Building a New Old Machine

Kintarō Hattori

Hey Folks,

I was watching a video on YouTube last night that looked at how the first generation Core i5 processors were for gaming today. It got me thinking. I have wanted a new PC as my old one is ancient (Intel Q9950, DDR-II etc) and not used anymore. My plan would be to use it to play my collection of Steam games which hasn't been updated in manny many years as I've been playing on console for the last few years. There's at least 120 or so games in my library so I think this could be a project worth looking at (for me). I'm not worried about playing the latest and greatest, this would simply be for the large collection of older games in my library.

How cheaply could I build a machine to plan old collection of games. Looking on eBay some parts are:

i5-750 can be got for around €10
An Asus motherboard can be got for around €50
16GB of DDR-III 1600 can be got for about €50
240GB SSD for around €30
I already have a copy of Windows 7 ultimate
An ATX tower can be got for around €40
I could probably use the existing PSU from my older machine which was quite a beefy unit

The only things I'm unsure of would be:

Do I go mini-ITX on the motherboard and case as this would go into the living room
What graphics card could I put into it?
Do I go with an LGA1156 chip/mobo or go for something after that? I'm fairly well out of this game so haven't kept up with what was relevant after the Core 2 Duo line

ED E

It seems mad to not step up to Sandy Bridge at a minimum.

mickuhaha

I would go with a 4670k and mobo combo at least for gaming. And maybe the old 7970/rx290. Old Amd cards seem to be a little better than Nvidia.

Homelander

There would be no point getting a 1st gen i5, the cost of a motherboard would be the same/more than a motherboard for the newest platforms which have low-end CPU's for €50 as well. So for the sake of €40 saved you'd be using totally obsolete 10 year old tech.

A320M motherboard new - €50
Ryzen 1200 2nd hand - €50
8GB DDR4 3200mhz - €50
240GB SSD - €35
Cheap case + PSU - €60
2nd hand GPU - €50

Total cost about €280. You could also buy a used Dell or HP on Ebay for about €120 with 8GB of RAM and a 4th gen i5. Add your own graphics card + SSD and it'll work out about €200 all in.

djan

What kind of games and what year were they made? Also what resolution would you play at?

If it's not too demanding stuff it could be an idea to go with AMD Ryzen G series processors which have a pretty decent graphics chip built in. It can run GTA V pretty decently compared to an xbox one s for example.

That would save up money as you don't need a graphics card.

Kintarō Hattori

Resolution would be capped at 1920 x 1080. To give you an idea of what games they are, here's a selection:

Assassin's Creed 3, Black Flag, Brotherhood
Batman: Arkham Asylum, City, Arkham Origins
Borderlands 1 & 2
Company of Heroes
Crysis 1 & 2
Farcry 4
Grid 2, Autosport
Just Cause 2 & 3
Metro Redux
Total War: Shogun 2
Toy Soldiers

I had totally not thought about AMD, depsite having built and owned many AMD powered machines in the past, so I'm totally open to building an AMD machine.

I'm so far out of the loop I have no idea if the Ryzen 1200 and the G series are one and the same. The plan is to build this, based off of your recommendations, so you lot have a lot of power in your hands right now! I'll link to parts and keep the thread updated if that would be of interest to anyone. There might be another eejit or two like me thinking about doing the same.

djan

Kintarō Hattori wrote: »

Resolution would be capped at 1920 x 1080. To give you an idea of what games they are, here's a selection:

Assassin's Creed 3, Black Flag, Brotherhood
Batman: Arkham Asylum, City, Arkham Origins
Borderlands 1 & 2
Company of Heroes
Crysis 1 & 2
Farcry 4
Grid 2, Autosport
Just Cause 2 & 3
Metro Redux
Total War: Shogun 2
Toy Soldiers

I had totally not thought about AMD, depsite having built and owned many AMD powered machines in the past, so I'm totally open to building an AMD machine.

I'm so far out of the loop I have no idea if the Ryzen 1200 and the G series are one and the same. The plan is to build this, based off of your recommendations, so you lot have a lot of power in your hands right now! I'll link to parts and keep the thread updated if that would be of interest to anyone. There might be another eejit or two like me thinking about doing the same.

Appreciate the long reply, makes it easier to gauge what kind of hardware would suit you, especially the games you're looking to play.

In terms of value, AMD is currently absolutely king while offering solid upgrade paths and keeping costs low.

I'll pop together a build tomorrow properly. What kind of budget you looking at?

Homelander

djan wrote: »

What kind of games and what year were they made? Also what resolution would you play at?

If it's not too demanding stuff it could be an idea to go with AMD Ryzen G series processors which have a pretty decent graphics chip built in. It can run GTA V pretty decently compared to an xbox one s for example.

That would save up money as you don't need a graphics card.

