HOW FAR Can I Push a $70 Micro PC?

Рет қаралды 15,666

2 ай бұрын

Join my discord and talk to me about how bad at doom I am / discord
I have a problem with a lot of micro PCs getting thrown away since you can't really do much with regards to upgrading them... so I wanted to see how far I could take a cheap Optiplex Micro PC before I take it too far.
Some of the following product links are affiliate links for which I may be compensated.
Get your own optiplex: amzn.to/48EfMHl
The GPU I used: amzn.to/49Xzz5h
EGPU Adaptor: amzn.to/3UWBnYh
iFixit Driver set: amzn.to/3wvslXS
OEM Dell Optiplex Power Adapter: amzn.to/49Dv5RU
WD Black M.2 SSD: amzn.to/3P3StzM
My Gear:
iFixit Tool Kit - amzn.to/3DgiF3A
Fujifilm X-T3 - amzn.to/3ltUtFm
Fujifilm XF16-55mm F2.8 - amzn.to/3qARLjK
Sigma 30mm F1.4 - amzn.to/42rxGtH

Пікірлер: 103

@hotrodhunk7389 2 ай бұрын

A lot of people don't get it. I get a lot of comments oh why wouldn't you just buy XY and z. That takes all the fun out of it! The fun part is just looking around the house seeing what scraps you have and turn it in to something useful. I had two broken laptops. Now I have two proxmox nodes. Learned a ton how to had a lot of fun and now I have a lot of useful services running in my house.

@kouhaiii3182 2 ай бұрын

the first few seconds of the video just about sums it up for me

@elu9780 2 ай бұрын

Yeah, exactly! I have a weak ass laptop, and it's kinda fun making it do things that it's not really supposed to.

@daviddunkelheit9952 11 күн бұрын

I love to do the same thing as well! Proxmox is such an awesome open source resource. I used an OpenWRT pocket travel router and an eBay sourced SuperMicro E50-9AP-5N fanless PC running OpnSense downstream of my ISP provided router. Created homelab network lab with this to test AppSec and DNS security vulnerabilities.

@airtongabriel6827 2 ай бұрын

Is incredible how cheap eletronics are in USA one of those is like 200 dollars here

@AlexGFrank 2 ай бұрын

So, here's an idea Get a wifi (A/E-key) to ssd (M-key) adapter, and put a 2230 in there. Then, get the M-ley cable for the eGPU adapter. It's gonna be 4 PCI-e lanes now instead of 1, and an SSD with speeds comparable to very good SATA ones. Did the first part with my Thinkpad P52 to add more storage, and it works wonders, and even boots just fine from the wifi slot.

@ddevin 2 ай бұрын

THIS^ after watching and seeing the massive stuttering issues, I googled the difference in m.2 keys, and you're right.

@ellenorbjornsdottir1166 2 ай бұрын

this.

@akshatjain2444 2 ай бұрын

Its a great day when a chair leg uploads

@Johnjohncar 2 ай бұрын

I have an old PC my Dad used to use with an Intel Pentium and a low profile NVIDIA GPU from 2011-2012. This video makes me want to dig it out this Summer and try to run some games on it, or maybe make it into a home server

@aChairLeg 2 ай бұрын

That would be a cool project! If you do it feel free to join the discord and post about it

@nassimguellati6311 2 ай бұрын

finally a fkn tech youtuber for us broke ass nerds, thank you keep doing your stuff !!

@areeburrehmankhan1166 2 ай бұрын

7:11 "Oh yeah click me. Click me please"

@bubblegumgoth4948 22 күн бұрын

Your voice is very calming ❤

@thesecondgreatesttechnic-jt9zf 2 ай бұрын

I love your editing style

@aChairLeg 2 ай бұрын

Thank you!

@HardwareHaven 2 ай бұрын

I love this so much. These little guys are so much fun. Also, as I think some other people said, the m.2 m key slot should probably be gen3 x4 where as I imagine that e key slot is gen 2x1. I’d imagine much better performance over the m key slot. You could then just use a 2.5” SATA SSD for a boot drive.

@aChairLeg 2 ай бұрын

Yeah... that was really an oversight on my part. I think I'm going to revisit with an AM4 system and do it again but better, I really think there's more to adding an egpu to a micro pc than I covered

@HardwareHaven 2 ай бұрын

@@aChairLeg AM4 might also give you the benefit of being able to overclock CPU/RAM with ryzen master! Could be fun

@mexdy3915 2 ай бұрын

I love how you always trying to maxed out everything, especially when its cheap!!

