Anyone build a gaming PC, by buying a cheap OEM quad-core rig off ebay, and thowing in a GPU?

[VirtualLarry]

Well, I'm about to try it.

Bought a i5-3470 (3.2Ghz Ivy Bridge 3rd-gen quad-core) tower for around $100.

Does not include HDD or OS, but so what. I would replace those anyways. Hopefully, it has a Win7 (Pro) COA that isn't obfuscated. That would be nice. But the listing didn't mention it, so perhaps not, or they are stripping and selling the COAs seperately. It's from a refurbisher. Supposedly, "tested".

Also ordered a GTX1050 and a drive to throw in. Should be decent, I think.

Only includes one 4GB stick. I'm debating installing an additional 4GB stick, for 8GB, versus removing that stick and putting in two 8GB sticks, versus what I can sell this little beasty for.

$110 + $120 + $30 = $260

 

[whm1974]

A 1050 and not a 1050Ti?

 

[VirtualLarry]

$50 difference, which is almost half the price of the 1050 to start with, and the 1050ti doesn't pump out 50% higher frame-rates.

If the prices were still $110-120 for the GTX1050, and $120-140 for the 1050ti, then sure, I'd get the ti.

 

[whm1974]

$50 difference, which is almost half the price of the 1050 to start with, and the 1050ti doesn't pump out 50% higher frame-rates.

If the prices were still $110-120 for the GTX1050, and $120-140 for the 1050ti, then sure, I'd get the ti.

Yeah but with modern games the 2GB memory will be a Huge limit even at 1080p now.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Sounds a lot like the "budget" WoW and EVE-Online rigs me and my friends built, mostly out of retired cash registers we "stole" from the dumpster at work.

Drop in a midrange GPU to work with the existing PSU, upgrade RAM, done.

Geez. That was more than ten years ago.

 

[whm1974]

Well I'm sure Larry is pretty far from the only one to do this. Just make the rig has a CPU with decent performance and uses at least DDR3 memory and you should be good to go. The GTX 1050Ti is your best friend here.

 

[LostPassword]

mining is slowing crashing. few more months maybe gpu prices will be back to normal. i bought a 1050 for $87 in june, and back then a ti was 120-125. it sucked when miners found out how to use nvidia gpus to mine.

 

[whm1974]

mining is slowing crashing. few more months maybe gpu prices will be back to normal. i bought a 1050 for $87 in june, and back then a ti was 120-125. it sucked when miners found out how to use nvidia gpus to mine.

The Mining crash is happening too slow if you ask me.

 

[Charlie22911]

Yes! I bought a cheap Dell 7010 SFF Core i5 rig off ebay and threw the MSI halfheight 1050ti in it as a cheap intro to PC gaming gift for a friend. It has been working like a charm.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Nice! I got the tower model, specifically so I wouldn't have to put half-height GPUs in.

I got the PC today, and already have it ready to install the OS. It did come with a Win7 Pro OEM COA on it, which was nice.

So, 2x8GB DDR3-1600 GSkill, a Zotac GTX1050 2GB, an Adata SU700 128GB SSD, a WD 1TB Blue 7200RPM HDD, and the chassis/PSU/mobo/CPU (i5-3470, not too shabby).

Edit: Hmm, seems as though Microsoft fixed the "slow to check for Windows 7 updates" bug. It's flying through updates.

Btw, this 3470 turbos to 3.6, didn't realize that. Nice.

Edit: Final parts tally is:

Dell tower PC with i5-3470 (3.2Ghz with single-core turbo to 3.6Ghz), chassis, PSU, mobo, and 4GB of DDR3 $110
Zotac GTX1050 2GB PCI-E $120
2x 8GB GSkill DDR3-1600 $70
Adata SU700 Ultimate 128GB SATA6G SSD $50
WD Caviar Blue 1TB 7200RPM 3.5" HDD $50
Win7 Pro 64-bit COA (included)

total: $400

Not too bad, for something that will play all current games, at at least 1080P 30FPS (video card is the weak point, if GTX1050ti were cheaper than $165, I would have used one of those instead).

Edit: Benchmarks:
Heaven 4.0 (Extreme): 41.3 FPS
CPU-Z: ST 341, MT 1334

 

[R81Z3N1]

I know that Newegg has refurbished computers, and have looked at sites such as arrowdirect which comes to windows I actually have told folks about arrowdirect. About 5 years ago I bought an old HP desktop from Newegg and something similar.

Is Ebay really that good of a deal compared to like some of the sites above. I might consider another boinc machine if the price is right. At the moment I have an i3 machine with an old amd card running Boinc 24/7 but I guess anything compared to a a quad, with threads, or more cores does a better job.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

I know that Newegg has refurbished computers, and have looked at sites such as arrowdirect which comes to windows I actually have told folks about arrowdirect. About 5 years ago I bought an old HP desktop from Newegg and something similar.

My brother's computer is a business refurb I bought on Newegg and installed Linux on. It's been working fine for years. Good stuff.

Is Ebay really that good of a deal compared to like some of the sites above.

Yes and no. In most cases, a "used" computer on eBay is cheaper than the same computer sold as a refurb by a company like newegg. But those refurbs typically have a 90-or-something-day warranty, and the company selling them presumably has a returns process that a "works, as-is" eBay seller would not. So IMO it depends on your definition of "deal." I will pay the extra money for a little extra security, some people wouldn't.

 

[MushyNAT]

My brother's computer is a business refurb I bought on Newegg and installed Linux on. It's been working fine for years. Good stuff.

