I hear you man! I didn't get into gaming until I got my first Windows 95 PC. It came with a few games preinstalled like Jazz Jackrabbit, and a couple others. From there I was hooked and started buying games for my PC. I remember loading Doom from a bunch of floppy discs. Once it was up and running I spend hours and hours playing that game. Then I bought the PlayStation 1, PS2, Dreamcast and Wii. Did they have the best graphics? No, but the developers made up for it by making you use your brains and your imagination. Such great stuff.
People with 'the thing' can mascarade some of their symptoms with cough syrup if they are not doing really bad. It doesn't mean they don't feel like 💩. Remember, it lasts at least a month.
Interesting to see the tiny Dell machines. At first glance, they look almost identical to the Lenovos(I'm familiar with earlier ones, at least) aside from the front bezel. But I can see many design differences as you show it. I just picked up two older ThinkCentre Tiny machines. I went with two because I couldn't resist two good deals. They're older M73 and M93p units, both with i5 4570T which you have shown. They'll handle most of my emulation needs and I have a more powerful machine for heavier stuff. Each one was probably not much more than a higher-end Pi 4 with a decent cooling solution, so it made sense for me to go that route. I already love the form factor. I just got the power supplies yesterday so I can finally start checking them out. The Dell looks pretty nice too. I always enjoy seeing what these tiny business PCs can do with emulation.
Now that Batocera v33 has added Vulkan support, would you be willing to do a small video revisiting hardware which struggled in Batocera's earlier versions and compare its current performance to Windows now that Vulkan support has been added? Thanks!
Looking forward to the Batocera install man, i ant to add it to my Arcade system, would be nice if you could show the adding of emulators and games. Like the vids too man, keep em up!
For Batocera you don't need to separately add emulators as the whole image includes the Linux OS, all supported emulators (latest versions as of building the image), drivers, and auto detect of USB controllers etc. Just flash image to drive/USB stick and you're good to go.
I know this Video is 1 year old but , my brother part-times at a Staples and some guy brought 2 of these the 3020 i5 version's in to recycle. Booted them both up like 15 minutes ago and they work perfectly and still have windows installed can't wait to mess with them this weekend. 👍 ETA always coming in clutch with turning weird devices into retro gaming perfection.
Thanks for this vid! I just got a good order on a HP Prodesk 600 G5 with an i5-9500T for only 120$ including a screen and a stand for the computer, and I'm going to convert it to a console, super happy about it.
I stumbled on one selling online for around $25 without cpu, hdd, and ram but I already had an unused cpu and hdd and just bought 8gb ram for around $15. One of the most satisfying purchases in recent memory.
Took your advice ETA and picked up a Optiplex 7050 with a 7500T in it. FINALLY, I can play Killer Instinct Arcade at full speed on such a small form factor! Thank you!
8:22 The solution to this is to use retrobat as your front end. Which is basically the windows version of batocerra. Contrary to batocera, retrobat will allow you to select DirectX as your graphics back end.
@@andrewc7475 None that I'm aware of. And yes if you want to be able to use it as a regular PC it's a better choice for that as well because you don't have to boot into Linux from a separate drive like you do with Batocera. You just launch it like any other application.
Nice, the small pcs do the best for playing with friends, recommended the SSD or M2 hard drive for better performance, and a mechanical HD for storage the games and having high capacity.
Buyer beware for anyone watching these videos: Intel integrated graphics will not output sound to your TV via HDMI, if you play games in full screen. Updating drivers and designating default playback settings will not fix it--its a bug Intel has known about since 2017, and still hasn't fixed at the time of this comment. If you're looking to buy one of these as a TV emulation box, don't. Trust me, it won't be worth the hours of frustration.
You really have great timing, I just got this exact machine, mine came with a 1 TB SSD and 32GB of ram. EDIT: The M.2 only works with NVME not SATA SSDs. I am in the process of setting up Big Box on it. Would Batocera be better?
@@ThePlev batocera is way easier than Retropie. But with Launchbox you get updated versions of redream and ps2 emulators. I’ll usually use batocera on low end PCs that I know what go past Dreamcast. I don’t think batocera supports guncon support like retropie.
Thanks so much for this one especially, and for all your videos! I was convinced I needed to get one of the tiny J4125 cubes until I saw this video; now I’ve got a 5050 on the way with the same i5 processor and with 16gb ram - can’t wait till it arrives! Also ordered the kinhank 2tb hard drive. Thanks again for your informative videos!
that pc is amazing. i use it to copy hard drives using second copy on windows 7 with usb3.0. never a single problem! i never even thought of emulation on it, but i will try it soon! thanks eta!