I wouldn't recommend this to be honest. They're very limited in terms of graphics power and you're gonna have to shell out £120 for a Ryzen 3400G to begin with.

For that price you'd get an entire i5 4th gen machine with 8GB ram off Ebay, just need to add a graphics card.

Like when the OP was talking about buying €10 processors, obviously the budget isn't there for a €500 machine.

Again, just get a 4th gen i5/8GB off Ebay for €120, drop in your SSD and 2nd hand GPU, and you'll have all the games mentioned running at 1080p high for the most part, perfectly for €200.

€300 with a mix of new/2nd hand parts would build you something solid enough that would also be OK for newer games and have future upgrade options.

Kintarō Hattori

djan wrote: »

Appreciate the long reply, makes it easier to gauge what kind of hardware would suit you, especially the games you're looking to play.

In terms of value, AMD is currently absolutely king while offering solid upgrade paths and keeping costs low.

I'll pop together a build tomorrow properly. What kind of budget you looking at?

As cheap as possible. I haven't gamed on the PC in a good few years as a little one has come along and well consoles have been taking care of the fix for a while. Literally the only reason I thought about this was to play the games currently in the steam library. I'm not looking to play newer titles as I'll just play those on console.

If a prospective build can play the library comfortably at 1080p on a shoestring budget, I'll be delighted.

For clarity I've attached the complete list of Steam games I'll be playing.

djan

For shoestring gaming, and idea could be to grab an ex office desktop machine such as the Dell Optiplex 9020 SFF which can be got for less than 100eur and put in a low profile graphics card like a Nvidia GTX 1050 or 1050ti (15% performance increase roughly) this will run the games listed really well, for comparison with consoles, it will be between a Xbox One S and a Xbox One X.

All together it would come to about 250eur. Assuming you have a monitor/tv and mouse/keyboard/gamepad already.

The negative with this is that it offers no upgrade path, spending another 200 eur will bring double the performance with better longevity. For your usecase, it would make sense to go for the cheaper option.

Installing the graphics card is quite simple: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3djQfs2--XQ

This si the performance you'd get, basically all the games would run great on high settings at 1080p: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exXwnZ6IU_w

Also I'd strongly recommend upgrading to an SSD drive, 120gb can be gotten for around 20eur. It will make a world of a difference for booting up the machine and general snappiness. The games can go on the slower HDD included in the pc.

Graphics card would have to be low profile such as this 1050ti: https://www.laptopsdirect.ie/gigabyte-gtx-1050ti-lp-4gb-gv-n105toc-4gl/version.asp?refsource=ldieadwords&mkwid=sSrk1dNZf_dc&pcrid=373898386443&product=GV-N105TOC-4GL&pgrid=77279078635&ptaid=pla-302734503742&channel=googlesearch&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIi8Ce-qPo6QIVwrHtCh2YWgszEAQYASABEgJ0KPD_BwE

djan

Just changed the links there to better ones.

djan

Scratch that card, totally forgot about the newer GTX 1650, which at the same price will offer a bit better performance. This version is a bit loud but does offer excellent performance. (fan speed can be controlled manually depending on ambient temps etc)

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.amazon.co.uk/Zotac-Gaming-GeForce-1650-Profile/dp/B07T7P3HMV&ved=2ahUKEwi2tMKbrOjpAhWzp3EKHWGCDN8QFjAEegQIAhAC&usg=AOvVaw1Ajzug_ncdcxr0S-SmZflH

Kintarō Hattori

djan wrote: »

For shoestring gaming, and idea could be to grab an ex office desktop machine such as the Dell Optiplex 9020 SFF which can be got for less than 100eur and put in a low profile graphics card like a Nvidia GTX 1050 or 1050ti (15% performance increase roughly) this will run the games listed really well, for comparison with consoles, it will be between a Xbox One S and a Xbox One X.

All together it would come to about 250eur. Assuming you have a monitor/tv and mouse/keyboard/gamepad already.

The negative with this is that it offers no upgrade path, spending another 200 eur will bring double the performance with better longevity. For your usecase, it would make sense to go for the cheaper option.

Installing the graphics card is quite simple: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3djQfs2--XQ

This si the performance you'd get, basically all the games would run great on high settings at 1080p: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exXwnZ6IU_w

Also I'd strongly recommend upgrading to an SSD drive, 120gb can be gotten for around 20eur. It will make a world of a difference for booting up the machine and general snappiness. The games can go on the slower HDD included in the pc.

Graphics card would have to be low profile such as this 1050ti: https://www.laptopsdirect.ie/gigabyte-gtx-1050ti-lp-4gb-gv-n105toc-4gl/version.asp?refsource=ldieadwords&mkwid=sSrk1dNZf_dc&pcrid=373898386443&product=GV-N105TOC-4GL&pgrid=77279078635&ptaid=pla-302734503742&channel=googlesearch&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIi8Ce-qPo6QIVwrHtCh2YWgszEAQYASABEgJ0KPD_BwE

I've had a look around at these but can't see them anywhere near the price point you've mentioned. Is it just a case of getting lucky?

