<DEAD> Dell XPS Desktop: i5-10400, 8GB DDR4, 256GB SSD, 6GB GTX 1660 SUPER for $600

[balloonshark]

<DEAD> $979.99 - $380 w/ coupon code DTXPSAFF23 = $599.99. Shipping is free.

I've seen this deal on slickdeals a few times and they don't last long.

If this link doesn't work try copying and pasting the one below. I wasn't sure if part of it was a referral or part of the config.

Dell XPS 8940 Desktop | Dell USA

Create without limits using the all-new XPS Desktop. Featuring powerful performance, a minimalist design and a highly expandable chassis.

www.dell.com

https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/cty/pdp/spd/xps-8940-desktop/xd8940ms02sAFFv2?AID=4485850&cjevent=a3b6ecc8668311eb82ae02300a24060e&cjdata=MXxOfDB8WXww&gacd=9694607-23736398-5750457-266319267-127795103&dgc=af&VEN1=13502820-4485850-a6bada9c668311ebada77e1fa6f2e8ad0INT-Slickdeals%20LLC-https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/cty/pdp/spd/xps-8940-desktop/xd8940ms02sAFFv2&dclid=CJG93sGCz-4CFfsSswAd1VsLDA

 

[VirtualLarry]

Wow! How can I, as an independent builder, even HOPE to compete with a deal like that. Worth it, take the GPU out, mine on it, and stuff something else back in there and sell it off, you'll profit ($$$).

Edit: Guess I was too late, after I realized that I 1) had money, and 2) that this IS a great deal.

"Due to limited availability, this coupon is no longer active. "

Oh well, didn't really need a Dell.

 

[blckgrffn]

Wow! How can I, as an independent builder, even HOPE to compete with a deal like that. Worth it, take the GPU out, mine on it, and stuff something else back in there and sell it off, you'll profit ($$$).

Yup, pretty sure I mentioned this in a slickdeals thread directly.

Or if you have a GPU from the good old days (2019?) like a GTX 1060 or 1050 you can put it in there and have a really solid workstation for a couple hundred bucks...

 

[balloonshark]

Dang, I think it's dead already.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Dang, I think it's dead already.

Well, I for one, appreciate the effort in bringing this deal to the AT community.

I mean, that's actually somewhat of a legit, balanced, gaming rig, from Dell of all places, during the pandemic, for UNDER $1000. Of course it sold out.

 

[balloonshark]

Well, I for one, appreciate the effort in bringing this deal to the AT community.

I mean, that's actually somewhat of a legit, balanced, gaming rig, from Dell of all places, during the pandemic, for UNDER $1000. Of course it sold out.

It may come back around again. Hopefully someone will share earlier since it's a decent deal.

 

[blckgrffn]

There has been a deal like that one every day this week, I think. Sometimes a Ti, sometimes a super, sometimes the 10400, sometimes the 10700 and bigger and smaller SSD drives and 8 or 16GB. Something for everyone between $550 and $1k

 

[UsandThem]

There has been a deal like that one every day this week, I think. Sometimes a Ti, sometimes a super, sometimes the 10400, sometimes the 10700 and bigger and smaller SSD drives and 8 or 16GB. Something for everyone between $550 and $1k

Yup, I see those on Slickdeals every week. It's not too tough to grab whichever one is the flavor of the week.

The downside to Dell PCs now is they've gone back to using some proprietary parts like they used to back in the 90s and early 2000s. Pretty much have to watch out for that in Dell and Lenovo desktops.

 

[balloonshark]

Anyone know if the PSU and its MB connector are normal and easily replaced? What else would be proprietary?

Also, how would this compare to the 6600k PC in my sig? I really like my case and PSU and am curious if I could swap the guts of the dell into my case and use my PSU, CPU heatsink and HDD's?

 

[UsandThem]

Anyone know if the PSU and its MB connector are normal and easily replaced? What else would be proprietary?

Also, how would this compare to the 6600k PC in my sig? I really like my case and PSU and am curious if I could swap the guts of the dell into my case and use my PSU, CPU heatsink and HDD's?

I think the PSU and motherboard are the propertairy parts:

https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/adding-components-to-a-dell-xps-8940.3654616/

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/dell-g5-gaming-desktop

 

[blckgrffn]

Right. It still might make sense to gut the Dell IF you are looking at it as a long term buy.

Especially with a 10700 - a solid board (anything aftermarket frankly, not just z490) will let you set PL1 and PL2 levels to those of a 10700k and while you might only be able to OC 2.5% with FSB it’s still going to give a mighty upgrade.

Similar to the 10400 but to a lesser degree.

