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This is a great budget build whereby the pros and cons of a build like this is clearly articulated. Keep up the great work.

I've sold a few builds on jawa based on the dell 3040. I too used a 1650 super. However there are a few upgrades you missed. First the power supply can be upgraded, there is a Dell PSU part #D315ES. It is 315w and includes a single 6 pin pci-e. It has all the same connectors as the original PSU as well. It fits in the case other than the need to drill 2 holes and add 2 screws in the rear due to the different bolt pattern. Once installed it is secure and fit without any issues. The other upgrade in the memory. You can use faster memory but it needs to have a JDEC profile for the higher speed. Generic Crucial green pcb memory has always worked for me.

Thanks for educating people on that Sata adaptor. I hate that everyone assumes every PSU and adaptor are going to explode at every opportunity.

Outstanding video. And I learned something new regarding presets that use resolution scaling by default. The current draw data split between your sources was fascinating too.

There really is no downside as far as I am concerned. Great video, I know there are thousands of these, but we need a thousand more. I was doing this when the best gpu you could add in was a gtx 750ti. My current system is a HP with a 1st get Ryzen 7 and 16g ram. I got it for 100$ with no video card. The computer had never been turned on. It was bought as a black friday special in bulk by someone who removed the GPUs for bitcoin mining. Due to its even jankier PSU I opted for a gtx 1650 non super, but it was at least the DDR5 model. I get very close to the same gaming performance. All I added was the GPU and a 120g ssd boot drive I got used on ebay for under 20 dollars shipped. I have owned computers since before the commodore 64. 4k gaming or even 1080p gaming means nothing to me. 720p medium settings is way better than an old guy like me needs or deserves. I have a Acer swift x with an rtx 3050 but honestly I prefer being at home with my cheap system hooked up to my 65 inch TV. You just can not beat these deals! Its great to see a young generation spending wisely instead of some 4000 dollar water cooled LED covered monstrosity that ends up being more trouble than its worth.

There is some models of the non-super 1650 that don't need any external power from a pci power cable. Perfect for this build.

Good video. For around the same money, maybe a little more, I would get a HP Z440 PC instead. It has a LOT of upgrade potential. The compatible cpu list goes from a 4c/8t cpu to a 22c/44t cpu. It comes with more powerful psu's too.

During the GPUpocalypse, a build like this I feel would've been a good workaround (albeit you'd probably throw in a GTX 1650 non super due to pricing being so out of whack). Nowadays with the prices back to Normal, I think you're better off building an AM4-based build ... for maybe 150$ extra, you would have a modernish build with expandability. You can get motherboard/cpu combos pretty cheap these days (think Ryzen 3 3100) with a B450 from say, amazon warehouse deals and a conventional PSU, would give you overall better results.

This is a very interesting video, but what stands out to me is the excellent production quality. The audio is clear, non fatiguing, and intelligible, with the PERFECT level of background music.

Dude you got an amazing deal on that thing. My 2 year old laptop has a i7 9750h, 16 gb of ddr4 ram, 500 gb nvme ssd, and a 1660ti (max q version), and that costed $1200 2 years ago. You scored a pc that's just as fast as mine for under $300. That's insane.

A tip for anyone who wants to try something like this I would recommend going with Acer Aspire TC-885. They are boring small black boxes but use off the shelf parts. All I had to do was pull the pointless DVD drive for more room and I was able to put in a high end PSU and even fit an MSI Founder's Edition GTX 1080ti in it and now have a cool little sleeper build. I originally bought it as a work from home machine but after leaving that job I started playing around with upgrades. Next upgrade will probably be looking at upgrading the i5 8400.

These are great budget builds to get someone by in a tight spot or someone who just doesn't use their PC for anything much more than standard 1080p games. I actually prefer the Dell Precision 3620 because they essentially have all the same internals with more space for a bigger card, vent holes on the side to help with thermal throttling and a bigger 365W PSU with a PCI-e slot for about the same price if you look long enough. The two problems I have found with these are the graphics cards not being secured enough by the plastic tab can cause flickering if you push in your HDMI cable hard or the card jiggles loose. The second being the market for "ugly duckling" Dell cases is very specific and you can sit on that hardware for months if you don't put some blingy RGB to grab someone's attention.

