From my college experience, you might even be able to find many Dell Optiplexes thrown out in ewaste disposal; free computer that usually just needs a graphics card and SSD
@@RandomGaminginHD 8 MB Intel Smart Cache helps the i7-860 out a lot and hyperthreading. I have build with the i7-870 two time with a GTX 970 to sell but a GTX 980 is too rich for an i7-870/860 in my opinion but you got that GTX 980 founders edition for the price of a GTX 970. Well done.
This is 15 years old CPU, and you can still somehow play on it. Imagine what was 15 years old CPU when this came out. It was the original Pentium. It's interesting how PCs are ageing much slower than before.
cuz now for a while i7 6th/7th gen is minimum or recommended hardware to run any game at 1080p low/med and sice those and third gen ryzen are pretty well spread in the world devs have no interest in selling a game only to people with the newest i9 + rtx xx90 gpu
yes but im more about 2023/2024 AAA titles most of them would run on any 8th gen i7 or ryzen 2000 series cpu ez since we all know 80% cant afford upgreading thier whole pc just for a game@@IvanOoze1990
This is very similar to my pc! Mines is a little different though. My specs are: - intel core i7-950 - Nvidia GTX-970 6:26 - 24gb DDR3 (8gb x3) - x2 500gb SSDs - 2tb HDD - x2 optical drives
i've done something like this recently for my son - i got an old 4th gen i5 dell optiplex mini tower for £60 used on ebay. I added an old 600w PSU and an old GTX 1060 I had spare and bought a second stick of 8gb RAM from CEX for £8. It runs all the game he wants like a dream.
@@BenState the only inefficient thing about it might be that it is old, the less W you use of the powersupply, the cooler and quieter it will run. Although that usually isn't a reason to go overkill on your powersupply
The old Dells are certainly the best pc to use as a base chasis as they (at the time) still used standard ATX components, I used one for my first gaming PC and it turned out really good.
I wish I could find more of these in the states locally. Every ad I see for pc’s of this generation all look like they have been kicked down a set of stairs.
The last series of Optiplexes that accepted standard ATX PSU's with the 24 pin power connector were the X010 MT's, which have 3rd Gen CPU's. it's successors, the X020 series, used PSU's with a Dell proprietary 8 pin main power connector, though adapters can be bought online.
In my wifes PC we use a x3450 @ 3,85Ghz many years. I bought it for 15euro und use it from 2014-2021. That CPU Series (i7 860/920/xeonx3450) was awesome
Oh I just love to see old hardware in action. Always reminds me of the good old days when I just couldn’t afford anything fancy but still had hours of fun.
First gen chips can be surprisingly capable. I have a X58 build with an Intel i7 970 6cores 12 threads, on a Gigabyte X58A-OC motherboard that is insanely overbuilt for overclocking, 24GB of triple channel ram at 1600Mhz, a GTX 1080Ti, a 256GB SSD and some hard drives. I got the motherboard, cpu, ram and cooler for 100 euros all together. Spent another 100 on a good quality be quiet pure power 11 psu and the SSD. Got a case from an electronics bin. Spent another 80 euros for a broken 1080Ti. Managed to fix it by removing a shorted out VRM mosfet and a current steering mosfet. Undervolted the card to 875mV to reduce the load on the remaining VRM mosfets and also make it run much cooler. Did a huge overclock of 4.6Ghz on the i7 and now runs blazing fast. I can play almost every modern game in existance at ultra settings and above 60fps, all that for just 280 euros. Even without overclock it would still be very capable though
Lack of AVX2 support is becoming a real problem. While I have some 2nd and 3rd gen hardware, it will be repurposed for retro gaming and probably a NAS or two. With the way esports are becoming more and more like AAA titles, I expect even those will start requiring AVX2 in the not too distant future. I'm not building any gaming PCs with anything older than Haswell at this point. I also seem to recall MS announcing it would effectively block Windows 11 on unsupported hardware without AVX2 support. This is because AVX2 is also used for cryptography as well as physics calculations in newer games. There were people running 11 on Core 2s 🤦♂
Gtx 980 the legend!!! The ultimate pin up boy from 2014. Wanted one, just couldn't afford it at the time lol!!!Great build, love to see old PCs get a second life.
This was great, I've rescued some Dell 2nd, 3rd and 4th Gen i7 towers and the CPU grunt goes down pretty quickly with these but your first gen i7 is a step slower so not surprised seeing the CPU be the limiting factor most of the time. I use 5600 XTs in mine but for that price, I'd have been ecstatic with the 980. Cheers, mate!
