[SOLVED] What’s not to like here?

[DaDuckster]

HP TG01-1183w being offered on Monday for $599.00. I've had previous success with refurbished HP’s, so I understand the upgrade limits. I’ve considered building another system myself, but this doesn't seem the worst system at a decent price. Tell me why I’m stupid…or not. I know I’ll need a second SSD or HDD, plus another 8GB of RAM (probably have to buy a paired set).

https://support.hp.com/in-en/document/c07965820

 

[Darkbreeze]

Yes, matched set of DIMMs.

Yes, probably want to add storage.

Yes, the motherboard and power supply are proprietary so cancel any thoughts of replacing either of those with anything else, at any point, unless they are upgraded proprietary models from HP, if there ARE any for that system.

The real question is WHAT do you want to do with this system? What is it FOR? Gaming? Productivity? Browsing? All of them? Something else?

 

[DaDuckster]

Yes, matched set of DIMMs.

Yes, probably want to add storage.

Yes, the motherboard and power supply are proprietary so cancel any thoughts of replacing either of those with anything else, at any point, unless they are upgraded proprietary models from HP, if there ARE any for that system.

The real question is WHAT do you want to do with this system? What is it FOR? Gaming? Productivity? Browsing? All of them? Something else?

It’s a replacement for a older system, for use as light/mild gaming, school and minor animation/illustration work for a teen. Nothing too demanding, but this seems to be powerful enough to last a few years without too much attention. My personal PC will need redone soon, but I’m planning on spending the time to build that one, but given some limits on my time right now, this deal looks pretty decent.

 

[Darkbreeze]

For 600 bucks? Considering the cheapest RTX 3060 you can get is about 350 bucks, sure, it's not bad, so long as you understand what you are getting yourself into and that none of the proprietary hardware is easily replaceable.

 

[ohio_buckeye]

Are you from the USA? If so do you have microcenter nearby?

https://www.microcenter.com/product...90-plus-tuf-gaming-wifi-cpu-motherboard-combo

250 for that combo

Rx 6600 for 229

https://www.microcenter.com/product...hter-dual-fan-8gb-gddr6-pcie-40-graphics-card

Montech case for 50 bucks

https://www.microcenter.com/product...pered-glass-atx-mid-tower-computer-case-black

500gb nvme for 40 bucks

https://www.microcenter.com/product...nand-flash-m2-2280-internal-solid-state-drive

16gb ddr4 3200 for about 50 bucks

https://www.microcenter.com/product...l-desktop-memory-kit-f4-3200c16d-16gvkb-black

Budget power supply 62 bucks

https://www.microcenter.com/product...-80-plus-bronze-atx-semi-modular-power-supply

681 total. You’d have to scrounge a windows license but you are already going to spend extra on the hp it sounds like and you’d have something that had upgrades available and more ram and storage to begin with.

I’m just not the biggest hp fan personally. Any time you go to upgrade their stuff or have to work on their equipment they seem to like using star screws and having designs that are sometimes annoying to work on. Just my personal preference.

Edit on the microcenter build I see they have this combo for 129. So if you did need to be less than I showed above this would cut over 100 bucks off and keep you in the i5 performance category.

 

[Darkbreeze]

No offense buckeye, but while that is all true, and clearly I could have served up something similar, they pretty clearly said they are not interested in having to build THIS system, because they are planning to build a much more capable one in the near future. In light of that, be hard to find a prebuilt system with a 10th Gen i5 and an RTX 3060 for that price someplace else, especially someplace else that isn't going to result in extra crappy parts and non-existent warranty/customer service like with iBuypower, CyberpowerPC and Walmart.

 

[ohio_buckeye]

It’s totally up to the op what they feel like doing. Not my money just better options out there.

 

[Darkbreeze]

I agree. I would always build over a prebuilt. Well, almost always. There have been a few occasions when buying an entire prebuilt system that came with a specific graphics card or CPU was cheaper than buying that component separately. Not often, but occasionally. But mostly, I'd always opt for a custom build. But, I can also understand specific reasoning for not doing so.

 

[DaDuckster]

Are you from the USA? If so do you have microcenter nearby?

https://www.microcenter.com/product...90-plus-tuf-gaming-wifi-cpu-motherboard-combo

250 for that combo

Rx 6600 for 229

https://www.microcenter.com/product...hter-dual-fan-8gb-gddr6-pcie-40-graphics-card

Montech case for 50 bucks

https://www.microcenter.com/product...pered-glass-atx-mid-tower-computer-case-black

500gb nvme for 40 bucks

https://www.microcenter.com/product...nand-flash-m2-2280-internal-solid-state-drive

16gb ddr4 3200 for about 50 bucks

https://www.microcenter.com/product...l-desktop-memory-kit-f4-3200c16d-16gvkb-black

Budget power supply 62 bucks

https://www.microcenter.com/product...-80-plus-bronze-atx-semi-modular-power-supply

681 total. You’d have to scrounge a windows license but you are already going to spend extra on the hp it sounds like and you’d have something that had upgrades available and more ram and storage to begin with.

I’m just not the biggest hp fan personally. Any time you go to upgrade their stuff or have to work on their equipment they seem to like using star screws and having designs that are sometimes annoying to work on. Just my personal preference.

Edit on the microcenter build I see they have this combo for 129. So if you did need to be less than I showed above this would cut over 100 bucks off and keep you in the i5 performance category.

Unfortunately, no microcenter that I can do easily right now, and I’m in the middle of enough personal upheaval that building just isn’t on the cards right now anyway. I do appreciate the thoughts and suggestion though!

Thanks to all for confirming what I thought…and, yes, I don’t love HP and their crap, but it also beats Dell’s crap, and I’ve managed to make that work before, so I’ll take the quick route this time and build next time. Cheers!

 

[ohio_buckeye]

Good deal. If you can find a deal on a Dell business class pc, I know you said you don’t care for Dell, but we use a lot of their business class PCs at work and they usually are decent systems.

 

[Karadjgne]

It's not a bad deal, especially for Op, since he plans on actually building better later. He could sell that pre-built as is and prolly get most, if not all, his investment back.

 

[DaDuckster]

Good deal. If you can find a deal on a Dell business class pc, I know you said you don’t care for Dell, but we use a lot of their business class PCs at work and they usually are decent systems.

Yea, I used to enjoy Dell Outlet deals when they were deals...it was basically a disposable computer. Then they quit offering good deals, and I had the joy of fixing one with a PSU issue...never again!

 

[ohio_buckeye]

It used to be back in the day you could get optiplex systems that took a standard power supply. My wife’s home office has an old Dell optiplex 3070? It had an i7 3770. Bumped the ram to 16gb and tossed in a 500gb ssd drive along with a 600 watt EVGA power supply I had laying around. That system runs like a top. You could probably even put a 1660 into it and game on it.