Nice overview. I bought the hp version of this machine (hp prodesk 600 g3 mini) and it seems to be matching your windows performance for pcsx2 and exact slow down in Gran Tourismo 4. This is with Vulkan and no upscaling. Might be worth making an update video with the new vulkan updates
THANK YOU for bringing this PC to my attention. It is exactly what I want for an "under the tv family get together machine". I didn't get mine as cheap ($200) and I'm getting an NVME for Windows and a 2TB for roms. I thought about going Batocera but Windows will allow me to run Bigbox and you didn't mention it but light weight steam games run great on this thing too. All the side scrollers in retro style, some low res rocket league or GTA is doable, party games, etc. Also can stream higher end stuff like a steam link. I love the form factor of this thing and all the IO. To hell with those $500 bare bones APU based Mini PC's.
I really Like how you do updates On these Builds, I know you done this in the past But you have a lot of new subs and batocera + pc parts Change everyday so these videos are great!
Yes would very much love to see tutorial on this! I'm interested in playing my ps2 games in higher resolution and I'm kinda on a budget! Great video as always and this would really help!!!
hey I have the hp version of this! its the "Elitedesk G2" mini. It's a 6th gen i5-6500t with win 10 pro. I have 2 of them i think they're great, it's similar. I have 16gb ram, a 500gb Kingston nvme and it's very quick!
I noticed there looks to be a wifi card in your mini just need an antenna?? maybe I'm wrong. I just got a Lenovo version of this mini.. similar stats (7500T, 8gig, 256 sdd) it was around $135 with wifi. awesome review. Definitely glad I got the 7500T instead of opting for the 6500T with the lesser Intel 530 HD graphics, you can't beat a mini PC form factor with that much processing power and still low power consumption. The dell actually comes with HDMI out the back, some of these mini's like mine only have display port so you need DP to HMDI to hook them up.
I started with an i5 4570T a while back and was thinking of getting an i5 6500T or 7500T but wanted a little bit bigger bump still without breaking the bank so I ended up getting an i7 6700T. But,that one uses the Intel 530 graphics. Still works very well though and is a nice bump over the older i5 I had. Can play more gamecube and ps2 games upscaled. And runs ps2 games that the i5 4570T didnt. So for the price I paid its good. But yeah, a large number of these older Tiny PCs from Lenovo, HP or Dell make great little retro emulation consoles. 👍
The HP Mini PC's most of the time have built-in Wi-Fi with a short antenna. You can stack multiple of these PC's on top of eachother to create one 'long' antenna. Saves the hassle of having all of those antenna dongles sticking out everywhere.
Would love to see this directly compared to older mini PCs, with 3rd and 4th gen CPUs. Over here, a 3050 goes for almost 300 euros with an i5, I'm lucky if I find it for 200 with an i3.
Same. I know your pain. Somehow, even if the price reaching 200ish, it wouldn't go down. Even relic like Latitude D630 is still in 100 range sold by some people.
@@Anuitu2u I've managed to snag an Acer with i3 4130 for 60 euros (500GB spinning rust, 6GB ram), but I had to haunt the auctions. That was a lucky purchase.
@@youzernejm woah, lucky you. In my country, Acer Verizon i3 4130 is around 90euro. I'll keep digging, to find another mini pc with Intel T series. My purpose is 24/7 mini server at home, so T series is mandatory. I'll consider my self lucky if I can get an i5 gen6 in range 200-250. Well, if I spend 350, it would be easy. But, the hunt is more attractive. The server can wait. I have an H61 HP with G630, and I'll buy an 3240T as an upgrade.
@@Anuitu2u it was a bigger model tho and a very lucky find. Try auctions. Over here sellers usually hope to start with market price and get more through bidding. But once in a while, a device not too many people are interested in pops up at a good starting price. You may get lucky if you have patience.
@@Anuitu2u one thing just crossed my mind. What will your home server be doing? If it'll be idling most of the time, more modern platform can be a lot more energy efficient. Also, for heavier tasks more powerful cpu can sometimes turn out to be more efficient, as it will finish the task quickly and go to idle. Cheap electricity over here though, so it's usually not a major concern to me, I don't give it much thought.
Yo I love this guys videos so much man I watch them everyday without fail I swear he is the best reviewer I trust his recommendations because of his deep in-depth research and his knowledge in general
I have three dell optiplex 9020 micro with the same socket as the m93p that are equipped with a Xeon e3-1265l v3 ($30 on aliexpress). I installed Proxmox VE on them and created a Batocera virtual machine for more flexibility.
What timing! I just purchased a Lenovo ThinkCentre M720q Tiny i3-8100T for this purpose. I paid 210.00 usd shipped. It has an i3 but performs the same as the cpu in your system. This is the generation when i3 became quad core. I plan to use it for just 2d and saturn. Thank you for introducing me to batocera.
