Garage PC $200-300 budget

[mbochnak]

I want to add a PC in the garage to do the following:

Surf the web
View PDF's
Play music
Watch video files stored on HD

Monitor will be a 32" LCD TV which I already have. Also have keyboard and mouse.

I was thinking a refurb unit such as this one:
http://arrowdirect.com/hp-compaq-elite-8300-3-20ghz-intel-core-i5-gen3-desktop-128gb-4-gb-3.html

Thoughts?

Thanks,
Matt

 

[Darkbreeze]

Well, that probably WOULD work, but you could do much better with something newer than that. 3rd gen hardware probably doesn't have a lot of life left in it to make it worth the investment.

 

[vapour]

For your usage, the one you picked it fine, you can get away with this as well: https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883287568

 

[Darkbreeze]

This would be a much better option IMO. Perfectly capable of doing everything you want to do and then some, much newer with standard warranties for new parts (Instead of 60 day warranty and then you're on your own) and capable of being upgraded with higher end processor, more memory and larger storage later if you should decide you want to.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Celeron G3950 3.0GHz Dual-Core Processor ($57.11 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: MSI - B250M PRO-VD Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($56.45 @ Amazon)
Memory: Crucial - 4GB (1 x 4GB) DDR4-2400 Memory ($44.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Storage: Kingston - A400 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($49.99 @ Best Buy)
Case: Rosewill - Blackbone ATX Mid Tower Case ($29.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Antec - Basiq 350W ATX Power Supply ($25.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Total: $264.52
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-12-14 18:06 EST-0500

 

[mbochnak]

Well, that probably WOULD work, but you could do much better with something newer than that. 3rd gen hardware probably doesn't have a lot of life left in it to make it worth the investment.

Do you have a link to something you would recommend? I'm not opposed to building, however at this price point and intended use made me think refurbed.

 

[WildCard999]

Something like this could work nicely, its on the higher end of your budget.
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Pentium G4560 3.5GHz Dual-Core Processor ($82.88 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: MSI - B250M PRO-VD Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($46.88 @ OutletPC)
Memory: Crucial - 4GB (1 x 4GB) DDR4-2400 Memory ($44.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Storage: Western Digital - Green 120GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive ($60.99 @ Amazon)
Case: Inwin - BL631 MicroATX Slim Case w/300W Power Supply ($59.99 @ B&H)
Total: $295.73
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-12-14 14:48 EST-0500


Windows 10 ISO.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

 

[Darkbreeze]

Those refurbished units are cheap for a reason. These scumbag resellers get those old systems by the truckload and offload them to unsuspecting buyers who have no idea that these were simply blown out, had the drives wiped and USUALLY have pirated or cracked operating systems installed, if they come with an operating system at all.

Bottom line, they have only 60 day warranties for a reason. If you're going to spend over two hundred dollars, at least get something that you have a little insurance with in case something fails, because if you buy one of those old systems that was probably run it's entire life in an enclosed environment without ever having the CPU cooler heatsink regularly cleaned out, and has been run at the edge of what it could handle thermally for years, it's GOING to fail sooner rather than later.

And even if it was run by somebody who took great care of it, it's still a platform over 5 years old and is really likely to start seeing things like the motherboard or storage drives begin failing pretty soon.

 

[mbochnak]

Those refurbished units are cheap for a reason. These scumbag resellers get those old systems by the truckload and offload them to unsuspecting buyers who have no idea that these were simply blown out, had the drives wiped and USUALLY have pirated or cracked operating systems installed, if they come with an operating system at all.

Bottom line, they have only 60 day warranties for a reason. If you're going to spend over two hundred dollars, at least get something that you have a little insurance with in case something fails, because if you buy one of those old systems that was probably run it's entire life in an enclosed environment without ever having the CPU cooler heatsink regularly cleaned out, and has been run at the edge of what it could handle thermally for years, it's GOING to fail sooner rather than later.

And even if it was run by somebody who took great care of it, it's still a platform over 5 years old and is really likely to start seeing things like the motherboard or storage drives begin failing pretty soon.

Definitely some truth in what you said...LOL

 

[Darkbreeze]

And if you are worried about assembling a system yourself, I assure you, most 14yr olds with even a ounce of common sense can do it, especially since there are very good video tutorials to walk you through the process AND a wealth of information available from the members of this forum.

 

[mbochnak]

And if you are worried about assembling a system yourself, I assure you, most 14yr olds with even a ounce of common sense can do it, especially since there are very good video tutorials to walk you through the process AND a wealth of information available from the members of this forum.

I built several PC's, so not worried about that. Thanks for your help and plan to build one in Jan after the holidays.

 

[Darkbreeze]

Cool. Good luck mbochnak.

 

[mbochnak]

Cool. Good luck mbochnak.

Ok, thx.

 

[Diox55]

Well, that probably WOULD work, but you could do much better with something newer than that. 3rd gen hardware probably doesn't have a lot of life left in it to make it worth the investment.

3rd gen hardware has lots of life left. I'm currently using a C2D HP with 6 gigs of ram and a GTX 560, until my Q6600 arrives for it. It is still usable for web browsing and gaming, and that 3rd gen would be a huge leap. What I'm getting at is for a garage machine, or re purposed gaming machine these off lease machines are great value for money. You have to watch fine print sometimes, but usually they will state if it has no OS or what issues there are.

 

[Darkbreeze]

Look, I hate to throw shame in your game, but the fact is that most motherboards have a five year life expectancy. Sure, there are exceptions. Most motherboards have some kind of failure within five years though. That is a fact. So considering 3rd gen hardware hasn't been manufactured in any way, shape or form for at least 3 years, since about Q1 2014 when the board partners shifted operations to 4th gen LGA 1150 products, you can reasonably expect that even New old stock has been sitting on a shelf, aging it's capacitors and metal whiskering right along for about three years now.

Used stuff, even more so. Three years of usage, or even say, 1.5 years and the rest just sitting there doing nothing. That indicates that a significant portion of it's useful life is just, gone. Magnify that by the fact that you have abosolutely no idea what kind of abuse or environment it was subjected to, maybe living in a closed up cabinet with poor ventilation, a clogged CPU heatsink or dead fan, OR better yet, two years hammering away with a nice fat overclock, maybe with too much voltage, maybe not. Regardless, there are plenty of reasons why old hardware is a bad investment even for a garage machine, not least of which is the question of why you'd sink 250 bucks into something that's already seen 60% or more of it's useful life pass by when you could have a brand new system with a modest addition to that budget and then YOU get the full five or more years out of it.

None of which even considers the fact that anything 3-4 years old is not going to be able to perform on par with something just released this year. Even a 8th gen i3 will wallop a Sandy bridge i7 in almost everything. The ONLY exceptions being when there is really terrific support for threaded processing.

Just doesn't make sense unless you can get it for really cheap. I'm all for a 150 dollar Sandy or Ivy system with an i5 or i7, a decent motherboard and some kind of power supply that was either good for it's day or has been replaced with something worth having in there, but the chances of finding that are few and far between. For some reason, people think old hardware is worth a lot more than it is. Well, people who don't know better anyhow. Usually, those are the people selling that old hardware too. So good luck with that.