What is the best bang for the buck with these cheap eBay Dell systems?

B

bobross

Young grasshopper
Mar 7, 2021
31
12
USA
I want a system that will handle 8 4K camera comfortably (not spiking the CPU) but I also want to put in a spare NVidia 1080 I have sitting around to offload A.I.

Most of the good deals seem like they come in these small cases that won't even fit a beefy graphics card. I have a large extra case too but the power supply on a lot of these seem proprietary and maybe not be able to move..?

Any suggestions? Budget is $350ish could go a little higher if needed.
 
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Look in the Wiki, in the blue bar at the top of the page, using a real computer and not a phone or tablet. There are guides there to size hardware, disk space calculations based on resolution. Plan on enough internal space for at least two physical platter drives for video storage.
 
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I think I'm clear on what CPU and RAM I need. I'm wondering more about case logistics at this point. Weather a larger Nvida card (1080) can fit and if the power supply is movable or powerful enough with these smaller cases.
 
The Dell towers have a larger PS and plenty of room for larger cards. I think the one in my 7040 is 240W. The card that came with mine is nothing special Radeon 340X. I know there are replacement PS for the smaller cases since I looked to replace a failed one at one point but I don't recall specs and that obviously adds cost.
 
bobross said:
I think I'm clear on what CPU and RAM I need. I'm wondering more about case logistics at this point. Weather a larger Nvida card (1080) can fit and if the power supply is movable or powerful enough with these smaller cases.
Click to expand...

If you want to put in a larger GPU get the larger Tower Case .. remember you may need a better Power Supply for some GPUs ..
 
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I would allow up to 170 watts for a NVidia 1080 GPU to give yourself some overhead. It won't run anywhere near that most of the time but when processing motion detection for AI it will spike pretty high. There is no need for a GPU for video acceleration purposes. Since sub streams have been introduced CPU utilization has been reduced far below anything a GPU can accomplish and without the power penalty to run the GPU.
 
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My Dell Precision 3630 tower has i7-8700 and supports up to like RTX 2060 or something.....no need to swap an parts, just drop it in....it also has 3 3.5" drive bays plus the m.2 SSD option.
9 cams at 4-5% and 750-800 MB of Ram
 
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Oops no Windows OS..on that one? .but keep searching... I think if you use Windows Media Creation tool it will load up Win 10 and run it without asking for a key. the Precision series shipped with the Pro version of Windows.
 
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As already said, a full height graphics card won't fit in a SFF case. You would need a MT case. I have more experience with the Optiplex line. The series 4 Optiply (3010, 3020, 7010, 7020, 9010, 9020) all use an ATX power supply-but you need a 24 pin to 8 pin adaptor for the motherboard; the 3010 and 3020 only have 2 RAM slots, so you may have to buy more expensive sticks to get the capacity you want/need; these take 3rd and 4th gen CPUs and do not have m.2 slots. Series 5 gets m.2 slots, but not until the 3050, 5050, 7050; Dell went to TFX power supplies, which are way more expensive.

IMO, the 7020 and 9020 are some of the best bang for the cheap buck.
 
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I've been happy buying refurbs from amazon, and I feel very slightly more confident in my buying experience from amazon vs. eBay. Just search for "renewed PC" plus whatever terms you want, like i7, ssd, etc:

 
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I have 4 of these OptiPlex 7040 boxes running BI at four different locations. The Win 10 Pro license is worth ~$100 - $130 all by itself!

1670626831187.png

That particular box won't host your GPU card, but minitowers are definitely available.
 
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The Precision 3630 with an i7-8700 doubles as a Space heater in the Winter, as well as a full service tower for all the big graphics cards.
 
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