Be careful which 8000 series Intel is cpu you get. I got the i3-8120u without thinking and it's only a dual core cpu. Can't run gamecube above native resolution.
@@mikem3431 I've made so many bad decisions when it comes to buying low cost emulation machines. I have sworn off of them and opted for original hardware or fpga. No issues with those
@@michaels9917 Something like a Ryzen 5 3600 + gtx 1650 works well for emulation at 1080p in general. It just depends on what your needs are. I have always dreamed of having a system with tons of older games and box art on one device. This fulfills that dream. :)
For PS2, I recommend testing OutRun 2006. I've got a couple of USFF PCs. An i3-7100T and an i7-7700 (also had a 6100T until recently) and there are a number of tips for people running emulators, such as High Performance Mode, giving the iGPU more RAM in bios and switching on the multi-thread option in PCSX2. I've found OutRun to be an odd little game in terms of emulation and performance.
Never managed to get it consistently full speed, huge frame drops, then back to full speed. I have the mini hp 8500t 6 core, think its 12 thread 16gb ddr4 ram in dual setup. In fact it ran faster in software modev🤷♂️
@@westleyjohnstone4719 Certainly a demanding game. Struggles with "fog" on one of the easier levels, too. I do manage to get it running at full speed at 1x on the i3-7100t and at 2x on i7-7700, with some very minor drops. That multi-thread option makes a difference, from my experience.
@@extracoconut in fairly new with the emulator as a whole, need to find some tutorials. Most games id say work fine at native, gta 3 was fine on the whole, with only the odd drop.
@@westleyjohnstone4719 There's a youtuber called UHD Expert or UHD 520 Expert, something like that, has plenty of tricks up his sleeve to get most out of these GPUs. Worth checking out.
Beware not to use core i7 for emulation! Top speed is lower than i3 and i5, and number of core is useles for emulation. It is although difficult to say what is the best choice betwen i3 and i5: i3 have better 'slow speed' and therefore are more constant in speed, but i5 have 4 real cores
I literally just ordered one of these, slightly more expensive, 8gb ram, i5-7600T and 256gb ssd. Can't wait to see the tutorial so I can see how it compares. I love my pi4 on batocera and am looking forward to seeing how it compares.
@@joaovictorf.carvalho458 i changed the machine, hp prodesk mini, 8500t, 16gb ram, 1tb nvme running windows 10 pro, and launchbox and it works really well. Linux us a faiure as for some reason audio will only come through the internal speaker, same if i try to use vulkan backend in either windows or linux
Ive done up to ps2 and gamecube with no issues, i have some framerate issues with og xbox but still mostly playable. Ps3 was a no-go, though i was using a usb3 external bluray and running off a disc. Final fantasy pixel remasters all run great over steam though. Lol
@@dreadwe Can you please tell me the versions of dolphin and pcsx2 you used on that machine of yours? I got one with the same processor i5 8500t but i have slowdowns/stutters with gamecube and ps2 emulation
I just set up Batocera on this machine (micro i5 7500t). I'll test out PS2 compatibility now that Vulkan is available in Batocera and if I remember I'll post my results here.
They are pretty cheap.We have some locally.Some are pretty good pricing some are price of a 3400g complete system.I love the form factor.For emulation that is plenty of power.
I´m really interested in see how this little machine performs with Windows games, like CSGO. By the way, I know that in laptops we use to see problems with latency(mouse and keyboard)/fps drops, all because the DPC Latency in the system is too high. Can you measure the latency overall with LatencyMon, when testing windows games?! Thanks!
I love these videos specially your recent Xbox series 299 for a series S Xbox is a hell of a deal you can play new games and emulate retro games and it performs way better than most machines out there.
At my work we have similar PCs, but they are Lenovo thinkcentres and have ryzen 3200g! Extremely powerful little machine for office work, I’d love to take one home lol
Incidentally I was playing that game last night. Prior to actual start of race, there were some hiccups here and there, but once the race started it is smooth sailing all the way. I'm running it at 2x res on a sub $400 miniPC bought last week.
Great machines. I use an Optiplex 7020 with an I5 4590 on a vga crt. It runs everything really well upto ps2. I use it mainly as a steam machine for playing 2d games like shooters, platformers etc and it works beautifully.
@@MisterUrbanWorld for my use which is primarily 2d games on a crt and gpu is overkill, the optiplex is good with a 1030/1050 but the costs were high back when I used it. I now use a Steamdeck which covers 90% of everything i need, it also works great when docked to the crt.