@gamereditor59ner22 2 ай бұрын

Thank you! I want to build and possibly exploit the heck out of it. I probably use type 1 hypervisor. Keep it up!😎👍

@vedantsingh6624 2 ай бұрын

Cool video . Let’s hope you get 100k Subs by the end of this year

@MrGeforcerFX 2 ай бұрын

i have 4 of these things now, an old 4th gen lenovo, a dell 7050 and two HP's ones a amd apu setup and the other is an 8th gen i5 that was originally a 65 watt i3 setup. They are useful for all sorts of messing around and tinkering. Also Dell's ac adapters have had sense pins in them since the mid 2000's it's been a negative for them for awhile.

@aChairLeg 2 ай бұрын

Wow that's crazy. If I knew about the power plug issue I would have gone for another brand but hindsight is 20/20

@MrGeforcerFX 2 ай бұрын

@@aChairLegyeah it's a pretty common repair i have to do on dell computers when there ac adapter ports can no longer detect the chip in the ac adapter and give that adapter warning. Universal adapters would also usually trip the warning and cause the CPU to go into ultra low power mode.

@Facade866 2 ай бұрын

New video can't wait for the dell latitude one, also love you Mwah

@aChairLeg 2 ай бұрын

When you're a yt member i'll make it 100% fr

@Facade866 2 ай бұрын

@@aChairLeg didn't even say I love you back, guess I really do have to be a yt member. Anyone have a credit card I could borrow the numbers I'll give them back when I'm done.

@aChairLeg 2 ай бұрын

Yt members get love

@zpodfjaoij4 2 ай бұрын

I like the little ones they’re great for everything you’d use a computer for but gaming. Kids computer is a hp elitedesk 800 g4 i5-8500 for $50. Put a $100 rx 6400 in it. Upgraded the psu to a 500w with 2x 6+2 pcie connectors from a hp z2 for $30. Next upgrades to one of the low profile 4060 in a few years when prices come down.

@EinsNameLezz 2 ай бұрын

Nice video! I am watching it again! 👍

@xPLAYnOfficial 2 ай бұрын

Cool video! If you don't mind I have a few suggestions for you: First of all, in regards to the m2 a+e key slot egpu solution that you were dealing with, I would suggest using a pcie 2.0 graphics card instead. This is for a couple of reasons: first of all most of these Wi-Fi card slots are actually pcie 2.0 regardless of what revision the PCI Express is for the rest of the machine. The second reason is that even if it's a newer revision I've noticed that graphics cards that are on newer generations of PCI Express tend to have a lot more hitches and stutters add graphics cards on pcie 2.0 just kind of work. Debatably you're not really going to get anywhere near the full performance of even the RX 6600 on that bandwidth anyway plus pcie 2.0 cards tend to be a lot less expensive. For instance I can pick up a GTX 970 off of eBay in the United States for around $40 which is cheap enough that I think it could actually make sense to do something like this. Second of all I would highly suggest giving Linux a try. From my experience not only is it more compatible with more unorthodox egpu Solutions like these, but it also runs a lot lighter and tends to be able to use the graphics cards more effectively from my testing. I currently have an atom based HP Netbook which I turned into an sff desktop PC and I added an Nvidia Quadro k620 graphics card to it. It made a huge difference and in my case Linux was the only option I had to get any egpu working with it at all. The next thing to talk about is that a lot of the horrible frame time issues you were getting were because of the bandwidth. Different games and programs will handle that differently. I highly suggest turning off or lowering down any settings related to live texture streaming or anything like that. Those tend to be the settings that most impact performance like this.

@SeeJayPlayGames 2 ай бұрын

yeah except GTX 970 is PCIe 3.0. You'd have to go back to the low end dregs of the 700 or 600 series to even find 2.0, and to the 500 series to see a "good" selection 2.0 cards. And that might not be worth doing. Linux might be actually more difficult to get this going, and forget about NVIDIA. Drivers = suck. There are so many things that are "not worth doing" about this whole project. And I thought my 3020 SFF was limited... at least I can put a half-decent (albeit half height single slot) graphics card in it and run it at PCIe 2.0x16... and get (somewhat) okay performance. All that being said, you might want to consider just accepting the system's limitations and use it as a Minecraft server (not client), Batocera box, file server, you know... stuff it can actually DO. Myself, I'd probably throw Linux on it and use it to browse the web and do basic stuff, while leaving my other system as a more stripped down gaming build rather than the all-purpose setup I have on it now. I have a feeling that it's not doing so well being forced to be the swiss army computer, and it needs an enema. Or maybe I just need to upgrade finally.

@xPLAYnOfficial 2 ай бұрын

@@SeeJayPlayGames Ah you're right. PCIe 3.0 speeds. Huh. Anyways I disagree that Linux would be harder. In my experience with eGPUs on M.2 a+e key slots, Linux plays a LOT nicer than Windows does most of the time. Heck sometimes Linux is the only way it will even work. Nvidia vs AMD doesn't really matter for this. In my experience they both work about the same in terms of compatibility for unorthodox eGPU setups like these.