I HAD ALMOST THIS EXACT SETUP! Except the PC was an HP 6000 with an i7-870, so just slightly higher clocked than the i7-860. I built a new PC with a mix of spare and new parts and then gave the old HP to a friend of mine. Nice to see that it can still play a couple games fairly well.
When I picked up a working i3 7100 system last year with drives, RAM and a GPU missing, people on discord told me it's practically e-waste. I equipped it with a fairly new 512GB SSD, 16GB of RAM and a used 4GB 960, all in a nice Sharkoon case tidied up and ready to go. Sold it for a solid 150€ including helping the buyer through the setup of the machine. Tl:dr, it's completely fair to convert an old system that would otherwise have been thrown away into something that can still play games
Back in the day when I was a backyard tech, I kept my kids in milk money one year just by replacing those Bestech (sp) power supplies. The problem was so bad that when I would see one I would immediately test it.
Always nice to see old pcs having a second chance! What would you suggest as GPUs to pair an i7 3770k 16gb ram and SSD?(Consider that I have a 1080p 75hz monitor)
@@sjoerdev Basically it's a set of instructions that programmers can use that allow a CPU to process vectorizable calculations really fast, but it uses all of the CPU's power. There's also AVX2 and AVX512 (this is what i can find online)
Just wished you showed the difference between the original i7-860 cpu and whichever is the maximum supported cpu (i7-870? i7-875K? i7-880?) in the gaming benchmarks, to see what kind of FPS increase they'll get with that GTX 980. Also don't forget to mention this is a Vostro 430 MT (minitower). I have a Vostro 460 MT (2nd gen i7) that looks almost identical to the first gen 430.
I have one question In DDR4 rams, we have to use it in dual channel to get maximum performance , is it same for DDR5 , can we use different size rams (for example 12 gb 4800mhz + 8gb 4800mhz ) in DDR5 , as the single channel ram of DDR5 performs equally , please make a video and perform a test
I used to do this all the time at my local garbage dump. People would throw away perfectly usable systems that just needed a new stick of RAM or a new GPU.
@@dallesamllhals9161 Idk how, but seems like some russians figured the "SSE fix" out to make games like cyberpunk work, not sure about this yet, but u should check it!
Way back when, those were very solid workhorse CPUs. The lack of modern instruction sets and limitations on clock speed in OEMs are a disappointment nowadays. That said, GTX 970 and RX 470/570 4gb card are dirt cheap and when paired together you get something pretty solid for a young PC gamer playing simpler titles.
Excited to see what you go with for the mobo swap in the future! Like I said in the short's comments, these vostro 4x0 series cases are wonderful for sleeper builds, just big enough, largely standard, plenty of opportunity to add air intake and exhaust, just too good.
I'd most likely pair the CPU with a HD7950/R9 280 or lower GTX 700/900 series GPU and 8GB RAM. 1:28 Yes... I have like 20 Fujitsu P910 / P920 with i7 3770 / i7 4770... thanks to their weak PSUs I have to keep looking for low power GPUs. -_-
I have a 1st Gen i5, 2nd Gen i5 and a 1st Gen i7 sitting around collecting dust, mostly because I use a prebuilt i7 6th Gen Dell SFF and my son uses my old HP prebuilt i7 4th gen, there was nothing wrong with the first 3 other than wanting to update to something more capable, it is good to see your channel giving the old machines extra life.
Well to be perfectly honest, in my humble opinion, of course without offending anyone who thinks differently from my point of view, but also by looking into this matter in a different perspective and without being condemning of one's view's and by trying to make it objectified, and by considering each and every one's valid opinion, I honestly believe that I completely forgot what I was going to say.
the 1-2 gen i7 cpus can utalize approximately 12gb ddr3 1600mhz (4,2,4,2) and for the graphics anything from GTX 950-GTX 1660 (non-super) still for Vram the sweatspot is propably 3-4gb. cant say if GDDR6 vs GDDR5 Vram would make any difference thou.
with stock i7 860 and 870 i wouldnt bother to install more than 10gb DDR3 1333-1600mhz (4,1,4,1) and for the gpu max 960/1050ti/1650 (depending wich is the cheapest)
I have a similarly spec'd old Dell system that I use as my media pc. Its an xps 8100 build from 2009. Almost the same cpu (mine is the i7-870). Still using the ATi Radeon HD6770 that came with it. Only things I've changed are the case and PSU. For storage it has a 120gb ssd boot drive and two 4tb hdds for storage
Ooh, Looks like we have a similar generation of PC. Mine is an old custom built office PC that was used for printing with a Gigabyte H61M-DS2 r v4. And I want to try to slap an RX 580 on it. Will it work good? I Already installed a 2x 8GB 1333hmz RAMs as my first step.