Every video like this I watch goes the same way "I got this little pc here for 150 bucks or whatever" then I go to look it up and can only find it for like 600$+ 🙄
Ive got the similar 7050 with the i5-7500t with 8gb ram. Got batocera 39 working on it. All games run run fine except dreamcast. The sound is terrific and the games run in slowmo : 25 to 28 fps. Wiiu for example is running with 45 to 58 fps. Also the start screen is also slowmo. Dont know why.....
The current pcsx2 nightly builds are so much better on these old 7th gen quad core chips now that it has multithreaded vu1 and dx12 support. With an i7 7700t, my optiplex3050 can run a lot of PS2 games at 1080p full speed, which is nice givin the 7700t only has hd630 graphics not uhd. God of war even runs at 100% if I lower the resolution to slightly under 720(1.75x native). The "stable" version of pcsx2, i think its v1.6 wouldn't run any ps2 game in a playable state with a 7700t. Which is weird because it worked alright with the duel core i3 7100t my optiplex originally shipped with. I guess it had better single core speeds.
I'm pretty new to emulation so forgive my question but is Vulkan and dx12 supported within Batocera now? I have the same 3050 Optiplex Micro i5, 7th gen as shown in this video lying around. I was a little bummed when I watched it that PS2 performance was a bit rubbish within Batocera, but if it's the case you can use something other than OpenGL then that could be quite promising for performance. And yeah I think they put the 7500T in the 3050 micro towards the end of production.
@@AndySomething Im not that familiar with batocera really. I've always just used stand alone windows emulators. Seems to be for the best as far as im aware. As far as ps2 is concerned go for the latest nightly build.
Found one in the dumpster this morning boots up perfectly
I call bs lol
@@jeffhelmick8065 Call it what you want just know i re-installed windows on the system and got retrobat installed
Lucky
@@western11h wish we had cool shit in our university dumpster at the end of the year all we got is blowup dolls and couches 😂
You must live in Murica
Spent years of my life saving up for an expensive gaming pc, now I got the urge to buy this little affordable piece to sit next to my collection.
Same
Ditto
I hear you man! I didn't get into gaming until I got my first Windows 95 PC. It came with a few games preinstalled like Jazz Jackrabbit, and a couple others. From there I was hooked and started buying games for my PC. I remember loading Doom from a bunch of floppy discs. Once it was up and running I spend hours and hours playing that game. Then I bought the PlayStation 1, PS2, Dreamcast and Wii.
Did they have the best graphics? No, but the developers made up for it by making you use your brains and your imagination. Such great stuff.
W
bro same lol
It's totally true that the minute ETA's videos go live ebay's merch jumps about $100 higher.
Suply and deman
1 word. Scalpers. @@samuelmatheson9655
Glad to hear it sounds like you're doing better! Thanks for the content!
People with 'the thing' can mascarade some of their symptoms with cough syrup if they are not doing really bad. It doesn't mean they don't feel like 💩. Remember, it lasts at least a month.
@@Jucelegario I fully agree! Here's to hoping that isn't the case and he really is doing better! Positive support is often the best kind of support! 💙
@@Jucelegario The commie flu? 😲
Thank you! Had a cold and it got pretty bad.
Interesting to see the tiny Dell machines. At first glance, they look almost identical to the Lenovos(I'm familiar with earlier ones, at least) aside from the front bezel. But I can see many design differences as you show it. I just picked up two older ThinkCentre Tiny machines. I went with two because I couldn't resist two good deals. They're older M73 and M93p units, both with i5 4570T which you have shown. They'll handle most of my emulation needs and I have a more powerful machine for heavier stuff. Each one was probably not much more than a higher-end Pi 4 with a decent cooling solution, so it made sense for me to go that route. I already love the form factor. I just got the power supplies yesterday so I can finally start checking them out. The Dell looks pretty nice too. I always enjoy seeing what these tiny business PCs can do with emulation.
I got one that I upgraded to an i7, I added a 512GB NVME, and 16GBs of RAM. Nice emulation PC.
If you need it, the windows 10 license is installed into the bios and can be read and used on another computer
I love Batocera's menu music.
Sellers on Ebay jacking the prices up in 3,2,1... 😌
We still love ya ETA! 😂👍
Now that Batocera v33 has added Vulkan support, would you be willing to do a small video revisiting hardware which struggled in Batocera's earlier versions and compare its current performance to Windows now that Vulkan support has been added?
Thanks!
You're better off using retro bat on a Windows PC. Not only does it offer OpenGL and Vulcan support but DirectX as well.
Looking forward to the Batocera install man, i ant to add it to my Arcade system, would be nice if you could show the adding of emulators and games. Like the vids too man, keep em up!
