex 5060 is decent but it’s a non standard platform and at best will take a modified psu with a few adapters to let an i7 8700 pair with whatever gpu, but at higher long term cost and with minimal parts to be carried to a new platform spare maybe the drives, potential gpu, and ram.

 

That’s my suggestion if the appeal for the optiplex build isn’t simplicity. If you’re on a budget and are down to DIY you can get much better stuff. If you’re down to at most install a gpu, yeah get an optiplex 5060 and an RX 6400 because it’ll cost the same and be less of a hassle.

I’m an aircraft mechanic so I can follow instructions and read at a third grade level if that’s what you mean by diy 

[Laine]

2 hours ago, 8tg said:

Follow a YouTube video pc assembly guide, google any questions or reference here, assembling a pc yourself is easy. Square peg square hole.

It’s a more economical choice if you’re on a tight budget but it’s not the most convenient choice.

You run the risk of putting it all together and it doesn’t turn on because you missed some small step or didn’t do something right somewhere. 
The old office pc + upgrades strategy peaked when low power gpus got decent, ie gtx 750ti, and it’s what got a lot of people into PCs because it’s quick and easy and still fairly economical to do so. Though back then it was like $100 core2duo optiplex + $50 Q6600 + $100 750ti and maybe some ram or a cheap ssd. Now it’s a bit more complicated because the low power gpus are ass and the psu in modern office PCs is proprietary which makes it even harder to get a decent psu in the system for a better gpu.

 

The real chill solution is to buy an old workstation laptop but the performance difference is pretty big, and while that’s just a plug and play all in one solution, a $500 Thinkpad P51 will be outperformed heavily by a $500 diy pc.

 

The hard part of building a pc, especially a budget pc from used parts, is knowing what to buy. The consumer knowledge is more difficult to learn and maintain than the assembly process or installing windows.

I found this on Facebook local I think it might be the play and add the motherboard/cpu

[Laine]

Just now, Laine said:

I found this on Facebook local I think it might be the play and add the motherboard/cpu

That or this for 550