Nice one. Worth pointing out that the i5 6500 or 6600 are also pretty much as capable, but also, if you find a i3-8100 or i3-9100, you get similar Quad Core performance AND an upgrade path to the 6 core i5s (8400, 8500, 9400, 9500) in the future. Just seen an i3 8100 PC for £100 on ebay, so not too much more money.

Really good overview showing the pros and cons. I prefer the hp Prodesk mid towers because you can swap the PSU so you don't need a pcie adapter. However they tend to have slimline dvd drives so you need an adapter for the dvd drive which tends to have a smaller sata power connector. I think for under $400 / £400 you have to consider the prebuilt upgrade route. Regarding reliability they CPU have probably been under less stress as they tend to only do light office work, but you make an excellent point about getting replacement parts.

There's no shame in starting with prebuilts, but when the budget allows you should bite the bullet and save up enough for a standard case and decent power-supply, and stick whatever the budget allows in them. Those are investment pieces, and if you don't cheap out too much, you'll be able to upgrade later without having to re-buy them. So you save money in the long term, if you wind up upgrading. The exception to that would be if you're buying new xl high-end space-heater GPUs, in which case you have more than enough money to rebuy all of that stuff anyway.

I Actually found a 360w PSU that dell sold with a 6 pin PCIE that was plug and play. Under $60 used if you look around. I used the extra headroom with an 8 pin adapter to install a 1660ti without issue.

I would by no means use these 7040 builds as my main gaming setup even for mid-range gaming because I would feel like i was missing out on 1440p and avg fps above 140.. but for those who are fine with 1080p mid-range 75-80 frames per sec or lower on most modern newer games then this is a fantastic setup and CANNOT be beaten for the price even 3 months later after this video was made. I have purchased 3 of these Optiplex 7040 builds and upgraded to the 1650Super and they are all primarily used as emulation and arcade machines that I place inside my larger arcade cabinet builds.. the performance eats and spits out everything from WiiU to PS3 and destroys it.. perfect for all emulation needs. Great information for anyone on a budget. Thanks!

OEM systems up to 4th Gen Core used more standard components including PSUs and only needed an adapter from 24-pin to whatever Lenovo, HP or Dell put on their boards (10-pin or 14-pin). Now OEM systems are worth it only in Tiny/Mini/Micro form factors to get you up and running for basic local tasks, emulation or local streaming from a beefier rig. I still use the case of a Lenovo ThinkStation E31 for the card reader and optical drive, but I sold it's original motherboard, upgraded Xeon 1270v2, 16GB DDR3 I got it with, broke even and went 12th Gen. The difference is night and day between Ivy Bridge and Alder Lake.

My first pc was a dell Inspiron that my mom got from her job . Me an my brother said up for gtx 1050 low pf Best little i5 pc I started with .

i have a 7050 sff and got it for 90 bucks fully working, spec-d out other than the ram... its amazing!

Great video and earned a sub from me. My only comment is I think for most users the RX 6400 would be the move. Of course it trades blows more with the 1650 non Super but the fact that you wouldn't need to risk the adapter and you'd have RSR on any game with full screen, I feel, really adds to the value proposition. Whereas the 1650S can't use DLSS, which isn't even universally available anyway. Orrrrrr... really bang for power usage, maybe that new RX 6600M that's floating around. A laptop to desktop variant of the chip that stays cooler and sips power. It's also 100W at default and blasts the 1650S on FPS.. and that's before undervolting.