@stefanzlatanovic7521 2 ай бұрын

I just got this 3050 for my pops, that thing is awesome, even the iGpu is pretty decent and can run some older games nicely. Also in my area of Europe, these things are crazy expensive even though people get them after a company wants to throw them out for recycling. I saw an ad of one dude asking like 80 euros without RAM and SSD. With a i3 6100T in it. Loved the video mate!

@mlthmp 2 ай бұрын

I'd love to have one of these for a Hackintosh

@oscarcharliezulu Ай бұрын

Apart from gaming it’s very cool. I went the p520 route myself. Big Box cannot lie.

@Javadamutt 2 ай бұрын

If I was to do this I would sacrifice the NVME for an NVME to oculink adapter and live with a Sata SSD for storage. It might not matter with the CPU results but would be interesting

@anarcy7777u 2 ай бұрын

Definately should have tried it with the eGPU to M.2 adapter instead. You would get 4 pci-e lanes rather than 1

@aChairLeg 2 ай бұрын

Yep, that's the plan for next time!

@KrolJulian845 2 ай бұрын

what gpu would you add to thinkstation p300 with i7 6700/16gb ram/250w psu?

@Solinaru Ай бұрын

Honestly, i love these mini computers more than laptops when it comes to setting up PCs for my family that dont need much. Get it attached to large TV and a wireless mouse/keyboard and my parents are more than happy with a easy to see and read solution

@MrMateloi 2 ай бұрын

My brother is in a association that repurposes old PCs, they buy them in bulk in State organization auctions so I got 2 old 2014 Lenovo Thinkcenters (7€ a piece in mint condition, which is probably the price resellers buy them for a 40€ profit) both of them I upgraded to 8gB of ram. Because the power consumption is so low it can be a very good choice for home servers, mine is running Crafty on Docker to host a MC server to play with my friends, even though the processor is a Celeron 2 core 35W something, running it on ubuntu server with the usual MC server optimization tools makes it a perfect server for about 8 people.

@janexiusjanek8586 2 ай бұрын

There are some Mini PCs with PCI Express x16 Slots, which can fit half height LP GPUs. (e.g Thinkstation P320, P340). Unfortunaly they appear to be quite rare/expensive. An i7-7700t and an rx6400 would probably be pretty balls for a 1L chassis, but unreasonably expensive.

@RCfromtheNYC 2 ай бұрын

I bought the same mini-PC this past October but was lucky in getting it with an i7-7700 CPU. This chip has 8 threads which allowed me to play retrogaming consoles up to the PS2 and GameCube without any eGPU setup.

@Max_Mustermann 2 ай бұрын

1:00 - the speaker looks exactly the same as the speakers in my old Latitude e5430, only the enclosure is slightly different. And yes, they also sound terrible.

@user-zp5wr3pw5o 2 ай бұрын

Still have one of these micro pc, although mine is a older model the dell optiplex 3020m with an even older 4th gen i3 paid with 8gb ddr3 ram. Can still be used in basic office work and media consumption. But the lack of cpu that are supported is what it makes it bad to buy one today.

@BrunodeSouzaLino Ай бұрын

For the record, only USB C or Thunderbolt eGPU enclosures are hot swappable. OCulink also requires reboot because it's just the PCIe lane in a cable.

@raccoroni. 2 ай бұрын

hi board, im racc. :D

@219SilverChoc 2 ай бұрын

Remember seeing a ton of these at school, kind of interesting that they stream PCs from a server than having seperate ones?

@CleroPata 2 ай бұрын

Finally, more goofy ideas!

@Machistmo 2 ай бұрын

Thanks for saving me the time of doing this myself, I guess?

@proce09 2 ай бұрын

Your 1% lows for gta v were my avg fps 😢😢

@Misiek-oc7bu 2 ай бұрын

You should have used adapter from NVME to gpu, wifi card slot has only 1 or 2 pcie lanes and probably gen 2, and nvme is 4 lanes at 3.0 speed. I know you'd loose nvme drive, but this is low performance for rx6600

@lucatancreti5627 2 ай бұрын

They make mini PCs with the ryzen 5 2400g. You can snag a deal at $100 sometimes. You should try one of those for the next video!

@tomirab 2 ай бұрын

Those miniPCs can be great as retro gaming consoles. They are very cheap (at least in my country) and often have better specs than actual retro consoles that are all the rage on Amazon / Aliexpress / etc. right now.

@Jackpkmn 2 ай бұрын

I feel like it's worth testing the 7500T in a proper motherboard with proper PCIe to determine if it's really the CPU that's the problem or if its the weird hardware setup.

@SeeJayPlayGames 2 ай бұрын

Trust me it's the weird hardware setup. This is DELL we're talking about. They use the most basic chipsets they can.

@albertzinger7132 2 ай бұрын

I had to buy the original Dell power adapter for my laptop last fall. Proprietary shit sucks.