Homelander

Something like this is what you're after. It's a 3rd gen i5 with 8GB of ram and already comes with an SSD + HDD for €130.

Add a 2nd hand GTX1050Ti for €80-100 off Adverts and for not much more than €200 you'll be running Witcher 3 at 1080p high/ultra without any issues.

edit: The thing with low profile cases is that you can only add low-profile cards which are much more expensive usually. The cheapest way to do it is with a full size tower and a 2nd hand full size GPU like the 1050ti.

Inquitus

Homelander wrote: »

Something like this is what you're after. It's a 3rd gen i5 with 8GB of ram and already comes with an SSD + HDD for €130.

Add a 2nd hand GTX1050Ti for €80-100 off Adverts and for not much more than €200 you'll be running Witcher 3 at 1080p high/ultra without any issues.

edit: The thing with low profile cases is that you can only add low-profile cards which are much more expensive usually. The cheapest way to do it is with a full size tower and a 2nd hand full size GPU like the 1050ti.

Aye I bought a bundle 18 months odd ago, a 550W eVGA Gold PSU and a eVGA GTX1060 GPU and popped them into a dell with a Decent i5 with 8GB's of RAM and gave it to my Son as a gaming rig, it plays pretty much anything decently at 1080p, especially the staples like Fortnite etc. It's certainly the cheapest way to put together a decent gaming rig for minimal money esp if you happen to have a Dell or a HP in house already. eVGA do these great value combinations from time to time.

Kintarō Hattori

Homelander wrote: »

Something like this is what you're after. It's a 3rd gen i5 with 8GB of ram and already comes with an SSD + HDD for €130.

Add a 2nd hand GTX1050Ti for €80-100 off Adverts and for not much more than €200 you'll be running Witcher 3 at 1080p high/ultra without any issues.

edit: The thing with low profile cases is that you can only add low-profile cards which are much more expensive usually. The cheapest way to do it is with a full size tower and a 2nd hand full size GPU like the 1050ti.

That looks ideal. Now not to ask too silly a question but would the PSU in that tower be up to running a GTX1050Ti?

Homelander

I'm not saying buy that exact one but just gives you a good idea of what you get get for small money.

Yes a 1050Ti would work fine as long as it's a model that doesn't need a six-pin power connector. 90% of 1050Ti's don't, but there were one or two that did.

Kintarō Hattori

Chaps, I was thinking of going for this today. The HP unit would have been nice as it had the SSD but it was an older i5. What are your thoughts on this:

https://www.ebay.ie/itm/Fast-Cheap-Dell-OptiPlex-i3-i5-i7-MT-Desktop-SFF-8GB-500-Windows-10-PC-Computer/173898222193?hash=item287d244a71:m:mVE9LoS-0bbuW_ANt-u9UIA

Mini Tower
Core i5 4th gen
8GB/500GB

I'll then add a 1050Ti to it later.

Homelander

It's fine but again you are limited by the small form factor, so you have to fit a low profile GTX1050ti. These aren't very common 2nd hand at all (at least not at reasonable prices).

A full size tower, you can stick a 2nd hand 1050ti you can get for €80 in it. New you will have to pay €150....at which point a more powerful full size GTX1650 is cheaper.

And there's not much difference at all between 3rd and 4th gen i5. And an SSD will make an enormous difference.

Kintarō Hattori

Homelander wrote: »

It's fine but again you are limited by the small form factor, so you have to fit a low profile GTX1050ti. These aren't very common 2nd hand at all (at least not at reasonable prices).

A full size tower, you can stick a 2nd hand 1050ti you can get for €80 in it. New you will have to pay €150....at which point a more powerful full size GTX1650 is cheaper.

And there's not much difference at all between 3rd and 4th gen i5. And an SSD will make an enormous difference.

Ahh is the mini tower not a proper ATX tower? I had thought it was.

Damn, that HP machine seemed like a bit of a bargain then.

https://www.ebay.ie/itm/HP-PRO-3500-i5-3470-3-2GHz-8GB-RAM-512GB-SSD-WIN10-WIRELESS-MT-DESKTOP-PC/124212515426?hash=item1ceba49262:m:mCyOm_EL5z_8ECjufsVQh7w

That same seller has this machine available.

Homelander

I don't know about that particular machine but a lot of those HP home PC's had weird BIOS locks on them that meant new graphic cards wouldn't work.

The office-geared machines didn't/don't.

edit: That seller does appear to have the Dell desktop "mini tower" available.

Kintarō Hattori

Homelander wrote: »

I don't know about that particular machine but a lot of those HP home PC's had weird BIOS locks on them that meant new graphic cards wouldn't work.