Very good job, alot of people are opting to buy older business pc's and upgrading them. I got the HP Elitedesk 800 G4 which I got refurbished from a local guy who does it out of his garage. It came with 16gb of ram and an SSD and booted up in a couple seconds, it also came with an I5-8500 and got a low profile GPU and sure, it's limited but hey, I got it and the Monitor, keyboards and mouse for $150 and spent $37 on the GPU so it's all good. It's a SFF so I couldn't go with a GPU that would need more space and power unless I ran it externally but it's a goood deal

I use the 5040 platform a good bit for pc flips. I throw in a 2nd stick of memory in, a cheap nvme like the crucial p3, and a 1050ti or 1650 and sell them locally. Generally only try to make $100-$150 on each build depending on how cheap I get it together for. I'm able to undercut any oem low-end gaming pc at similar spec by a couple hundred. Sure the draw back is its 3 or for gens behind, but still plays any modern game and your saving $200-$250 which is huge these days for a lot of people. Most of these low end oem gaming builds have little to no upgrade path anyways either seeing how their mostly proprietary parts so the cons in these optiplex builds also carry over to these low end oem gaming pc rigs as well.

To me the smarter option would be to wait it out. Prices have really been in Flux lately and it is still fairly common to find a similar build that has a normal psu slot. This alone opens a whole new world to the pc.

Ive built similar gaming PCs from Optiplex and HP office prebuilds. I usually go for the ones that have the standard PSU size for easy upgradability. I just upgraded an HP tower with a 650w 80 platinum and it goes nicely with the RX 580 and i7 6700 combo. The CPU is definitely a bottleneck but its a great budget setup if you just want 60fps in AAA and high refresh rate esports.

I have watched dozens and dozens of videos about the optiplex because like many I'm on a very tight budget. You were so thorough with your explanations about your testing and the potential pitfalls. Great job. Big tick and subscribe from me. As to your final question, I do think they are probably worth the risk. So much so, in fact, that I've bit the bullet and ordered a slightly refurbed 9020 in an MT case, with an i7 4790 3.6ghz and 16gb ram. They've even installed Win 10 Pro on a 120 gb SSD and popped a 1 tb HD (which I probably won't be using) in with it. All for £129. I'm looking at the GTX1650 option as I don't feel comfortable with using the connectors and having any power risks I think. And when I can, I think an NVMe PCIe adaptor card with 1TB m.2 drive should complete the setup nicely. Looking forward to getting the unit and trying it all out.

I threw a seasonic gx750 and a 980ti in a dell 3020 MT with an i7 4790k and it worked. I was able to play every game i threw at it with limitations of course. With that said i still wouldnt recommend it. Cons include heat issues(had to keep the side panel off), my ram couldnt run at its top speed, the motherboard itself can't utilize the equipment in it to its fullest. i was missing a good amount of performance like 20%. And there isnt alot of space or anywhere to put the wires so they were just laying anywhere they can fit and i like my inside to be nice and clean. So i ended up getting an z390 motherboard with an i9 9900k cpu and a case. So yeah ended up building my own pc which cost like double the price but it was worth it to me. Not the most powerful but definitely no slouch

By far the best explained video of optiplex's and the problems that they can have with the PSU and having to power the GPU with SATA adapters.

I always use pcs that can take a standard power supply when I build flip systems, and I always use brand new psus to make sure they'll last. Also always include monitor, speakers, keyboard, mouse and cables. I think it's a lot more worthwhile then.

I just bought an Optiplex 7040 MT on Ebay xD Still waiting for it to ship, but my intention is actually for a home server. My friends and I have been playing 7 days to die, and we often play Minecraft together. She's been hosting on her potato computer, and I'm just getting kind of tired of the lag spikes. Especially that more people keep joining in

I scored an HP Z240 workstation equipped an i7 6700, 16gb ddr4 2133, and a 500gb sata ssd for $120. I found a 1660 super locally for $75. Grabbed a dual sata to 8 pin for $5, slapped it together, and it runs amazing! (Though it runs a little warm.)

Doing a sff build with this desktop but the sff version. Rx6400 used $110 Optiplex 7040 $60 Used old ddr4 stick and an an old sata ssd. Yours will be more performant. Rx 6400 works well in the sff system since the uppermost pcie spot is only x4 which matches the gpu, a little bit extra air flow. Don’t really get the upgrade bit, when you’re ready to upgrade pull your parts, sell it for about what you paid for it, buy a newer optiplex, upgrade complete, that’s what they were built for in the office, run for a long time buy an 8th gen in optiplex year or two for $60-80, upgrade complete

I put a gtx 1660 ti in my own dell optiplex 7040 exact same desktop shown in the video, to power it I connected an external 500 watt power supply so I got 2 power supplys on that and if I really wanted to it could power a 30 series card because the 500 watt psu is soley dedicated to powering a gpu, the internal power supply powers the rest of the computer.

