- Aug 25, 2001
- 56,579
- 10,215
- 126
(Please note that neither one of these units is sold by Newegg themselves, they are sold by marketplace sellers.)
Dell Optiplex 5040 SFF i5-6500 3.2GHz 8GB RAM 1TB HDD Windows 10 Home $259.50
www.newegg.com
Refurbished HP Desktop Computer ProDesk 600 G2 Intel Core i5 6th Gen 6500 (3.20 GHz) 8 GB DDR4 256 GB SSD + 500 GB HDD Windows 10 Pro 64-bit $279.99
www.newegg.com
Good news, Skylake refurbs are finally dropping under $300 retail. If you're looking for a gaming PC cheap, you could (likely, haven't actually tried it with these models) get one of these, and drop in a GTX 1650 D6 LP card (Gigabyte makes a GDDR6 LP variant now) for another $160-180, and get a somewhat respectable gaming PC with a quad-core Skylake CPU for under $500.
Edit: Honestly, there's really no substantial (not even noticable, really) difference, between Skylake, Kaby Lake, Coffee Lake, and 9th and 10th-Gen Intel Core parts. All 14nm (+, ++, +++, etc.), all -lake architecture (started with Skylake), all virtually the same IPC and performance (*). If you're an "average / casual gamer", and not a "competetive / high-FPS gamer", then one of these boxes should suit you just fine, or if you know a friend that wants to get into PC gaming, but doesn't have the "PCMR Big Bux" to go all-out, these are for you. Now, unlike that other Haswell i5-4570 / 8GB DDR3 / 500GB HDD deal, that I found originally for $110, which I did personally purchase, and go out and refurbish into a pair of gaming rigs (well, haven't built the second one yet, may do that today), I haven't purchased these. So possibly there are some "gotchas". I don't know.
Also, it goes without saying, no OC on these SFF rigs.
(*) Some of the later chips are more than 4C, that's basically the difference. The amount of games that requires effectively more than 4C, is a pretty short list so far. There are a few.
I would probably personally go with the SSD + HDD rig for $280, just because. The fact that the other one, only has two expansion slots, I don't know what the inside looks like, sometimes OEMs are stupid and put the PCI-E x16 slot on the "wrong side", so a double-wide video card won't fit. I hope that's not the case, but I haven't fully verified it.
Edit: And also, if you opted for the earlier, cheaper deal, on the Haswell i5-4570 and souped that up, don't feel too bad here. Between 4C Haswell, and 4C Skylake, there was maybe a 10-12% IPC uplift (I think that I'm being overly-generous here, some things didn't see much difference). But... since the most powerful SFF video card, except for "Professional" cards which I'm not intimately familiar with, is a GDDR6 GTX 1650 LP made by Gigabyte, you're not really missing much in the CPU dept, because most likely, you'll be GPU bottle-necked ANYWAYS. (The GTX 1650, even with GDDR6, isn't that fast of a card. Basically, around or maybe 10-20% under an RX 580, which is considered to be basically a 60FPS 1080P graphics card in its 4GB GDDR5 variant.)
TL;DR: Buy one of these, preferably the one with the SSD and the four expansion slots, and get a GTX 1650 LP 4GB video card, and you can have yourself a BASIC gaming PC. For under $500 total.
www.newegg.com
Dell Optiplex 5040 SFF i5-6500 3.2GHz 8GB RAM 1TB HDD Windows 10 Home $259.50
Are you a human?
Refurbished HP Desktop Computer ProDesk 600 G2 Intel Core i5 6th Gen 6500 (3.20 GHz) 8 GB DDR4 256 GB SSD + 500 GB HDD Windows 10 Pro 64-bit $279.99
Refurbished: Refurbished HP Desktop Computer ProDesk 600 G2 Intel Core i5 6th Gen 6500 (3.20 GHz) 8 GB DDR4 256 GB SSD + 500 GB HDD Windows 10 Pro 64-bit - Newegg.com
Buy Refurbished: Refurbished HP Desktop Computer ProDesk 600 G2 Intel Core i5 6th Gen 6500 (3.20 GHz) 8 GB DDR4 256 GB SSD + 500 GB HDD Windows 10 Pro 64-bit with fast shipping and top-rated customer service. Once you know, you Newegg!
Good news, Skylake refurbs are finally dropping under $300 retail. If you're looking for a gaming PC cheap, you could (likely, haven't actually tried it with these models) get one of these, and drop in a GTX 1650 D6 LP card (Gigabyte makes a GDDR6 LP variant now) for another $160-180, and get a somewhat respectable gaming PC with a quad-core Skylake CPU for under $500.
Edit: Honestly, there's really no substantial (not even noticable, really) difference, between Skylake, Kaby Lake, Coffee Lake, and 9th and 10th-Gen Intel Core parts. All 14nm (+, ++, +++, etc.), all -lake architecture (started with Skylake), all virtually the same IPC and performance (*). If you're an "average / casual gamer", and not a "competetive / high-FPS gamer", then one of these boxes should suit you just fine, or if you know a friend that wants to get into PC gaming, but doesn't have the "PCMR Big Bux" to go all-out, these are for you. Now, unlike that other Haswell i5-4570 / 8GB DDR3 / 500GB HDD deal, that I found originally for $110, which I did personally purchase, and go out and refurbish into a pair of gaming rigs (well, haven't built the second one yet, may do that today), I haven't purchased these. So possibly there are some "gotchas". I don't know.
Also, it goes without saying, no OC on these SFF rigs.
(*) Some of the later chips are more than 4C, that's basically the difference. The amount of games that requires effectively more than 4C, is a pretty short list so far. There are a few.
I would probably personally go with the SSD + HDD rig for $280, just because. The fact that the other one, only has two expansion slots, I don't know what the inside looks like, sometimes OEMs are stupid and put the PCI-E x16 slot on the "wrong side", so a double-wide video card won't fit. I hope that's not the case, but I haven't fully verified it.
Edit: And also, if you opted for the earlier, cheaper deal, on the Haswell i5-4570 and souped that up, don't feel too bad here. Between 4C Haswell, and 4C Skylake, there was maybe a 10-12% IPC uplift (I think that I'm being overly-generous here, some things didn't see much difference). But... since the most powerful SFF video card, except for "Professional" cards which I'm not intimately familiar with, is a GDDR6 GTX 1650 LP made by Gigabyte, you're not really missing much in the CPU dept, because most likely, you'll be GPU bottle-necked ANYWAYS. (The GTX 1650, even with GDDR6, isn't that fast of a card. Basically, around or maybe 10-20% under an RX 580, which is considered to be basically a 60FPS 1080P graphics card in its 4GB GDDR5 variant.)
TL;DR: Buy one of these, preferably the one with the SSD and the four expansion slots, and get a GTX 1650 LP 4GB video card, and you can have yourself a BASIC gaming PC. For under $500 total.
GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 1650 Video Card GV-N1656OC-4GL - Newegg.com
Buy GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 1650 4GB GDDR6 PCI Express 3.0 x16 Low Profile Ready Video Card GV-N1656OC-4GL with fast shipping and top-rated customer service. Once you know, you Newegg!
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