For Batocera you don't need to separately add emulators as the whole image includes the Linux OS, all supported emulators (latest versions as of building the image), drivers, and auto detect of USB controllers etc.
Just flash image to drive/USB stick and you're good to go.
@@acejon2162 Yes i know, but i might want to install or use different ones, then the ones already on the image!
I think for most of the supported hardware in Batocera you can choose which emulator engine to use per system, or even per game.
I know this Video is 1 year old but , my brother part-times at a Staples and some guy brought 2 of these the 3020 i5 version's in to recycle.
Booted them both up like 15 minutes ago and they work perfectly and still have windows installed can't wait to mess with them this weekend.
👍 ETA always coming in clutch with turning weird devices into retro gaming perfection.
Thanks for this vid! I just got a good order on a HP Prodesk 600 G5 with an i5-9500T for only 120$ including a screen and a stand for the computer, and I'm going to convert it to a console, super happy about it.
I stumbled on one selling online for around $25 without cpu, hdd, and ram but I already had an unused cpu and hdd and just bought 8gb ram for around $15. One of the most satisfying purchases in recent memory.
Any time you do ps2 emu I'd love to see Odin Sphere, because it's just one of the most difficult games for the console to handle.
@@bland9876 Xbox is apparently really difficult to emulate. I would like to see it tested on PCs though.
@@bustergundo516 I think xbox emulators just didn't have the right dev teams, they seem to go through development hell and getting abandoned.
@@nathanhamman418 I understand. I just find it ironic because Xbox is owned by Microsoft yet their older consoles are the hardest to emulate.
*Gran Turismo 4 has entered the chat*
Will be waiting for that tutorial. Thanks!
See ETA previous video on April 2 "turn a $80 mini pc...."
Took your advice ETA and picked up a Optiplex 7050 with a 7500T in it. FINALLY, I can play Killer Instinct Arcade at full speed on such a small form factor! Thank you!
How kuch was it?
@@suhtangwong This was two or three years ago, I paid two hundred for it.
8:22 The solution to this is to use retrobat as your front end. Which is basically the windows version of batocerra. Contrary to batocera, retrobat will allow you to select DirectX as your graphics back end.
Hmm. This is interesting, as I’d kind of like to be able to use it as a regular pc on occasion. Any major downsides to retrobat vs Batocera?
@@andrewc7475 None that I'm aware of. And yes if you want to be able to use it as a regular PC it's a better choice for that as well because you don't have to boot into Linux from a separate drive like you do with Batocera. You just launch it like any other application.
Nice, the small pcs do the best for playing with friends, recommended the SSD or M2 hard drive for better performance, and a mechanical HD for storage the games and having high capacity.
Buyer beware for anyone watching these videos: Intel integrated graphics will not output sound to your TV via HDMI, if you play games in full screen. Updating drivers and designating default playback settings will not fix it--its a bug Intel has known about since 2017, and still hasn't fixed at the time of this comment.
If you're looking to buy one of these as a TV emulation box, don't. Trust me, it won't be worth the hours of frustration.
Thanks for the content. The bad part of watching your videos is that I want to buy everything because you sell them well!
This is literally the same mini PC my sister using in her Work from Home
You really have great timing, I just got this exact machine, mine came with a 1 TB SSD and 32GB of ram. EDIT: The M.2 only works with NVME not SATA SSDs. I am in the process of setting up Big Box on it. Would Batocera be better?
Batocera is super easy to setup, but Big Box looks nicer and you can get better emulator support.
From what I can see at the 50s mark on this video, the slot is key m, which should suggest (but does not guarentee) that it supports nvme ssds
@@mingyi456 I installed a known working 500gig 860 pro NVME and it won't show up in bios or windows
@@ThePlev batocera is way easier than Retropie. But with Launchbox you get updated versions of redream and ps2 emulators. I’ll usually use batocera on low end PCs that I know what go past Dreamcast. I don’t think batocera supports guncon support like retropie.
The M.2 Supports NVME
Thanks so much for this one especially, and for all your videos! I was convinced I needed to get one of the tiny J4125 cubes until I saw this video; now I’ve got a 5050 on the way with the same i5 processor and with 16gb ram - can’t wait till it arrives! Also ordered the kinhank 2tb hard drive. Thanks again for your informative videos!
that pc is amazing. i use it to copy hard drives using second copy on windows 7 with usb3.0. never a single problem! i never even thought of emulation on it, but i will try it soon! thanks eta!
Nice overview.
I bought the hp version of this machine (hp prodesk 600 g3 mini) and it seems to be matching your windows performance for pcsx2 and exact slow down in Gran Tourismo 4. This is with Vulkan and no upscaling.