The only issue with OEM systems and why even on a budget I wouldn't recommend to anyone getting into gaming is what you have said, who knows how many hours are on the system, but even that system, you can not just go out and get any standard motherboard to replace a failed motherboard, PSU connections are different, the case is different, I try my best to only look for deals on the OEM side of things if they used standards. I use a Dell OptiPlex 390 for my media server, the original board died, its a standard forum factor, but Dell used a different front panel connectors and a few other odd pinot connectors I had to modify to usa a more standard board, thats the only downfall. I'd have to further look into so and so system before I can just recommend it unless its at a really good price.

you could easily put a bigger power supply just need to do some sketchy Drimmer cutting, which you would have to remove all pc components leaving you with just the pc case

The build quality is great for the most part, but that half PCI slot has been on at least 4 generations of Optiplex, I just wish they swapped the half slot to the bottom and and full slot to the top so I can have 16x pci instead of 4xpci for my GPU card (yes you can put a full height card in a half slot, but will run at 4x PCI, not a major performance hit, but still a hit)

There is great value to be had in these OptiPlexes but also a very narrow path to not screw it up. You succeeded in this build by getting the unit super cheap, getting a GPU at a good price, not investing money in a PSU, and not replacing other things like the CPU - Ive seen other builds where people replace almost everything, so the only thing they got from the Optiplex in the end was an obsolete motherboard. The next couple of generations of Optiplex that are coming down in price (talking as they age out to 5-7 years) offer a TON of value in that they are coming with NVMe SSDs, 32GB DDR4, USB-C, with other options and variations. The downside still remains the PSU, and they are pretty much all SFF or MFF. So your GPU option remains at the same level 75-100W but is also further limited to low-profile, so you're looking at the rx 6400, rtx 3050 6GB, gtx 1650 non-SUPER and the trouble becomes getting down below that $160 range - so used deals are a must. I'd say the other pitfall of getting these from an auction as opposed to officially renewed/refurb is that the likelihood that someone snagged the good stuff (NVMe, RAM) on the way out of the office. I think the best case scenario would be prices coming down (I know, not very likely) for the 3050 / 6400 cards or maybe even in the next year or so there could be drastically more powerful 4-5nm RDNA4 offering from AMD. Nvidia might not care to make a 4N Ada card in that class. And Intel's ARC A380 WOULD be the perfect fit but it only works well with resizeable bar (more recent platforms)

I just replaced a working dell slim, that was in someone cubicle 15+ years ago. The HDD had a 2007 date on it. MB 2005. So you take your chances. It it works for 3+ years you are golden.

My PSU don't have an 8 pins, so I use a Molex to 8 pins, works great! It's a 1080Ti, pair with a power hungry Athlon 860k. Adapters are generally safe, just insert the connector properly, touch the cable during gaming session to see if it get too hot.

You can put a sfx psi into a mini tower optioned and get a 6 pin to 24 pin from mod diy

Good video and well said. I think this and a modern budget pc are two different things... I was helping a neighbor tune up an old attic PC, it was it was a core 2 duo system to give you an idea of how old it was and I warned them that it was kind of wasteful to buy upgrades for it. But the reality was, they didn't even have $4-500 to get a cheap but new PC, they had $100 to spend. So I got a sata SSD and I think like a GT 710 (I honestly can't remember the exact gpu it was) from ebay for like $20... They only had to spend like $60 total, and this thing was up and running and playing microsoft word and outlook and their kid could play roblox on it. Honestly, I warned them losing their OEM Microsoft Office Software licenses is what would cost them the most in the long run lol

I have always liked your honesty esp on budgets . My q is this to you as in terms of parts failures ? New parts fail too even after 6 months of mild use versus the old office equipment built to run 24 7 for like 5 years . I believe older motherboards and power units are designed for long term use versus some high end bards n psu

It's nice to see someone talk about the fact that just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. You're right it is an inexpensive entry level build... But a year and a half from now it may not be able to run what you want. Thanks for the insight.