Pleasantly surprised to see that CPU, I have a similar secondary PC that is still capable of running modern 3D modeling/animation software. I rarely game but I remember Tekken7 and GTA5 ran decently on it. Specs are i7 860 16GB RAM intel DP55WG Motherboard 600W PSU GTX 1050 GPU
don't really like the 1st gen Core i7... I'd rather take an Fx 8350... it will support more and faster memory than 1st gen intels, so 2x8gb 1866mhz its very doable, and later on 2x4gb 1866mhz could bring the CPU up to 24gb, which will be more than enough up until the CPU becomes the final bottleneck for gaming. well, it could take up to 4x8gb 1866mhz for a total of 32gb, which 1st gen i7 can't really take and would allow for modest productivity jobs along with gaming. And despite the fact that both CPUs can take up to an Rx 580 or GTX1060 6gb as the "top tier" gpu to be paired with... the Fx are newer and were selled new for longer time (up to 2016 included) so there is more chance of compatibility further in time. i would remove any optical drive AND any HDD (except for documents) from these systems. 2 x SATA3 disks, one smaller (240gb) for the OS and one larger (1TB) for games and stuffs that will boost the performance of this old CPUs as far as they can go... last but not least... if you have an Asus mobo, you can set the clocks of an Fx cpu manually... i'd put the Turbo clock (of an Fx8350) on 4.5ghz since it will provide a little bit snappier more responsive enviroment for simple tasks like opening browser tabs and such... and it will at the end of the day, contribute to develop the "as close to new" experience
I have in my closet a higher tier version of this. A Z400 with a W3680 at 4.2GHz, RX 480 8GB and 3*8gb RAM (I think it's running at 1333MHz since you can't OC the RAM there, only CPU with some tools on Windows). So this video's build playing decently gives me high hopes. I will check it again this weekend, hope it just turns on.
I had a gtx 980 and I7 870 combo until summer 2023. Was a great little machine. I originally built it in 2014 soon after building a brand new 4790k PC and it made me regret buying the expensive 4790k it was so good, especially when overclocked to 4Ghz with 2400mhz memory. I've now swapped the motherboard out for the 4790k as I have upgraded my main PC to a 7700x. It's a lot better now. Modern games really take advantage of the Haswell architecture, whereas before there wasn't much in it.
@RandomGaminginHD 8 MB Intel Smart Cache helps the i7-860 out a lot and hyperthreading. I have build with the i7-870 two time with a GTX 970 to sell but a GTX 980 is too rich for an i7-870/860 in my opinion but you got that GTX 980 founders edition for the price of a GTX 970. Well done.
I built my son a gaming PC for under £200 with an i7 4th gen, 16GB of DDR3 and a 1050Ti and he's happy enough with it. The problem is kids see their favourite streamers/YTers with £3k systems and think this is the norm so they say to ma and pa "I want a gaming PC". Ma and pa then hit ebay and see unscrupulous sellers selling "GAMING PC" with Fortnite logos everywhere and ma and pa think "just what my child wants". The 2nd gen i3, GT710 combo, arrives and poor Johnny can't play anything and that's the reason this video is so good, it shows parents an alternative for their child, you have a good upgrade path at a reasonable cost and that's something your kids can do with help from a couple of videos and some parental input. Stay away from these ebay sellers and their "gaming PC" crap and build it yourself with help from videos like this one!!!!!
I just picked up a vostro 230 with a core2quad 8600, some crappy gpu and 4gb ram for 10 euros. Still runs with the original bestec psu. Probably will add a 12 eur ssd, make it 2x4gb ram, run the win11 update, make sure itll stream yt 1080p smoothly and just sell it. The thing easily has 10 years left as a simple casual browsing / office system, alltho it may need a new psu at some point
OH LOOK, another Deadstec power supply. I swear, there must be more of those garbage PSUs in landfill than any other brand. I replaced many of them back in the 00s to the early 10s...
I think the next video you should do is with the price for performance issues with the GT 1030 and the GTX 1050 cuz if you look in some places the GT 1030 is now costing more than a GTX 1050 including at cex
You said it has 3gb of memory, yet I see 2 sticks of Memory in there- did you take the video after you did some of the upgrades? Those old Dell prebuilts weren't too bad. My second PC that runs my laser engraver is an old Dell prebuilt with a 4790, 16gb of generic memory and I added an old R9 Fury Nano to it and it's a decent PC now- overkill for running a laser engraver/cutter
Hardware Unboxed just released a "4gb vs 8gb" vram video. Try putting in a gtx 10 series card with 8gb of ram. I'm thinking a lot of those big stutters here is the video card.