Might be worth making an update video with the new vulkan updates
Great video ETA Prime 👍
THANK YOU for bringing this PC to my attention. It is exactly what I want for an "under the tv family get together machine". I didn't get mine as cheap ($200) and I'm getting an NVME for Windows and a 2TB for roms. I thought about going Batocera but Windows will allow me to run Bigbox and you didn't mention it but light weight steam games run great on this thing too. All the side scrollers in retro style, some low res rocket league or GTA is doable, party games, etc. Also can stream higher end stuff like a steam link. I love the form factor of this thing and all the IO. To hell with those $500 bare bones APU based Mini PC's.
I really Like how you do updates On these Builds, I know you done this in the past But you have a lot of new subs and batocera + pc parts Change everyday so these videos are great!
Yes would very much love to see tutorial on this! I'm interested in playing my ps2 games in higher resolution and I'm kinda on a budget! Great video as always and this would really help!!!
Dude. I have like 16 of these sitting on my desk. Got from an office that closed
Are you selling them?
@@TheAuthorizedJay I have to yank all hard drives , and get them cleared . Plus clean all the stickers off of them.
If you sell them lmk
hey I have the hp version of this! its the "Elitedesk G2" mini. It's a 6th gen i5-6500t with win 10 pro. I have 2 of them i think they're great, it's similar. I have 16gb ram, a 500gb Kingston nvme and it's very quick!
I noticed there looks to be a wifi card in your mini just need an antenna?? maybe I'm wrong.
I just got a Lenovo version of this mini.. similar stats (7500T, 8gig, 256 sdd) it was around $135 with wifi.
awesome review. Definitely glad I got the 7500T instead of opting for the 6500T with the lesser Intel 530 HD graphics, you can't beat a mini PC form factor with that much processing power and still low power consumption. The dell actually comes with HDMI out the back, some of these mini's like mine only have display port so you need DP to HMDI to hook them up.
I started with an i5 4570T a while back and was thinking of getting an i5 6500T or 7500T but wanted a little bit bigger bump still without breaking the bank so I ended up getting an i7 6700T.
But,that one uses the Intel 530 graphics.
Still works very well though and is a nice bump over the older i5 I had.
Can play more gamecube and ps2 games upscaled.
And runs ps2 games that the i5 4570T didnt.
So for the price I paid its good.
But yeah, a large number of these older Tiny PCs from Lenovo, HP or Dell make great little retro emulation consoles. 👍
The HP Mini PC's most of the time have built-in Wi-Fi with a short antenna. You can stack multiple of these PC's on top of eachother to create one 'long' antenna. Saves the hassle of having all of those antenna dongles sticking out everywhere.
Would love to see this directly compared to older mini PCs, with 3rd and 4th gen CPUs. Over here, a 3050 goes for almost 300 euros with an i5, I'm lucky if I find it for 200 with an i3.
Same. I know your pain.
Somehow, even if the price reaching 200ish, it wouldn't go down.
Even relic like Latitude D630 is still in 100 range sold by some people.
@@Anuitu2u I've managed to snag an Acer with i3 4130 for 60 euros (500GB spinning rust, 6GB ram), but I had to haunt the auctions. That was a lucky purchase.
@@youzernejm woah, lucky you.
In my country, Acer Verizon i3 4130 is around 90euro.
I'll keep digging, to find another mini pc with Intel T series. My purpose is 24/7 mini server at home, so T series is mandatory. I'll consider my self lucky if I can get an i5 gen6 in range 200-250. Well, if I spend 350, it would be easy. But, the hunt is more attractive. The server can wait. I have an H61 HP with G630, and I'll buy an 3240T as an upgrade.
@@Anuitu2u it was a bigger model tho and a very lucky find. Try auctions. Over here sellers usually hope to start with market price and get more through bidding. But once in a while, a device not too many people are interested in pops up at a good starting price. You may get lucky if you have patience.
@@Anuitu2u one thing just crossed my mind. What will your home server be doing? If it'll be idling most of the time, more modern platform can be a lot more energy efficient. Also, for heavier tasks more powerful cpu can sometimes turn out to be more efficient, as it will finish the task quickly and go to idle. Cheap electricity over here though, so it's usually not a major concern to me, I don't give it much thought.
Yo I love this guys videos so much man I watch them everyday without fail I swear he is the best reviewer I trust his recommendations because of his deep in-depth research and his knowledge in general
I have three dell optiplex 9020 micro with the same socket as the m93p that are equipped with a Xeon e3-1265l v3 ($30 on aliexpress).
I installed Proxmox VE on them and created a Batocera virtual machine for more flexibility.
Long Live Batocera..
Really digging the emulation videos youve been doing lately because this is something I've been considering for my front room tv.