Yes and no. In most cases, a "used" computer on eBay is cheaper than the same computer sold as a refurb by a company like newegg. But those refurbs typically have a 90-or-something-day warranty, and the company selling them presumably has a returns process that a "works, as-is" eBay seller would not. So IMO it depends on your definition of "deal." I will pay the extra money for a little extra security, some people wouldn't.

Keep an eye on Ebay and often you can get the best of both worlds. Retailers like Newegg tend to have their own Ebay accounts that they use to do one-day sales on overstock/refurbs they *really* want out of the warehouse. You get their Ebay fire sale price, but it still comes backed by the full product policy of the retailer. They don't usually advertise these sales on their main retail website either, but SlickDeals is a great site where a bunch of them get posted.

Not to mention that paypal and google both offer additional buyer protections for Ebay purchases.

 

[vailr]

This "$70 Hackintosh" video uses an HP tower machine with an i5-3470 CPU, sourced from a University/Hospital's supply of surplus PC's sold to the general public. The author added a GTX750Ti video card, which doesn't require plugging in any extra power, other than what's supplied by the PCIe slot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKqdDiL8t80

 

[VirtualLarry]

Yes and no. In most cases, a "used" computer on eBay is cheaper than the same computer sold as a refurb by a company like newegg. But those refurbs typically have a 90-or-something-day warranty, and the company selling them presumably has a returns process that a "works, as-is" eBay seller would not. So IMO it depends on your definition of "deal." I will pay the extra money for a little extra security, some people wouldn't.

Yep.

This particular PC worked out well for me. It was $108 shipped, before I added parts. Seemed like an off-lease business desktop tower. It was very clean, and not noisy. It didn't have a HDD or an OS, but I lucked out and it had a COA for Win7 Pro attached, which activated no problem.

Edit: The point of this reply, was that Newegg sells a lot of refurbs, from "big" refubishers, that offer up to a 1-year warranty on their PCs, and generally, they come "complete", although you may have to punch in the Windows license code. But those can be twice the price of ebay-special refurbs or used machines. Generally, the ebay-specials don't come with a year's worth of warranty, but that's where I come in, knowing how to fix PCs when they break. (Of course, with some OEM designs, you'll be back on ebay looking for proprietary parts, mostly PSUs, to replace failed parts.)

 

[whm1974]

Yep.

This particular PC worked out well for me. It was $108 shipped, before I added parts. Seemed like an off-lease business desktop tower. It was very clean, and not noisy. It didn't have a HDD or an OS, but I lucked out and it had a COA for Win7 Pro attached, which activated no problem.

Edit: The point of this reply, was that Newegg sells a lot of refurbs, from "big" refubishers, that offer up to a 1-year warranty on their PCs, and generally, they come "complete", although you may have to punch in the Windows license code. But those can be twice the price of ebay-special refurbs or used machines. Generally, the ebay-specials don't come with a year's worth of warranty, but that's where I come in, knowing how to fix PCs when they break. (Of course, with some OEM designs, you'll be back on ebay looking for proprietary parts, mostly PSUs, to replace failed parts.)

Which is why unless you are getting the prebuilt for cheap, you build your own instead.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Which is why unless you are getting the prebuilt for cheap, you build your own instead.

Well, the CPU in it, goes for $65 shipped used on ebay, and then you have to worry about a mobo, which you generally don't get for less than $40, even used, and then you've got a chassis with an easy-open latched door, and a (slightly proprietary form-factor?) PSU. I think that was cheap enough. They included what became a spare 4GB of RAM too.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Heh.

Remember when we built computers ourselves to save money?

 

[whm1974]

Heh.

Remember when we built computers ourselves to save money?

That was a long time ago...

 

[dave_the_nerd]

That was a long time ago...

I'm old!

 

[VirtualLarry]

I'm old!

DOS Geezer!

(LOL. I am too.)

 

[VirtualLarry]

Ok, well, I like this so much, I'm building another.

I ordered another used / refurb Dell off of ebay, this one with an i5-2400, 8GB of DDR3, and a 1TB HDD, and an installed copy of Win10 Home. (Which is kind of weird, now that I think of it. It's an Optiplex business machine, which usually comes with Pro, and if they were using the free Win10 upgrade, shouldn't it end up with Win10 Pro?)

Anyways, it was under $120 shipped. The RAM and HDD are already adequate, and with an existing OS, I'll just drop in a $100 GTX1050 or a $110 750ti card. (The GTX1050 was on sale when I got it, which is why it was cheaper than the older 750ti. But the 750ti might be more recognizable, and sell better on CL.)

 

[whm1974]

Ok, well, I like this so much, I'm building another.

I ordered another used / refurb Dell off of ebay, this one with an i5-2400, 8GB of DDR3, and a 1TB HDD, and an installed copy of Win10 Home. (Which is kind of weird, now that I think of it. It's an Optiplex business machine, which usually comes with Pro, and if they were using the free Win10 upgrade, shouldn't it end up with Win10 Pro?)

Anyways, it was under $120 shipped. The RAM and HDD are already adequate, and with an existing OS, I'll just drop in a $100 GTX1050 or a $110 750ti card. (The GTX1050 was on sale when I got it, which is why it was cheaper than the older 750ti. But the 750ti might be more recognizable, and sell better on CL.)

You couldn't put in a Rx460 or Rx560 in that rig? I refuse to pay good money for a three year old card.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

You couldn't put in a Rx460 or Rx560 in that rig? I refuse to pay good money for a three year old card.

Power requirements make midrange or higher GPUs questionable in those OEM boxen.

 

[whm1974]

Power requirements make midrange or higher GPUs questionable in those OEM boxen.

Those are low powered cards, and there is always the Rx550:
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202286
Should be way better then the iGPU.