One ultra budget build and one sub-$500USD Build

Troika · June 10, 2018

So, while I've been cleaning and refitting a heap of old Dell and HP computers for resale as basic computers for cheap, I've been doing some research on the better models of each computer and I have two that show some serious promise to make nice gaming PCs on a budget. I have two here and here's my thoughts on what I've got planned.

Build #1 The Old Timer

This one is based on a HP Compaq DC7900 SFF. Its far from being the latest and greatest but it does have a 240w psu, which is unfortunately a custom unit specific to this case, and the Intel Q45 Express Chipset. Due to the form factor of the computer, I'm limited to low profile gpus and there aren't many on the market. Thanks to the Q45 chipset, I can replace the rather junky core 2 duo E8500 for a core 2 quad Q9400, which I found for $14 on ebay. DDR2 ram is fairly cheap and rather plentiful on the market so 8GB is pretty easy to come by. Keeping the budget low but getting the best performance out of the machine, I found that the ideal card for this would be a GTX 1050. I cross referenced different parts combinations, including the stronger Q9650 and a GTX 1050 ti but the performance gains didn't really agree with me considering the extra expense and I can't really overclock the cpu on this board so I can't gain anymore cpu performance beyond what's provided at stock settings. Currently, I have a Q8200 and a Radeon HD 8570 1GB I picked up for $10 at my local computer recycler just to see what that does over the E8500 and it seems to do pretty damn good job for $10. I thought the little heatsink wouldn't be able to manage the extra heat output from the quad core but it seems do handle it just fine under a load from prime95. I saw a max of 63C on one core and an average of 60C across the cores. I mean, it does have two heatpipes on it but I was expecting worse than that.

Anyways, here's the parts list for this build that I'm considering. If there's corners I can cut and get better price to performance out of this build.

Build #2 The Sleeper

This one's based on a HP Compaq 6300 Pro SFF. This one is probably the best of the bunch since it can take ivy bridge i7s. It also has a 240w psu that appears to be the same design as the one on the build above but otherwise, the motherboard design and case size are both similar. This one comes with the Q75 express chipset, which features support for a i7 3770, though I didn't have to go look that up since the spec sheet shows that its compatible with one. My computer recycler friends had a i7 3770 when I picked up the HD 8750 and Q8200 I'm messing with and gave me a price of $60 for it, which is a pretty solid deal compared to what's on ebay. If its still available when I have enough spare money for it, I'll probably grab it then. This build could probably take full advantage of a GTX 1050 ti but I think that the 3770 might overwhelm the heatsink so I'm considering swapping it out with a Scythe Big Shuriken 2 rev B but it looks like it went up in price since I first specced out this build so I may look for an alternative that'll still fit properly in this case. I'm going for 16GB of DDR3 1600mhz so the computer is both maxed out and has as much memory as it'll ever need for gaming.

Here's the parts list for this one. Again, if there's anywhere I can save some money or up the performance from this build, I'll definitely consider it. I'd really like this one to stay under $450 USD

Overall, this is the plan for both of these builds. I'll probably look into case modding them in the future with maybe a acrylic side window and a nice coat of paint to make them look good, possibly some led strips too just for fun.