It will be amazing if you can explain everything about batocera. Thanks boss, 4 years watching ur videos
Just love your Teardowns..!!🤗🤗🤗
What timing! I just purchased a Lenovo ThinkCentre M720q Tiny i3-8100T for this purpose. I paid 210.00 usd shipped. It has an i3 but performs the same as the cpu in your system. This is the generation when i3 became quad core. I plan to use it for just 2d and saturn. Thank you for introducing me to batocera.
Be careful which 8000 series Intel is cpu you get. I got the i3-8120u without thinking and it's only a dual core cpu. Can't run gamecube above native resolution.
@@michaels9917 That is really good to know. Thank you.
@@mikem3431 I've made so many bad decisions when it comes to buying low cost emulation machines. I have sworn off of them and opted for original hardware or fpga. No issues with those
@@michaels9917 Something like a Ryzen 5 3600 + gtx 1650 works well for emulation at 1080p in general. It just depends on what your needs are. I have always dreamed of having a system with tons of older games and box art on one device. This fulfills that dream. :)
Should do a video running Retrobat on Windows. Retrobat is the Windows version of BATOCERA or Retro Pie.
It's looking good; any chance you could run launch box/big box on it to show the difference between the Linux and Windows emulation?
That looks like the computers Best Buy uses and since a lot of their store closed down recently there's a good chance thats from one. Pretty cool!
For PS2, I recommend testing OutRun 2006. I've got a couple of USFF PCs. An i3-7100T and an i7-7700 (also had a 6100T until recently) and there are a number of tips for people running emulators, such as High Performance Mode, giving the iGPU more RAM in bios and switching on the multi-thread option in PCSX2. I've found OutRun to be an odd little game in terms of emulation and performance.
Never managed to get it consistently full speed, huge frame drops, then back to full speed. I have the mini hp 8500t 6 core, think its 12 thread 16gb ddr4 ram in dual setup. In fact it ran faster in software modev🤷♂️
@@westleyjohnstone4719 Certainly a demanding game. Struggles with "fog" on one of the easier levels, too. I do manage to get it running at full speed at 1x on the i3-7100t and at 2x on i7-7700, with some very minor drops. That multi-thread option makes a difference, from my experience.
@@extracoconut in fairly new with the emulator as a whole, need to find some tutorials. Most games id say work fine at native, gta 3 was fine on the whole, with only the odd drop.
@@westleyjohnstone4719 There's a youtuber called UHD Expert or UHD 520 Expert, something like that, has plenty of tricks up his sleeve to get most out of these GPUs. Worth checking out.
@@extracoconut I'll check him out thanks 😊
6:45 My favourite console, the Seag Saturn.
*S E A G*
Recently bought a refurbished dell optiplex 7050 core i5 7500 3.4ghz 16gb ram for $180 aud, hoping its worth it 😅
Just picked one up for $130 shipped. Can’t wait to tinker with it 😁😁😁
I remember the boss from my previous job buying one of these for the lab.
Maybe I should pick one up.
Beware not to use core i7 for emulation! Top speed is lower than i3 and i5, and number of core is useles for emulation. It is although difficult to say what is the best choice betwen i3 and i5: i3 have better 'slow speed' and therefore are more constant in speed, but i5 have 4 real cores
Would love to see a tutorial on setting this up. Also a comparitive Windows/Launchbox setup would be a great comaprison.
ETA did a good job finding something with quality and affordability yes I got to get this one
You make me wanna buy this! Looking forward to the tutorial!! I’m gonna need it lol
See ETA previous video on April 2 "turn a $80 mini pc...."
I am eagerly waiting for ryzen 5 3400g vs ryzen 3 5300g
I literally just ordered one of these, slightly more expensive, 8gb ram, i5-7600T and 256gb ssd. Can't wait to see the tutorial so I can see how it compares. I love my pi4 on batocera and am looking forward to seeing how it compares.
Can you pls update us on how it went comparing those pcs vs rpi4?
@@joaovictorf.carvalho458 i changed the machine, hp prodesk mini, 8500t, 16gb ram, 1tb nvme running windows 10 pro, and launchbox and it works really well. Linux us a faiure as for some reason audio will only come through the internal speaker, same if i try to use vulkan backend in either windows or linux
Awesome, I had prodesk few months ago for other purpose, are you able to run ps2, xbox og? And how about newer generations?