Great video. I did something like this with my 7040MT. I am going to put a SFX PSU in mine and get a better GPU. But....I am doing this about a year after buying the Optiplex. That is the only way it makes sense. Is buy the system, get it up and running as cheap as you can. Then upgrade later

old hardware is great and I think certain components do last a long time. I still have an overclocked i7 3770k pc running like a champion with some fast ddr3 (2400mhz gskill trident x) ram, in the original motherboard it was built in (and original PSU also, which was only a bronze). With recent power energy price hikes though, if you have have an idle running pc, the power efficiency might not be as good. I have a haswell server that has a lot of hardware (4 SAS HDDs & controller, 5 SSDs, 1 sata HDD, GTX1050ti), and it idles around 80-85w, which is probably not too bad all things considered (xeon 1271 v3 cpu & 32GB RAM), but i leave it off just now unless i have to use it, just because of the energy prices. I instead run server duties from a cluster of old 6th & 7th gen mobile cpus, like i3 6100u where the idle power is very low (still old tech though) - i lose ecc memory, but it's only temporary (4 of these running, total idle power 8-10w).

Bro, nice video! just a quick note: in Cyberpunk you were using high setting for crowd density in the gameplay settings section I can tell, lower it and you will be able to get 60fps because it is extremely heavy on the CPUs.

This video is equally a throwback and refreshingly modern. I'd argue price to performance at $250 has gotten better in the last few years (after the GPUpocalypse). THANKS DANNY

For a few months back in 2020 I was buying Optiplex 70 and 9010s and upgrading the PSU, GPU and storage, and then flipping them. Mind you, this was before the GPU price nightmare, so it was a lot easier to get a 1060 6GB or an RX 480 and throw in there and still make some money off of each system. I put them on FB marketplace ans each one sold within a few days. Kinda miss that.

With Fortnite, I’ve found that on my Intel systems it has issues with 8GB ram, always stutters and terrible frame rates unless it was on performance mode with 100 resolution scaling, medium render distance, high textures, fps capped to 120fps On my AMD systems I never had this issue even with 8gb ram, on performance mode or regular DX11-12.

A couple of points. 1. The box came without disk drive, but I saw no provision for funding Windows software, that I'm pretty certain you'd need. You may be able to source it free, but if any of us did it, it would be piracy. 2. Replacement parts. My suggestion would be to not buy any replacement parts, but to purchase two of these boxes at the same time. That would give you a full set of replacement parts, plus it would obviate the need to purchase another RAM stick, because you could use the one out of the spare. You may even get some discount for purchasing two, and that should future-proof you for a little while.

Nice to see someone showing BOTH (positive and negative) sides of upgrading these proprietary systems. To date, I've done three different OEM HP systems and a Dell All-in-One Inspiron One. I've done a 4th Gen Intel, 7th Gen Intel and 8th Gen Intel systems and discovered that "newer" isn't always "better" when it comes to upgrading these systems. The Dell was a Pentium upgraded to a 2nd Gen Core i5, an SSD and an additional 8GB of RAM. Much to my surprise and shock, the 4th Gen completely out-performed the 7th Gen and the 8th Gen only out-performed the 4th Gen because of the GPU, a low profile GTX-1050ti 4GB as opposed to a GTX-1650 8GB in the 8th Gen. He's right when he said "save your money and build a system from scratch and you won't have any future upgrade limitations". I built a 7th Gen system using mostly used parts for just a bit under $600 and that's with an Asrock Z270 MATX mainboard, 32GB RAM, 1TB NVMe, Core i7-7700K, used platinum rated 650 watt modular PS , 5- 120MM RGB case fans w/controller and a GTX-1080 8GB GPU. Plus, I can over-clock the entire system. I can also completely gut the case and start over if I want.