To touch on a couple of things.. I have a 6950 xt and 4k 144hz monitor and ive been playing through Alan Wake 2 with my wife in the evenings.. she gets jump scared every.. single.. time. We laugh at her every time. ❤ My point is that with any decent motion blur a single player game is more than playable in the low 40s and there isnt much improvement to really be had above maybe 70s. On the other side of things an old gtx 980 is fast enough to be relatively competative in competative games. My daughter regularly gets 8 or more kills pn apex legends at 1080p with a rx 480 somewhere above 100fps on a 144hz screen. You really do not need the best or newest hardware or to run at the high dnough fps to enjoy games. That said.. she and i are extremely aware anytime the default monitor settings in windows goes back to 60hz and i personally run sim racing at 200fps so obviously there are huge advantages to having high feamerates in the right scenarios. I got my 6950 xt for $400 so dont let the price tags get you down.. look for deals new and used for just a few minutes a day and you can land a great deal. Paying sticker price is throwing money away 🤷✌️😎
My issue is with buying a Dell prebuilt. I’d have no idea which ones use proprietary parts as opposed to standard. Throwing an HP PSU in it (which could also be proprietary) isn’t something I’d have done. From what I remember from years (and I emphasize years) ago, HP used to have the psu connector keyed the same as standard ATX but the pinouts would be different. Maybe they stopped that practice because of how dangerous it was. I don’t know. I’m sure a lot of you people know these systems better than I do.
I have a GT210 and it is pretty awful by today's standard but will do for Windows 9X and XP gaming. I doubt there are 98 drivers for it so you'd have to use XP.
bought a dell optiplex 390 mt off ebay K-TEL for 29.99 had a 2120 cpu in there had a gtx 750 i bought ages ago from maplin i never used put in a 240gb ssd which was a freebie as i am into train simulator this was a great buy and upgrade- just need to unload my thinkcentre now running out of space and the mrs getting annoyed
I once was given a Dell XPS desktop of a similar vintage a while back. It had a small LCD screen on the front, and to my horror when I turned it on it illuminated the dead body of a cockroach under the outer layer of the screen! Disgusting. Harvested the GT 730 and it's my test card to this day.
Makes a pretty good showing all things considered. Also it has the correct CPU instructions to continue on with Windows 11 24H2. However, who knows what Microsoft is going to block next!
I'd love to see what this looks like with a more powerful processor, I think it could run a lot of heavier games more comfortably on 1080p low. The GTX 980 is doing a lot of the heavy lifting here.
It'd be cool if kids learned a little bit of tech to do something like this for themselves--just take their usual family computer and throw in a few parts for maybe under $300 to get a budget gaming PC. I would've loved to have something like this as a kid, as I did my gaming on cheap office computers that were definitely not meant to be gamed on.
Built one using leftover parts total cost was 130$USD . Used windows 7 on a PC tell 11 hit on a Dell Laptop. So it using Windows 10 is not a real problem.
What I don't understand about your data is the minimum fps. I thought minimum fps is the absolute lowest fps number but in your benchmarks it appears higher than your percentile lows.
That CPU is going to get slaughtered in the third act of Baldur's Gate 3 (the city itself). Still, surprisingly good results for a such an old machine.
I personally look at Haswell as the lowest entry level CPU for gaming. It has AVX2 at full speed along with all of the other instruction set extensions that games use. I have a few x58 boards and chips around and they do work well but you are not going to get the same frames as you would with Haswell. Along with many newer games not wanting to start due to missing instruction set extensions.
I got a video idea, cable managing old PC case, might be helpful for those with old pc case or budget player with old office pc, cz most of those old pc case doesnt have backside clearance for cabling.
Just a suggestion here. Can you consider adding some text on screen when announcing the specs? Not that you pronounce them bad or anything but as a non-native speaker and someone who doesn't know the names of all cpus by heart, I had to rewind a few times to catch on 😅 Love your channel, cheers!
I still have thos vostro. Got it at my salvation army for $5 and was surprised that it was fully operational. Gonna get another psu and put my spare gtx 1060 in this bad boy
Great video as always. Here is idea for video maybe you could test this cpu with some similarly powerful amd gpu as its known that amd drivers use less cpu power to run, it should give old cpus a bit more room to breathe and maybe remove some stutters caused by cpu.
For bg3 I'd recommend going into act 3 for benchmarks. its the heaviest area in the whole game in terms of resource usage. It would definitely give a more realistic benchmark because even newer and more modern hardware struggle in act 3. Act 1 and 2 are fairly well optimized and i think could feel misleading to others for benchmarks because of that huge change in performance.