I would honestly say shucking a Dell XPS and buying a case, PSU, motherboard and heatsink is a super sane thing to do right now. I’d say you’d have a minimum of $280 or so to get some solid kit. You still can’t build out all those other bits (especially the GPU if you can even find one to buy) much, if any, cheaper. The other parts I mentioned are easy to come by now.

 

[blckgrffn]

Anyone know if the PSU and its MB connector are normal and easily replaced? What else would be proprietary?

Also, how would this compare to the 6600k PC in my sig? I really like my case and PSU and am curious if I could swap the guts of the dell into my case and use my PSU, CPU heatsink and HDD's?

Yup, I think a motherboard would do you!

And it would be a -really- solid upgrade. I guarantee that your CPU/mobo/ram would be an easy sell in the FS/FT forum at a fair price. It’s far from the glory days but still has some hustle

Video card will be a solid upgrade, not sure how much exactly but anything that was running out of space with the 4GB will breath easier with the 6. Power efficiency should be greatly improved too vs the Fury. What a cool card, there were some Fury Nanos for like $100 shipped on eBay for a bit, a big stack of them. I should have bought three 😂

 

[blckgrffn]

@balloonshark

Dell G5 Desktop: i5-10400F, 6GB Radeon RX 5600, 16GB, 512GB SSD, $750 + free s/h

deal $750 + free s/h w/ code DTG5AFF22

slickdeals.net

Check that one out.

I feel like the 16GB ram and and 512 GB aren’t throw away like the 256GB/8GB might be.

The kicker is the OEM only 5600. If you have Freesync or want to stay with AMD and get some decent graphics that are actually a step up (compares to a Vega 56 near as I can tell, should be some what sorta faster than the 1660) this seems to be the stepping off point. It must be mining at work because getting beefier AMD cards added in is nuts, heck there is a $2k XPS with 5700xt!

There will be more and maybe a touch better value but AMD gpus seem rarer.

 

[balloonshark]

@balloonshark

Dell G5 Desktop: i5-10400F, 6GB Radeon RX 5600, 16GB, 512GB SSD, $750 + free s/h

deal $750 + free s/h w/ code DTG5AFF22

slickdeals.net

Check that one out.

I feel like the 16GB ram and and 512 GB aren’t throw away like the 256GB/8GB might be.

The kicker is the OEM only 5600. If you have Freesync or want to stay with AMD and get some decent graphics that are actually a step up (compares to a Vega 56 near as I can tell, should be some what sorta faster than the 1660) this seems to be the stepping off point. It must be mining at work because getting beefier AMD cards added in is nuts, heck there is a $2k XPS with 5700xt!

There will be more and maybe a touch better value but AMD gpus seem rarer.

Did you see the Costco deal on slickdeals FP? I've built my last 3 PC's and all three were just quad cores and have cost around $1000 to build. The Costco deal seems good since it comes with an i7 and 2060. No comment on the individual components though. Just mentioning the deal in case anyone else is in the market.

I really wasn't looking for another PC just yet but I admit the $600 deal seems like a legit upgrade.

 

[blckgrffn]

Did you see the Costco deal on slickdeals FP? I've built my last 3 PC's and all three were just quad cores and have cost around $1000 to build. The Costco deal seems good since it comes with an i7 and 2060. No comment on the individual components though. Just mentioning the deal in case anyone else is in the market.

I really wasn't looking for another PC just yet but I admit the $600 deal seems like a legit upgrade.

The Lenovo Legion deal?

For those not speaking Slickdeals-eze :

Costco Members: Lenovo Legion 5 Desktop: i7-10700, 512GB SSD, 16GB DDR4, RTX 2060 $1000 + $10 S/H

Costco Wholesale has for its Members: Lenovo Legion 5 Gaming Desktop (90NC00JJUS) on sale for $999.99. Shipping is $9.99. Thanks community member simonnyc for sharing this deal Note, Non ...

slickdeals.net

I'll admit, if you were going to keep the case and everything then I would likely go that way.

I think the CPU is legitimately worth ~$100 more by itself. It has more cores, more cache and ~10% all core turbo higher frequencies when uncorked:

Intel Core i7-10700 Review - Way to Overclock without the K

In our Intel Core i7-10700 review, we're taking a look at one of Intel's most affordable 8-core/16-thread processors. Its low TDP of 65 W makes it power-efficient, but also limits performance. We unlocked that limit and gained up to 30% real-life performance without ever risking an unstable system.

www.techpowerup.com

But, if you read that review you can see how many times the 10700, while favorably comparing to the 9900K (epic upgrade imo!) most of the time with reasonable aftermarket tweaks, is also chased hard by the 10400 @ 1080p. I think that 6C/12T is really enough for now and a while, the 10400 has a generous amount of cache and it just comes down to that clock speed differential. Compared to something like the 3700x, both CPUs are clearly superior for gaming across many titles.