Recently I found 4 Dell Precision tower workstations: 3 T3620s, & 1 T1650. All have the Xeon CPU! I think the 1650 is a 10 year old system, & the 3620s are about 7 yeats old. The 3620, at least 1, can support the i7 7700 / 7700K! (i5 & i7)

I’m glad I stumbled on you I’m 62 and leagally blind just finding information on the optiplex’s”like 7th gen.” Is difficult to find I’m on a budget and my 7050 optiplex just purchased from Amazon will work for me hearing your con and pro-con opinion. Thanks

I agree with a lot of your conclusions. People are nuts paying what they're asking for i7 7700's still. However, I don't nessisarily agree that people should probably just build a $500 i3 10100 build instead. There are cases where the 6700 will be faster, because there are games that are more cache dependent and the 10100 and 10105 are down 2MB of cache over the 6700. I've seen people say that there was no perf gain to 10th Gen over the 4th or even 3rd Gen i7's, citing benchmarks... and this was likely the reason. So, the 6700 could be a better value depending on the games you play. And really, some people are so tight on budget they can't afford to pay double to build something with similar, to worse performance... despite having an actual upgrade path. Especially right now, and economic conditions are only going to get worse.

I just bout a dell gtx1650 super on ebay for $85, I got a dell precision 3620 tower with 16gb of ram for $40, 512gb nvme for $23 on Amazon, and the adapter recommended here for $5.99 on amazon. Not a bad deal. $155 build.

You can also just pay 132.00 and get a 6 core zeon t3600 that runs windows 11 and 10

Thanks for sharing! the reason we chose budget PC is to save money, and a GPU that does not need extra power (e.g. GTX 1050) would be the most suitable one to upgrade your PC, while enjoying a pleasant gaming experience.

I love office pc usually with around 100$ or so you can usually get some good i7 like 6 or 7 generation , which will be just fine for even all-new AAA games, usually you just have to buy a graphic card that's it , in most office pc today they come even with 16gb of ram, so yea Really good if you want just a home PC to play games but you don't care to play on max settings or you don't care for 4 like 4k etc ... All this pc are fine or 1080p gaming my friend got simular PC, but I think he had inside gtx 1050ti or like that,something like that with I think some i7 6gen, and still even today he is playing new games just fine on 1080p 60 fps If you don't have mutch money ,this is a great deal, and over time you can save maybe to buy a proper gaming pc

Is there a doc or some other tool to check compatibility on these optiolex builds? I have a spare gtx 1050ti laying around, and I'm wondering if this optiolex or others would work with it.

You're actually the first person to bring up the negatives about these type of builds XD. I'm a complete noob, but I saw other similarly priced builds that performed worse on valorant and apex compared to yours, but better on cyberpunk and warzone. Is this perhaps because they had a bigger PSU? i'm curious whats the difference between these games and their requirements from different components...

I had a vistro die on me when i installed a 3060 card using a sata power adapter. It worked for a while then once i tried a heavy game, it just went off with a burning smell coming out. Fortunately the card was still fine and I had to build a proper gaming PC around it. In short, I totally agree with the views in this video.

Just FYI, you can game on an RTX A2000 6GB that goes for 400$ on ebay and get 60FPS with ray tracing in cyberpunk. And it only uses 60w of power.

Those Fortnite stutters look exactly like the stutters I got in Conan Exiles, when running my RAM at 2133 on an i7 6700k. Using XMP to get it at 3000Mhz got rid of them.

Thanks dude! You just saved me trying to mod my opti 7050 MT to put an ATX PSU in! Got a GTX 1650 on the way with a TDP of just 80 watts. I was going to use a PSU I already had, but that can go back in storage. Just ordered a SATA to PCIe adapter LOL

You shouldn't run generic supplies or old ones as they will take out other components sometimes when they fail. Some Dell Optiplex models have ATX supplies and can be swapped straight out. The 12v rail is the important specification not the total peak wattage. My Optiplex 3020 cost £250 GBP total with a new Corsair 550w PSU, new 120gb SSD and a GTX 1070. The main catch is I have a PC that looks like it belongs in a skip and I can't overclock the memory or CPU. I can run Fortnite pretty smooth on Epic settings at 60fps. My CPU is the Haswell i5 and I have 8gb ram.

