Using old computer parts in a new tower

[AztecAdma]

So I'm new to building computers. I've been doing a lot of research. Some of my co-workers told me that the best thing to do would be to buy a PC from somewhere like Bx or Walmart or Bestbuy, somewhere where i could buy a 600-700$ desktop and slowly replace the parts. But I have a desktop from 2010 or 2011. Could i just take everything out of that and put it all in a new tower, and then over time replace the parts?

 

[bambiboom]

So I'm new to building computers. I've been doing a lot of research. Some of my co-workers told me that the best thing to do would be to buy a PC from somewhere like Bx or Walmart or Bestbuy, somewhere where i could buy a 600-700$ desktop and slowly replace the parts. But I have a desktop from 2010 or 2011. Could i just take everything out of that and put it all in a new tower, and then over time replace the parts?

AztecAdma,

If you are trying to improve performance, a good desktop from 2010 or 11 can have a lot of potential. As my second , rendering system, I use a 2011 Dell Precision T5500 that I bought for $171 and upgraded to dual 6-cores @ 3.33 /3.6GHz, 48GB RAM, a 6GB.s RAID controller, and so on, giving a performance similar to a modern system..

It's not very useful to make any specific suggestions without knowing the starting point, the use, and the budget, but I'd say that putting the old components in a new case would be the last approach to consider as it has a negative cost /performance effect- you're paying- investing more money- to have the same performance and probably no effect on the value as used computers are purchased by the specification, although condition does count for something.

That era was a kind of dividing line and it may be more advantageous to sell the current system as is, and buy a generation newer that has a SATAIII 6GB/s disk system, USB 3.0 and possibly LGA2011 so the CPU can be more than 4-cores and provide 40 PCIe lanes. That system would have better native performance, more upgrade potential and expansion potential, plus better resale.

You can do a lot with $600-700. Used workstations are the best place to start as the components are made for performance and reliability. Last week I bought an HP z620 with some problems - it had some cosmetic damage in shipping- for $260. I replaced the Xeon E5-1620 4-core with a Xeon E5-2690 8-core for $173, 32GB of DDR3-1600 ECC for $100, and a set of all the exterior plastic parts new from HP for $56. I'll be getting a Samsung 750 Evo 250GB ($75) and have an unused Seagate Constellation ES.3 1TB and a Quadro K2200 left over from another system.

The E5-1620 is worth about $70 and the AMD Firepro V5900 also $70-$75, so potentially, this system really cost net, only about $150 and with the cash outlay about $600 total. New, the system would've been about $2,600, an E5-2690 new was $1,720, a 250GB SSD then was $200+, Quadro K2200 was $450, 32GB of RAM about $400, so the $600 plus some left over parts investment will provide the performance of a system that cost perhaps $6,000 three years ago. With the upgrades including a mostly all new exterior, the value could be more than double the cost.

It's the best computer game I know!

Cheers,

BambiBoom