If you're thinking about buying a cheap Dell / HP off eBay, just a heads up...

[bobross]

I took the dive and bought a Dell precision tower 3620 for $130 delivered. This is a decent price. The specs are i7-6700, 16GB RAM, DVD-R, legit Activated Win10x64, some generic video card, etc. The basics.

So, the reason for the heads-up is as follows. I have a lot of PC parts lying around. The only thing I didn't have is this CPU / MoBo and case with any kind of i6/i7/i8, etc. That is why I got this.

That is where the easy part ended. If I was just going to use this system as-is, I might be disappointed. However, I already owned the following parts I wanted to add:

GTX1080
1TB m.2
18TB platter drive
16 more GB of RAM

The biggest issue was fitting the GTX1080 in the case. Unbeknownst to me, Dell RIVETS their cases together. This was a HUGE pain to modify the case to finally get the card to fit. In addition, the power supply does not have any PCI-E connectors, ONLY SATA power connectors! The MOBO connector is a propriety 8-pin not the standard 24-pin too.

SO, if you go this route it's not super easy, and you will need to buy an adaptor (see pic below)

Before MOD (notice lower HD cage):


After wrestling with case for 30min:


Here is the MOBO power connection


Here are some cables you might need:


In the end it all worked out because I just have a bunch of stuff lying around, but be aware what you are getting into with the eBay finds!

Cheers,
BR

 

[fenderman]

Most folks are running these pc bone stock except for adding an SSD and maybe memory.
130 is a high price for an i7-6700 desktop. For about 150 you can get an i5-8500 that is about 15% more powerful than the i7-6700 and newer and will run w11 if you ever wanted to.
The power supply also may have issues with that card.

 

[bobross]

Yeah, the i5's all seem to only come in those mini form factor cases. I looked and looked and anything with a decent size case was more expensive. I guess I could have shucked the MoBo, but wasn't sure if those mini MoBO's even had a PCIe slot. The power supply seems to be holding up fine, but nothing has been under load yet, so we'll see.

Also, $130 delivered is high? Where are people getting these for cheaper? This was like the cheapest non-micro case on eBay LOL

 

[TonyR]

Unbeknownst to me, Dell RIVETS their cases together.

It's done for quick assembly, takes too much time to screw things together, rivets are quicker in a mass production scenario. Less costs associated with installing female threads for those screws all over the place as well.

FWIW, I've been building PC's since 1977 and don't recall much of any PC having hardly ANY screws except the case cover, power supply, rear slot card holders and the HDD's in their slots.

Early HP's, and Gateway's weighed 20 lbs. with no parts in 'em....they were built like tanks!

 

[bobross]

Yeah all my other cases have a HD cage that is attached with 1 main screw and then they can be slid out. I've never seen the whole cage tacked in like this.