Hi Actually a pretty good review showing of the best and worst. I typically recommend to family and friends to buy these ex lease 4 year old PC's A few years ago I also recommend for light gaming the GT1030 and the next step up the GTX1050 - the 1030 only draws 35 watts and performance is 60/70% of the 1050 - as long as you get the ddr5 memory version Also the 1030 is a great 1/2 size card for those small factor machines Smaller business will keep these machines until they die, the last 4 places i worked in were either all HP or all Dell places, a few machines die in the mother board, but i found most just cook them selves and switch off - especially if the machine was placed o the ground against a wall and on carpet, the insides are a fur ball Even worse was machines is factory environment, they are all black inside in 2 years !! I used to get some overtime every 3 months just taking apart pc's and taking them out the back and blowing them out with compressed air some were like a cartoon with a big black cloud - Dell power supplies were mainly clogged Second last place ran HP2400 with 2nd gen i5's and half ran win XP the others win 7 - i have one and it happily runs win 10 and a gt1030 I just gave away my Dell 9020 I7 with 4th or 5th gen cpu, to a friend at work with kids fighting over the single pc at home that was pretty good and similar to what you showed. I totally agree with your closing statement, cheap to buy but dont start replacing everything it will be a money pit, with the non standard mother board and power supply you are not going anywhere, the only mods is a graphics card and a new ssd or 2 of them For people who dont game much, they are excellent as the major OEM's are a good choice as you buy one, place a new ssd in it and install a fresh copy of win 10 or win 11 and it will become fully licensed after a few reboots - for most people this is perfect and you are not spending big $$$ to get licensed windows in saying that i have 2 machines that the HP laptop OEM wont attach and the sticker keys are for OEM version so i loose the ability to customise the desktop and have a water mark - no big deals i have been using it that was for 4 years Regards George

I JUST BUILD GAMING PC FOR $ 275 I BUY A USE HP ELITE 800 GI WITH INTEL I5 ALL I ADD IS 500MB SSD CARD , 16 GB RAM,INVIDIA 1030 2G LOW PROFILE AND I CAN PLAY CALL OF DUTY ON 1080P.

fortnite just started using unreal engine 5.1 with the new season and that fixed the stuttering issue

I have a office pc build. Its has a i7 3-something k, 16gb DDR3 RAM, upgraded PSU to 650 bronze and RTX 2060 Super mini. Currently saving up to make a proper gamer build. My current off pc build can still do the job but its slowly starting to show its age. Dell Optiplex 9010 running modern games lol but no way it can do VR and im getting VR for sure

yes worth the risk. ive been using a optiplex 3010 i5 for 3 years and have upgraded the gpu,memory, and ps.still running good. im gonna build one soon but the dell works for now.

I have the exact same system that I'm using for gaming, but I have the 1660 ti in it. I am looking to upgrade the PSU and have read a couple of guides that gave ideas for that, using either a Corsair or Cooler Max SFX PSU. Yes, it will need the 24 to 8 pin adapter, but they say it will work just fine, Other than the PSU, everything else is great on the system. 32 G of RAM, 256 G SSD and 3 TB HD. I could probabl yank the HD out and stick it in m y office PC, but then again, I'm just starting to record my rides, so that 3 TB hard drive might come in handy. The thing is, I only play one game. I play Zwift and nothing else. I'm already getting 60 FPS at 1440 UHD, so for me, that's great, compared to the weak laptop I was using before. I just feel like I need a little more power to make sure the card gets all the juice it needs.

GTX 1650 is such a unit! Wonder how an RX6500xt would do

These units are great to setup and give to people who need a computer that can't afford one.

this is scarily close to my $1000 PC from 4 years ago

The stock 240 PSU in my OptiPlex 3050 powers the i5 7500, 16gb ram, 1tb m.2, and 1660 Ti with the sata to pcie 6 pin adapter. If i overclock the GPU too much i can trip the power supply but running 200mhz over on the gpu and 1000mhz overclock on the gpu memory runs all day no problem.

