Hey I've been building systems with those motherboards for quite a while, I discovered that the row of pins by the sata ports can be used for RESET switch, HDD LED and POWER button as well! It follows the same pinout as the vostro's of the same era, no messing with that proprietary 5 pin at the top of the motherboard! No error codes either!

Awesome video Matt! Thank you for making content about ultra budget PC gaming, it is often overlooked. I can't wait to see what you come up with next!

I've built many PCs with similar specs for friends and family over the past couple years. And yes, I've noticed the RX 470 and RX 570 are both getting very cheap on eBay and are a great deal.

nice work man u accually made a solid review and a veteren benchmarking u deserve a sub and a thumbes up

Love these videos. Keep it up

Ooh when I built with E3 Xeons back in 2020, and cheap motherboards (an Acer veriton x4630g), the value was awesome. And they've gotten cheaper and cheaper. Always love to see Xeons :)

yea love to see it. also i loved the gpu mystery box series

Nice budget build there Matt 😎

This reminds me of the XEON 1620 v3, ludicrously cheap at just $8 (ie. 6 UKP where I am in the UK), a Haswell-E part and thus (unlike SB) it has all the modern instruction sets and provides PCIe 3.0. It behaves like an i7 4770, but of course the problem is finding a relevant S2011-3 mbd (X99). I bought one to fault-diagnose a Rampage V Extreme, but in so doing I was amazed at how well it ran in general. I've since obtained a replacement 6850K (old one had developed a PCIe controller fault), but I hope to find some other X99 mbd to test the 1620 v3 later. It may only be a 4c/8t CPU, but being X99 it has more memory bandwidth thain modern mainstream mbds and a lot more PCIe lanes. Mind you, the 6c 5930K is only 20 UKP so for the small extra outlay it makes more sense. :D A while ago the 8c 2650 v2 (IB-E) was all the rage for budget builds via Aliexpress, using mbds such as the excellent PlexHD X79. It's moved on since then to X99/Haswell, but it's not as cheap as it used to be and RAM is priced higher now. Another option, again if one can find a suitable mbd, is the 3930K, a 6c SB-E available for about $20, and unlike XEONs it can oc to 4.6+ on a decent mbd, but even at stock is still pretty good. Or there's the 4930K for not much more, or the 4c 4820K for a lot less. In the UK from CEX the 4820K is just 10 UKP, the 3930K is 18 UKP and 4930K is 22 UKP, plus of course these CPUs all have 40 PCIe lanes, so plenty of options for expansion *if* one can find a suitable mbd. Still, with the CPU costing so little, it perhaps matters less if then spending a bit more on a semi decent mbd, something like the ASUS P9X79 Pro or above. Another popular option for X79 is the 6c 1650 v2 because it can be oc'd, but I don't see the point when the 4930K is so cheap anyway and will always be supported (XEON support varies; Asrock and Gigabyte are usually fine, ASUS varies, MSI I'm not so sure about). The other nice part about the above options is the quad channel RAM, so one can go for that 4x4GB and still obtain the higher memory bandwidth, which will help in some cases. Or double up the slots for 32GB. Ho hum, if only it were still possible to easily obtain good X79/X99 mbds. Meanwhile, for normal consumer mbds the P55 era is still cheap and can be pretty good if paired with a decent CPU, but it is limited to SATA2, PCIe 2.0 and no native USB3 (though as you say one can fix this with addin cards). However, this matters a lot less than many would assume.

I have an Optiplex 790 DT and 390 MT, as well as 2 Optiplex 7010 MTs. I have tested a Xeon E3-1270 in both my 790 and 390 and they have worked flawlessly. I got it for around $20 USD converted from CAD. The only issue I had was that my 390 BIOS was on the first revision and wouldn't boot Windows 10/11 GPT installers, so I had to make a Windows 7 MBR installer and update the BIOS through Windows 7 before clean installing 10. Now everything works flawlessly on my Optiplex 390 (with the Xeon) and a Quadro K2200 I picked up for less than $15 USD

Hey matt, love the content. Would you be interested in checking out the new chinese DIY APE YTX motherboard? I havent seen anything about it yet and the new form factor looks super interesting.

I have an Optiplex 390 build I put in a modded HP 8000 case. This board actually works well for a triple boot WinME, XP, and Win7 system. On eBay they have converters for the proprietary power/LED and front IO although it costs more than the board itself. There are guides online for pinouts for DIYers out there. I put a FirePro V5100 (Radeon x700 equivalent ) so WinME and XP can use the same card. For Win7 I swap out that GPU with a GTX 750 TI to play a few newer titles. Strange an OEM board can be that flexible, but with the SATA and ram patches by RLoew Win9x runs fine on the 390 too!

Damn ye Matt! I keep saying PC gaming is impossible because it's too expensive. Keep up the good work.