@Lurch-Bot 2 ай бұрын

Too bad you can't stick a turbo on a PC. I have a couple of boards from 3rd gen Lenovo micro PCs. I am planning to put one in a custom case and install XP for use as a retro gaming machine. Maybe make a little toploader, like a PS1-esque machine....actually that gives me an idea. I need to find a PS1 that died from cap plague, ASAP! A RX580 would probably perform the same with this PC and maybe give you less stutter because the GPU won't be trying to outperform the CPU.

@siontheodorus1501 2 ай бұрын

Can you please review your t14 amd on the next video?

@aChairLeg 2 ай бұрын

I might if I get a place in my schedule for it

@shockcrew5275 2 ай бұрын

Why not try a Xeon 1268L v5 (4c 8t, 35W TDP)?

@aChairLeg 2 ай бұрын

From what I saw online, Xeons do not work in these at all.

@SeeJayPlayGames 2 ай бұрын

Right, and my 3020 SFF only "officially" supports 8GB of memory (2x4GB). That's because the manual was printed before 8GB DDR3 DIMMs were released. I'm sure it also has a limited choice of "supported" CPUs, but anecdotally it has been found to support E3 v3 Xeons. The bad news with the Xeon E3 v6 series and this micro system is threefold; 1) there are no compatible models that are of the correct wattage limit (they're all like 72W and up), 2) few (more precisely, 4; the models ending in 5) have integrated video, and 3) they're expensive AF on eBay. Even if it DID work with the chipset, it's going to throttle itself down or overheat, one of the two. I was going to originally be a jerk and ask if you actually tried, but I've done my own quick research and come up with numerous reasons why you were right not to bother.@@aChairLeg

@O5-XIV 2 ай бұрын

Its a cute lil system. used it with 8gb of ram for awhile as my Arcade systems guts Mind you, useing Batocera XD

@BlueEyedVibeChecker 2 ай бұрын

3050 Micro? NVidia what the fu-What? Force of habit.

@RetroBytes265 2 ай бұрын

great video. i have a similair computer but it is a lenovo pc

@aChairLeg 2 ай бұрын

Thanks! I really wanted a Lenovo one, but it was a little more expensive

@RetroBytes265 2 ай бұрын

@@aChairLeg yeah they seem to be more excensive. the one i have is ddr3 i won it on auction from the air ambulance service charity for £12.99. but it did not come witht he charger so i had to buy that seperatly.

@inshallah4280 2 ай бұрын

I think a rx6400 would be a good fit

@adrianstech 2 ай бұрын

banger

@weelebaseknowles4410 2 ай бұрын

It is a good sever for data

@SeeJayPlayGames 2 ай бұрын

a Raspberry Pi could do THAT

@HazewinDog 2 ай бұрын

The stuttering isn't going to be fixed with some settings tweak. It's gonna be fixed with having 8 threads

@SeeJayPlayGames 2 ай бұрын

nope, it would be fixed by having the card on more than 1 PCIe lane (edit: ...maybe)

@MezeiEugen 9 күн бұрын

For that price you can get a 27" used iMac and enjoy it, not waste your time for a subpar result.

@airtongabriel6827 2 ай бұрын

Good

@ddouglas3687 2 ай бұрын

Practical? No Fun? Yes Just need to find more use cases for old hardware but this thing has tons more power than a RasPi and could easily run less demanding older games. Recycling is great too but computers as a hobby knows no bounds! 😂

@loganmitchell1382 2 ай бұрын

I actually have the same 3050 as in the video, and they make a pretty goot HTPC, and my i3 6300t runs 1080p and even 4k video great and only uses 3-6 watts of power to do it.

@BonusCrook 2 ай бұрын

"we have to use the m.2 wifi slot" That poor nvme slot, chair leg constantly ignores it in favor of a completely pointless Pcie 2.0 x1 adapter that deletes 90% of the performance of the GPU he connects to it

@aChairLeg 2 ай бұрын

It didn't work on my optiplex sadly and I didn't want to buy another one. Now I know I should have just gotten another one w/ a working NVME slot

@BonusCrook 2 ай бұрын

@@aChairLeg im going to rejoin the discord to tell you your still bad at doom eternal because im bored

@ellenorbjornsdottir1166 2 ай бұрын

I wonder what happens if you say "fsck it" and put a non-T Kaby Lake Core i7 or Xeon in it anyway.

@SnowCrabLeg 2 ай бұрын

long live the Optiplex

@SeeJayPlayGames 2 ай бұрын

oh, they will. I've got one that has been going (for me) for over 4 years strong, and that was after it came off a 3 year lease. They're tough little machines, probably due in no small part to the fact that they're locked down and basic. They're also recycling model numbers. 3010 was 3rd gen, now it's also 13th gen. Talk about lazy marketing.