That said, I think the 2060 is only marginally faster than the RX 5600 OEM. Both are facing a 192 bit GDDR6 bus and so any situation that is memory constrained they will perform very closely, and sub-8GB ram means that "ultra" quality presets will likely be a bridge too far.

If it was a 2060 Super I would totally flip my recommendation.

I know that $750 is a largish step up from $600, but I still think the NVME drive and ram are in more useful sizes (still buy a second 16GB stick with the more expensive one for dual channel, but that is cheap right now).

If you don't have a FreeSync monitor already then I think a $600 deal or one with at least a 2060 Super (we should see more of these as Nvidia evidently put them back into production) with an i7 would be more worth the cheddar.

Your call, obviously.

 

[blckgrffn]

@balloonshark

Dell XPS 8940 Desktop: i5-10400, 16GB DDR4, 512GB SSD, RTX 2060 6GB $800 + Free Shipping

Dell Home and Office has Dell XPS 8940 Desktop on sale for $799.99 when you apply coupon code DTXPSAFF29 in cart. Shipping is free. Thanks to Deal Editor RevOne for finding this deal. Specs ...

slickdeals.net

Another one, the 2060 being the step in point to RTX and a clear step above the 1660 and your current card makes this interesting. Not too many deals under $1k with an RTX card lately.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Acer Aspire TC Desktop Intel Core i5-10400 2.9GHz 8GB Ram 256GB SSD Win 10 Home | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Acer Aspire TC Desktop Intel Core i5-10400 2.9GHz 8GB Ram 256GB SSD Win 10 Home at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!

www.ebay.com

I just bought the last one of these tonight. It's a Refurb i5-10400 Acer. What sealed it for me, was that the PSU was a 300W unit, and not a 180W like some of the HP units. It looks ATX size/mounting from the back side, but supposedly, the mobo connector is proprietary. (I wonder if there's an adapter harness, like some Dell Haswell-era tower units?)

Anyways, plans are not for me, but for a friend's relative, or friend's GF, one of the two, after dropping in some more RAM, and hopefully, a GTX 1650 4GB GDDR5 model without a 6-pin PCI-E power connector. (Or possibly, a GDDR6 version that I have here BNIB, that takes a 6-pin, and use a SATA-to-6-pin, since the card is probably still only 90-100W total, so that shouldn't blow anything up. Did that with a friend's Dell, and an EVGA GTX 1650 SC Ultra GDDR6 model that takes a 6-pin.)

Oh, the reason that I bought that particular unit, besides the 300W PSU included, was that I had a 20% off ebay coupon ("PREZDAY21" or something like that.), as well as a 5% back bonus ebay bucks. Altogether, saved nearly $100 off the listed $389, plus tax for MA, so like $333 total or somesuch.

And my apologies to the guy in one of the other sub-forums considering it, well, I helped make your decision to get that one or the HP for you, I guess.

Edit: But even though the one that I bought didn't include a GPU or a higher-end PSU, the i5-10400 CPU alone from Newegg is like $160, so getting the rest of the PC for $160 seemed like a decent deal to me, especially with a 256GB NVMe SSD. (I'm not sure if it includes a 1TB HDD as well, hopefully it does.)

Edit: Here's an Acer with a similar chassis, going through the steps to upgrade the PSU and install a GTX 1660 Super. (Probably what I'll do, too.) Looks pretty straight-forward, the PSU isn't really proprietary at all.

 

[balloonshark]

Did a quick search for 10400 on slickdeals and just glancing through a bit it looks like that was a decent deal Larry. A few times I saw $380 deals with 12GB or 8GB RAM and one $350 HP from staples on Dec. 3rd.

Yesterday they had a 10400F cpu for $125 That's still live. https://slickdeals.net/f/14827252-i...ee-shipping?src=SiteSearchV2_SearchBarV2Algo1

I don't know what I want to do. I wasn't really considering a new PC but that was how it went with 2 out of my 3 PC's. I wouldn't think twice if it wasn't for the priority parts. On the other hand I haven't OC'd my last 2 PCs. I only have a nice 24" dell IPS monitor with none of the "sync" technology" and only game at 1080P. I also probably won't pay over $200 for my next monitor so I doubt I'll be using higher resolutions any time in the future although one of the 'sync' techs would be in reach. At least I'm not in a hurry to upgrade which means I can wait for a better deal or wait for a cryptocurrency crash.