Did you change the cpu cooler from intel stock to a server stock cooler? ;) those oem/dell motherboards are not compatible with push pins I guess. I’m looking for a few optiplexes or Hp MTs so to drop 1230’s in, good video!

I actually did the exact same thing, made a couple mistakes tho (for example, bought server ram😬😐) great vid!

I would reccomend getting an old desktop for the case (I've found a few for as little as $5). This also means you can sell the rest of the components to have more money to say spend more on RAM or storage

Pretty good budget PC 👍

25 for the cpu and mobo is a great price for a solid starter kit. I've moved on to better hardware but for the person with little budget this is a great video.

im using an e3-1270v2 and a 1660super and it still rips. 1080p monster!

The king is back!

ITs fine. My pc is an i7-3770 (NON k) with Asus P8z77m, 32GB RAM, samsung evo ssd 512GB, Seasonic S12G 650W and RX 6700 XT. Ι gaming at 1080 with very high and ultra at all games, even on vr games

Great budget build video! Where would you look for adapters for those non-standard fan headers? Does Amazon have them?

in my country on secondhand market e3 1260l alone costs 20$ at very least(cheapest 4 cores 8 threads sandy bridge option), mobo also around 20 to 30$

Here in my country in Europe, any processor that has the i7 name or it's a 4c 8th Xeon get an automatic price premium. I have easily found a Lenovo motherboard with standard connector and pin layout for 10€ but the only processor you can find for 15-25€ is an i5 or the equivalent Xeon 4c 4th ( e.g. e3 1220 ) . So I settled for a 15€ i5 2400 with a 10th gen Intel stock cooler. The integrated graphics were pretty useful in the beginning as I added a GTX 1050 a few weeks later. All in all a made that pc for around 80€ and the other day I made a Zoom call with my students and it was capable of screen sharing while writing on my graphic tablet,as well as keeping some documents open without a hitch.

E5 ...v3 chips are a banger even today,still worthit if found for cheap even today in my opinion

Long live the LGA 1155 socket

I'm running 2 xeon x5680's from 2009. I can play on steam, Watch 4k, And encode AV1 at 100 fps just off the cpu's. What more could you want :)

i have that power supply and its been good so far

Thank you for the incredible (and very enjoyable) video which highlighted a lot of problems that one may have run into had someone not watched it. Though personally I would have gone for an RX570 for 20 or 25 USD more. The RX 570 would annihilate that 960 in performance and would be imo completely worth the price increase. I looked at a video where the RX 570 was about 60% faster on average across games and on one occasion over 100% faster in Red Dead Redemption 2.

a while back I got a 2600K / Z68X-UD3 deal for 50$, mint condition It's still running daily @ 4.7Ghz in a Cam PC till this day

My old pc had a e3 1240 v3 and was a champ

Oh gosh the spacebar got me.

On ebay I found a deal for a dell optiplex 3010 mobo i5 3570 and 8gb ram for 23 bucks. I paired it with a case and psu deal i got on facebook local. And a gtx 960 for 40. So I put together a build woth a gpu for 115 dollars. It already sold locally for 300.

Im gonna build it 🎉

Is the Xeon E3 1240 v2 CPU compatible with the Foxconn MATX H61 LGA 1155 Motherboard?

add in a frame limiter and this would be sweet for the price

This is dirt cheap. Well done on the sub-$200 parts list. I would never settle for a 960, though. I'd personally use either a 1050Ti or an RX 470 at least. Looks like it's good for someone who is desperate to get into esports. This is better than some of the stuff that was going for over $500 about a year and a half ago when scammer were selling i5 2600s with GT 710 and a bunch of cheap RGB fans.

Great hunting

I usually only snag these types of mobos if they have usb 3.0 out

i just got a lga 1155 mobo with a i3 2nd gen with it, im planning to replace the i3 with xeon or i5 2400 (temporarily), basically i have a A8-7600 with a 8gb ram i just want to squeeze this rx 460 2gb i got.

You should of gone with the 4gb model it pro-forms about5-15 %better in 1080p then the 2 gig model I was getting 77fps low on borderlands 3 at 1980x1200 so higher then 1080p so it's either the vram is limiting the gpu or there's a CPU bottle neck

😊 checkout the RX 460 4GB, in latin america its considered the new 750ti for the working class

I kind of did the even cheeper verion of it. Xeon X3450, GTX 660, for 50€. Sure, it's not going to play much. But it's a full gaming PC for 50€. Someone is going to play WoW on it.

Fun fact: in 2014, more people were buying a Intel Xeon E3 1231 v3 than the Intel Core i7 4770 because it was much cheaper (until Intel noticed their mistake and put a stop to this)

The amount of rust on that motherboard - yikes! I like that eBay seller, but that board was rough.