For the GPU there are GTX 1650 out there that don't require a pcie power and is way better than an rx 6400 or a 1630. The 1650 is also the fastest card that has low profile options making it able to squeeze in those slim optiplex cases as well

Hello mine is a optiplex 7040, core i7 32.ghz, 32gb ddr4, m.2 512gb, 2 ssd 1tb and 512gb, dvd-rw sdcard 128gb and a video card gtx 1650, and i love it, motherboard is very cheap

HEre in 3rd world, budget is everything. Reliability is close second, because you want to put togheter something that will last. Great video with an even better full disclosure of the risks.

This era Dell towers are actually not bad looking at all.

Got same one with i5-6500/16GB/1TBnvme/GTX1650(not super), awesome machine because of silent! Can't hear it even under full load.

thats a no bs solid budget gaming pc, if only prices for dell optiplexes were similar in my country, the best i can get in $100 is i5 4th gen optiplex

I've done the same with a 5040 i7 and 16gb ram. GTX 1650 runs great for a budget. Maybe not for triple A titles but esports just run fine

This should run all games released for PS4 with no problem. As for PSU, there are actually some adapters to use standard PSU with Dell crappy proprietary boards . In this, it could be actually worthwhile to replace board and PSU completely with something standard and Skylake compatible.

currently doing the same build is 75$ cheaper. The optiplexes and gpus are a lil cheaper on used market rn. some gpus are higher than what he spent.

Such interesting that you realy did so large work to check all the specs and pros and cons of this computer, I think of all I seen and done my self its a good job you did, I have 2k self built comp. and Im watching and playing almoust all games 160Fps but I know the struggle. Keep up !

As someone who grew up on consoles, I don’t think there is anything wrong with putting $200-$400 into a dead end system and just enjoying the price to performance ratio for a few years. Especially for kids that’s just want a gaming machine and aren’t so obsessed with performance and upgrades and don’t have income for upgrades. Just hop on and play with your friends. But as an adult I would never build one of these for myself, maybe for my kids, but not for myself. I would just spend a little more and build something better.

Thanks for posting this. I was thinking of doing something like this for Emulation in my living room but didn't have many cases to make one from scratch. The only thing I have is a spare RX 570 8gb so I was thinking of buying an Optiplex and slapping it on.

I wanted to say thank you very much. You explain how and why about the PC that even a person that doesn't know anything about PC can even understand. I'm very surprised that you got that kind of fps with that PC. Thanks again 🙂👍

A well pc diet explain it shows that its good to look for newer pc parts than these stuck old hardware thanos for the time and energy bro really appreciated

a case swap is all you need for an upgraded power supply, for a total of about $75 from what I can find.

Nice build for E sports gaming,though I'd have opted for a Xeon based OEM PC,4c n 8T just doesn't do as much as it used to nowadays n used Xeon PCs ie e5..v3 n v4 are just as cheap n with them u can scale up core wise n also hopeful run better GPUs in the future like a 3060, 6700 or any other

I can only warn against using these Sata adapters. I tested them once and the temperature at the connector increased relatively quickly and reached temperatures that were not so nice. The voltage drop at the connector was also clearly measurable and by the adapter almost outside the specification and that at 75W. Can rapidly become critical with the wrong graphics card, cheap processed adapter, etc. Thus, be careful such systems I would not run unattended

Ok but that merch is SICK

I would highly recommend that anyone who plans to get an old office computer for this purpose gets a model that uses a standard power supply. Certain models, and certain form factors like SFF, use proprietary supplies and it isn't worth it. It limits your choices. I noticed that Cyberpunk was CPU limited. That's not good. It looks like that game is an indication of what upcoming games are going to need, and this i7 6700 is already too slow.

You make a good point on the aging parts in these systems, I never thought about that.

Personally I shy away from prebuilts for my builds, but it's a very good cookie cutter option!

Good video! nice build i would say its worth it for people that just wanna play something after work and don't have alot of money to spend.

Bro, you should do videos on used gaming laptops. Or if you want to get even more budget, go down the rabbit hole of used thinkpads.

My experience has been that Fortnite likes more than four cores/ four threads. Four cores with eight threads is a little better, with at least 6 cores makes it run much more smoothly - depending on video card ofc.