The office-geared machines didn't/don't.

edit: That seller does appear to have the Dell desktop "mini tower" available.

Apologies to be annoying you with so many questions. Looking around eBay it seems like the Optiplex Mini Tower based system might be worth looking at. I have had a 120GB SSD lying around for the longest time. I could use this exclusively for Windows, use the HDD for games and at a later date get say a 480GB SSD for games.

Thoughts?

Kintarō Hattori

https://www.ebay.ie/itm/DELL-OPTIPLEX-7010-INTEL-CORE-i5-3570-3-40Ghz-128GB-SSD-500GB-8GB-WIRELESS-PC/124222953332?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649

I've just bought that- YaY!

I actually have a Sapphire R9-270X that I can take out of my old machine and see how that fares. If it does the job, then great. If not, I'll get a GTX1050Ti. Hopefully though as it's really just for the steam library that's there, it'll suffice.

Kintarō Hattori

The desktop arrived today and it's pretty sweet for what it is. The PSU has absolutely no additional power connections so I thought I'd swap out the EVGA psu from my old machine into it but that's not going to happen as it'll never fit. I think the plan now will be to fit a new PSU into the Dell. Or keep it as it is and just get a 1050Ti such as the below, either way the additional cost will probably work out about the same:

https://www.ebay.ie/itm/Zotac-Geforce-GTX-1050TI-4GB-DDR5-Graphics-Card-GPU-1039850/324197972532?hash=item4b7bb47a34:g:E1MAAOSwadhe5gEp




Dell



The old machine

K.O.Kiki

You had a bloody Supernova G2 on-hand & didn't build around that?

Mate... :pac:

Kintarō Hattori

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

You had a bloody Supernova G2 on-hand & didn't build around that?

Mate... :pac:

Ah it would have cost too much. I'd have needed a new CPU, Mobo, Ram & SSD. Plus a less blingy case than the Antec 900 it currently resides in.

This is potentially a stopgap. I know once I get it built I won't be able to help myself buying new games and then I'll have to upgrade properly.

Homelander

Will the PSU definitely not fit? Tight fit, but it might fit if you remove the DVD drive. You can definitely put normal PSU's in there as it is, I know the G2 is long though. Worst case scenario you could cut away some of the cage to allow room for the cables?

The 1050Ti on Ebay will probably end up selling for a stupid price like €130. People on Ebay seem to be constantly paying way over the odds for GPUs, can't really understand it myself.

Adverts tends to have more realistically priced things. Should be able to get a 1050Ti for €80-100 but you won't get one cheaper than that anywhere really.

Kintarō Hattori

Homelander wrote: »

Will the PSU definitely not fit? Tight fit, but it might fit if you remove the DVD drive. You can definitely put normal PSU's in there as it is, I know the G2 is long though. Worst case scenario you could cut away some of the cage to allow room for the cables?

The 1050Ti on Ebay will probably end up selling for a stupid price like €130. People on Ebay seem to be constantly paying way over the odds for GPUs, can't really understand it myself.

Adverts tends to have more realistically priced things. Should be able to get a 1050Ti for €80-100 but you won't get one cheaper than that anywhere really.

I hadn't actually measured it, it was a best guess as I forgot just how big the EVGA PSU was. This is all about minimal hassle so I'll leave chopping the case for now. I'll have a measure later to see if the Sapphire card I have in the old machine will fit. If it does, I might just get a PSU. In saying that though, it is getting on a bit and only has 2GB of memory. It might be no harm to pick up a 4GB 1050Ti and try that instead.

Kintarō Hattori

I mentioned the 'new' PC to my brother and he asked for a new one as the last machine I built for him is now quite long in the tooth. His needs are very minor and it'll never play any AAA games.... the odd snooker game would be the most taxing thing. So I thought about what to get him and decided on similar core components, a Core i5 3rd Gen, 8GB of Ram, an SSD and an RX270 which has been sitting idle for a few years.

Looking into form factor, he's always had an ATX case and the insides have usually been illuminated in some manor. This time I've decided to go with a M-ATX case... the ThermalTake Core V21. It'll look something along these lines:



I'm now thinking I might give him the Dell machine I bought and am thinking perhaps I'll use the V21 as a basis for a machine for myself.

The point of this post is to highlight that it's a slippery slope. You're out, then when you decide to get a new ready made machine, it's never as easy as that. I can see lots of tinkering happening now, after a long absence away from things.

grogi

mickuhaha wrote: »

I would go with a 4670k and mobo combo at least for gaming. And maybe the old 7970/rx290. Old Amd cards seem to be a little better than Nvidia.

Hawaii is a power monster - won't behave well in an ITX case...

Samuel T. Cogley

Fond memories of my R9 290 Jet engine and a 1000w PSU.