HP Compaq Elite 8200 SFF quad-core (i5-2400, 4GB, 320GB HDD, W7 Pro) $89.99 + $11.99 @ Newegg (CTechCity)

[VirtualLarry]

Are you a human?

www.newegg.com

Another cheap SFF from a marketplace seller, also a quad-core, a bit older though, this one is supposedly a Sandy Bridge i5-2400, which has a (barely/not-really-supported iGPU), which would be a good choice to drop in a cheap LP GT710 card, just for display purposes and better Win10 compatibility. The pic of the mobo shows four DIMM slots, presumably one is occupied, but it's not clear how many SATA ports are on the mobo, nor if there's an available SATA power lead, like there is with the HP Elite 800 G1 Haswell SFF units in my other thread, that are immediately ready to drop-in a SATA SSD into.

But this one is ~$75.

 

[SamirD]

Not too bad, but that case is proprietary as my hp dc5750 uses one similar so power supply, motherboard are very proprietary.

Still, you can add a video card easily and can probably upgrade it to at least an i7-2600 so it wouldn't be too slow. But by the time you do that, it's expensive again.

It's unfortunate that these systems have gotten so old. I can pick up 4xxx series systems for about this much now and that's 2 generations newer. Not a huge performance difference, but there is a bit in the single thread. And then there's things like better bioses, etc.

It's sad that these are like the lga775 systems were a few years ago. But hey, these can still run xp like a champ so they can make really great xp retro gaming boxes.

 

[VirtualLarry]

At this price-point, the only thing that I would upgrade, would be to throw in a 128GB or 256GB-class SSD, and another 4GB stick of DDR3. (Or thanks to Intel's Flex Memory Access technology, you could even throw in an 8GB stick.) That, and a GT710 video card for $40-60 too.

Would make a perfectly-capable "browser box", not so much a gamer box, as the Sandy Bridge CPUs are kind of ancient, at least, unless you have them overclocked to 5.0Ghz like the 2500K and 2600K do, in the right motherboard. (This mobo is NOT that "right motherboard". Don't get your hopes up, people.)

Yes, even though this is cheaper, once you add the RAM, and the video card, that HP Haswell rig is probably a better deal, although that one doesn't have HDMI output either. (You can use a DisplayPort to HDMI passive cable adapter, that's what I'm using right now for my HP Elite 800 SFF rig to connect to my 4K UHD TV.)

But for someone with a VGA input hand-me-down monitor, at the lowest price-point, this rig might make SOME sense, although you really should add the GPU, and another 4GB of RAM, and oh, an SSD. So, add that all up, maybe it's not that great a savings, to save $25-35 over that Haswell rig that comes with 8GB of DDR3, and is ready to upgrade to an SSD right away.

Oh, yeah, this one says it comes with Windows 7 Pro, so figure in your time to upgrade to Windows 10 in-place, which, with the HDD installed, will probably take 4 hours. (If it includes the Win7 Pro product key sticker, then you might be able to install Win10 1909 2020-01 version from MCT USB onto a fresh SSD, and then activate it by putting in the product key, after installing Win10 Pro.)

Edit: That Haswell HP Elite 800 G1 i5-4570 deal for $119 (now), might not be as good a deal as this one, IFF you want to "end up" with Win10 Pro as an OS. IF that's a valuable thing to you, as opposed to "just having Windows on it", then this could even be a BETTER deal than that other one.

$40 for an 8GB stick of DDR3
$50 for a GT710
$35 for a 256GB SATA6G 2.5" SSD
$77 for this base unit

total: $202, for a rig with an i5-2400 quad-core, a GT710 GPU, a 256GB SSD, and 12GB of DDR3. Oh, and Win10 Pro. That's actually NOT a bad deal, overall. Other than being 2nd-Gen Intel (Sandy Bridge).

 

[VirtualLarry]

This is still available. (The $119.99 Haswell SFF from TheGoodComputerGuys is no longer available, that was in another thread.)

Pretty low-spec unit, and I could see these possibly selling for cheaper soon.

There were some Skylake i5-6500 SFF refurbs for under $300 with SSD recently, those would be better, probably.

But if you just need a cheap Kiosk-type PC, or a Mom-PC, or just something to use, that actually doesn't totally suck (*), get one of these, buy an 8GB stick of DDR3, or 2x4GB, and a 120/240GB SATA SSD for $20-30, and you should be all set for a basic browsing / desktop PC.

Note that I DID NOT order any of these particular PCs, so I can't comment on their refurbishment, nor this seller.

(*) By that, I'm referring to the fact that these Sandy quad-cores, are about the minimum spec for a browser box that won't get totally "loaded down", with a decent ad-blocker, and an SSD, and some more RAM. (8GB minimum recommended.) Bonus if you want to toss in a LP GT710 GPU, for 4K output, or better video-decoding, or having an actually-supported graphics chipset in Win10.

 

[mikeford]

Two lessons I learned in buying old SFF office PCs, Dell includes a legal Win most flavors license tied to the motherboard, and if you can do not buy the cheapest offer from the vendor, but ask if they have some better equipped models. Just after I bought a pair of Dell 7010, the guy next to me paid $25 more and got an i7 instead of i5, double the ram, and a wifi card.

I totally agree though, put in a small SSD, as much ram as isn't crazy priced, maybe a cheap video card and its more than most users will need even years from now.

Any opinions on the commonly available models, Dell, HP, and lenovo? SFF vs the micro models?