 

[UsandThem]

I only have a nice 24" dell IPS monitor with none of the "sync" technology" and only game at 1080P. I also probably won't pay over $200 for my next monitor so I doubt I'll be using higher resolutions any time in the future although one of the 'sync' techs would be in reach.

Take a good look at 1440p or 4k monitors when you decide to some upgrades.

Larger 4k monitors are still pricey, but you can find really good 1440p IPS monitors in that $200 range (my HP Omen 32" 1440p Freesync 75Hz monitor was like $230 a couple of years ago when I bought it). I don't think I'd ever want to go back to a 1080p monitor again.

 

[VirtualLarry]

HP 590-p0033w Intel i3-8100 3.6GHz 4GB 1TB + 16GB DVD±RW Desktop PC Window 10 | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for HP 590-p0033w Intel i3-8100 3.6GHz 4GB 1TB + 16GB DVD±RW Desktop PC Window 10 at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!

www.ebay.com

I'm wonder about that one for $250. 4C/4T i3-8100, 4GB RAM, 1TB HDD + 16GB Optane, DVD-RW, Win10.

It would be easier to upgrade with a GPU, seeing as how it's a full-sized mid-tower, with full-height slots, no need for LP cards. Could drop in a GT 730 2GB GDDR5 card that I have. OR a GTX 1650. Not sure about that last one, if the PSU is 180W. GT 730 would probably be OK though.

Not sure if i3-8100 is worth it, over a G5900 or G6400 (upgraded Slim Celeron rig), I mean, it's four actual cores, versus two with HT. Kind of hard card, I think, but maybe I'm wrong, and cores is better than newer-arch threads. Who am I kidding, these are all "Sons of Skylake" CPUs.

 

[blckgrffn]

HP 590-p0033w Intel i3-8100 3.6GHz 4GB 1TB + 16GB DVD±RW Desktop PC Window 10 | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for HP 590-p0033w Intel i3-8100 3.6GHz 4GB 1TB + 16GB DVD±RW Desktop PC Window 10 at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!

www.ebay.com

I'm wonder about that one for $250. 4C/4T i3-8100, 4GB RAM, 1TB HDD + 16GB Optane, DVD-RW, Win10.

It would be easier to upgrade with a GPU, seeing as how it's a full-sized mid-tower, with full-height slots, no need for LP cards. Could drop in a GT 730 2GB GDDR5 card that I have. OR a GTX 1650. Not sure about that last one, if the PSU is 180W. GT 730 would probably be OK though.

Not sure if i3-8100 is worth it, over a G5900 or G6400 (upgraded Slim Celeron rig), I mean, it's four actual cores, versus two with HT. Kind of hard card, I think, but maybe I'm wrong, and cores is better than newer-arch threads. Who am I kidding, these are all "Sons of Skylake" CPUs.

I've given up on anything 4C/4T or lower. They choke to hard now on tasks that are expecting the ability to scale to 8 or more threads. I bought an 8100 cheap from Microcenter but I definitely should have stepped up to the i5, the 8100 is now running an Untangle box it annoyed me so much.

At least in the 10th gen they got four cores AND 8 thread AND turbo boost. That combines to result in real world performance that is OK.

 

[VirtualLarry]

At least in the 10th gen they got four cores AND 8 thread AND turbo boost. That combines to result in real world performance that is OK.

Do you think that I could potentially upgrade those HP Slim Celeron G5900 PCs, all the way up to an i3-10100 (I guess, 4C/8T + Turbo, as you said?)? Would the BIOS on those boards accept those CPUs? I don't suppose the TDP would be THAT much different.

 

[blckgrffn]

Do you think that I could potentially upgrade those HP Slim Celeron G5900 PCs, all the way up to an i3-10100 (I guess, 4C/8T + Turbo, as you said?)? Would the BIOS on those boards accept those CPUs? I don't suppose the TDP would be THAT much different.

Super interesting question. Socket is right, TDPs are close (we know that's laughable but it's likely the HP firmware would strictly impose power limits) I mean I really don't see why not unless HP makes it so it *won't* work on purpose.

I feel like those I3 CPUs are likely to keep falling in price too. Two, three years ago they would have been I7's.

 

[balloonshark]

Take a good look at 1440p or 4k monitors when you decide to some upgrades.

Larger 4k monitors are still pricey, but you can find really good 1440p IPS monitors in that $200 range (my HP Omen 32" 1440p Freesync 75Hz monitor was like $230 a couple of years ago when I bought it). I don't think I'd ever want to go back to a 1080p monitor again.

Thanks. I figured a 1440p for around $200 would be of lower quality and not worth buying. I'll be sure to consider it though since I sit really close to my monitor. That is if something like a 10400 and 1660 super would be good enough.