Can someone please help? I’m running a build for my friend with this cpu and motherboard along with an rx460 and 1 stick of 8 gb ram. The video said it should be running at around 100 but i’m barely getting 30 and it isn’t playable.

Just put one of these xeons in an optiplex 790 with an rgb cooler and a new rx 580 2048sp with 16gb ram. Runs great, mw2 at 1080p recommended settings avg fps 54. Got it up for sale if anyone's interested

The system was held back by the grapics card, and rx 570 should lift the fps by 25% ish, but would be its limit

nice

Few bucks more you could of gotten higher clocks and ht and some of the e3 CPUs do have igpu though it's not a great

For some people, it might be a good route because not everyone has a substantial amount of wealth to spend on computer hardware all the time.🤔👍

i fear the age will fail eventually, hopefully the 7th/8th gen cpus soon replace the sandy bridge legendary used parts or maybe even 1st gen ryzen

Make offers on eBay for an rx 570. I just got an 8gb powercolor model for $63 after tax. very good deal for a very good card

so then why does my pc stutter during games and in general?? I hace a gtx 970 and a i5 4440 with 8gb ram 1333 mhz what is the problem then

"Xeons are much cheaper than core i7 series." um it depends on where you live, but in Indonesia Xeons are either more rare or expensive than core i7 series. Sometimes their price just nearly the same.

costa rica? wow didn't know that intel were operating in latinoamerica too

love lakey

Honestly I'd use this but not for a flip, only for a personal

hi matt

budget builds=happy

BUILDING 1 NOW,7010 MOBO AND GOT A E3 1270 V2...GOT FOR 24$ TOTAL...

Laughs in i7 12800hx and ROFL in 3070 Ti. I am just kidding. I learned a lot from this video and makes me happy to now know what gaming rig my first child will be getting.

yea i woulld just rather get ivy bridge OEM motherboard and then get e3-1230 v2 (i7 3770 equivalent) and then like a gtx 970, 1070 or 1060

I was think about the i5 4690k its gone as low as $11

Emulation?

You need some older games to benchmark. Assassin's Creed 2, Just Cause 2, Farcry 2, Battlefield 2, Arma 2... lmao BTW all of those have something in common (other than being considered by many to be the best in their series)... NO MICROTRANSACTIONS!

There are Chinese LGA 1155 mobos ... Super cheap

Given the specs, I would love to see the 720p benchmarks, as 720p is more realistic for the system. May be something to consider for these super budget builds going forward.

جميل

That is one nasty bottleneck tho...😬

I realised I have 5 of h61 mobos and I destroyed one as a kid 💀

Personally, I would rather go with a am4 APU build. Save the 45 bucks for the graphics card and use it for a cheap set of am4 motherboard and ddr4 ram. In non esport games, it will have significantly poorer performance, but since this setup is mostly CPU bottlenecked in all the esport games, I’d rather take the great upgradability of AM4

Be careful with GPU choice and double check PCI version on this motherboards, if its pci 2.0 better get something like rx 580 with big bandwidth

Hey Matt that case is abysmal. I had two of them and they have the worst airflow you can imagine. Take it from me, Matt, too 👍

I actually built this pc as a server about 2 weeks ago with a spare gtx 970 and a dell 790 mother and 16gb of ram

Lol.... I am still using GeForce GTX 960 4GB with my Ryzen 5 2600.....

the 1% lows are pretty bad on a lot of those games. Id say if you cant get over 30fps 1% lows in fortnite, then the computer hardware isnt good enough for gaming anymore

I wouldn't wish this setup on my worst enemy

Can it run rdr2?

I hate to be that guy but… That power usage tho… I spent a little more for a little less performance, but I’d bet the three 2400g pcs I just scraped together for my sisters kids use less power all together than that… all they want to play is Roblox Minecraft and Fortnite… I packed three systems into a single box with one 500w psu, killawatt shows about350 watts max with all systems running fire strike. Much less under real gaming loads. I think the monitors use more power most of the time😂. They love it, only problem has been Radeon drivers crashing, causing their games to be a slideshow, restarts fix it. The cost? Less than 350usd - 3 mobos(as rock-hdv a320, ~40 each)3 cpus($40ea)3 2x8 kits ddr4 2400😢(25ea), 2 24pin splitters😮($10 ea, it’s fine), I had the psu, several small ssds and decent hdds, and a drawer full of wraith stealth coolers along with whatever else I needed. It’s super hacky, but somehow incredibly convenient, lol.

You don't post enough :(

Wow so you didnt need to spend 2k on just a video card to play some E-sports game wow .

the frame time is horrible, what a stuttery mess

Great build, but there is not enough ventilation for the system.

Crazy how 9 months later you can have a rx 580 for 50 bucks