Ive done up to ps2 and gamecube with no issues, i have some framerate issues with og xbox but still mostly playable. Ps3 was a no-go, though i was using a usb3 external bluray and running off a disc. Final fantasy pixel remasters all run great over steam though. Lol
@@dreadwe Can you please tell me the versions of dolphin and pcsx2 you used on that machine of yours? I got one with the same processor i5 8500t but i have slowdowns/stutters with gamecube and ps2 emulation
Maybe try to flash a BIOS so this can take an 8700T, and put an external GPU on it and see how far this can be upgraded a couple years later.
i have an i7 6700t laying around, definitely would consider buy that tiny optiplex with barebone option
I just set up Batocera on this machine (micro i5 7500t). I'll test out PS2 compatibility now that Vulkan is available in Batocera and if I remember I'll post my results here.
how did it go?
Looking forwards to your tutorial. Thanks for all you do eta prime
I kinda need a pc like this but your videos keep raising the prives xD
I'd love to see you cover some low end PC games. Older titles and indie games.
i got one of these off my friend just coz he thought it was bad at gaming. its aweosme for emu
Stuck between this and the Thinkcenter ETA covered previously.
Can't wait to see a tutorial how to boot it up with all of those emulators!
They are pretty cheap.We have some locally.Some are pretty good pricing some are price of a 3400g complete system.I love the form factor.For emulation that is plenty of power.
Wow just when I think that I have enough emulation machines you have to throw another one at me. Time for another project LOL
Thanks for this video. please do the Batocera tutorial for this one. If you can explain a bit more on Vulcan and open gl that will be great 👍🏽
I picked up a couple and I am loving them. I also have two sff. One in using as a server. Luv them.
I just bought one of the newer ones to replace some bulky HTPC Solutions. After I found out these i5+630 can do up to wii u emulation I was hooked.
I´m really interested in see how this little machine performs with Windows games, like CSGO.
By the way, I know that in laptops we use to see problems with latency(mouse and keyboard)/fps drops, all because the DPC Latency in the system is too high.
Can you measure the latency overall with LatencyMon, when testing windows games?!
Thanks!
I love these videos specially your recent Xbox series 299 for a series S Xbox is a hell of a deal you can play new games and emulate retro games and it performs way better than most machines out there.
At my work we have similar PCs, but they are Lenovo thinkcentres and have ryzen 3200g! Extremely powerful little machine for office work, I’d love to take one home lol
Professor Messer, is that YOU?
This quite literally the pc we have at work that runs our server through weird seeing how it can be used as a faming beast
This has inspired me to buy a couple i saw on eBay yesterday 😁
AWESOME NEVER KNEW IT EXISTS SO THANK YOU RESPECT ❤️🌟
I Have The Dell Optiplex 3070 8Gb Ram Version and Some of The low End PS3 games Run Well Like Skate 3
You should test the desert track on fzero gx for the gamecube. That stage brings my i7 2600 with a gtx 1050 to its knees.
Incidentally I was playing that game last night. Prior to actual start of race, there were some hiccups here and there, but once the race started it is smooth sailing all the way.
I'm running it at 2x res on a sub $400 miniPC bought last week.
@@acejon2162 I figured it was a cpu issue. The i7 2600 cannot handle that track at 720p.
Great machines. I use an Optiplex 7020 with an I5 4590 on a vga crt. It runs everything really well upto ps2. I use it mainly as a steam machine for playing 2d games like shooters, platformers etc and it works beautifully.
Why not add a low profile gpu so you can play up to Switch games, and cloud game for the latest titles.
@@MisterUrbanWorld for my use which is primarily 2d games on a crt and gpu is overkill, the optiplex is good with a 1030/1050 but the costs were high back when I used it. I now use a Steamdeck which covers 90% of everything i need, it also works great when docked to the crt.
Love your channel. Very interesting 👍👍👍😁😁😁
Thank u for always sharing knowledge..
Tempted to buy one but minimalist challenge is holding me back.
ETAPrime Effect, all gone.
I can confirm that PlayStation 2 works now with the Vulcan backend. They must have added it after this video was posted.
Just curious if a video was ever done covering the full setup for this?
pro tip: you can rotate the Dell logo by pulling it out slightly (it's spring-loaded in this model).
Going to see if I can find one of these little PC locally. It runs the games really well.
Wow cool. The F-Zero GX only really went pixelated when you hit boost.
Every video like this I watch goes the same way "I got this little pc here for 150 bucks or whatever" then I go to look it up and can only find it for like 600$+ 🙄
Bid on an ebay one dude. I have a current bid going for 65 bucks and the highest anyone has put in was 15
Such little beast
Hi, make the tutorial installing Batocera and Launchbox too please, thanks!...
My 5950x, Rtx 3090 system runs emulation great 😂
Ive got the similar 7050 with the i5-7500t with 8gb ram.
Got batocera 39 working on it.
All games run run fine except dreamcast.
The sound is terrific and the games run in slowmo : 25 to 28 fps.
Wiiu for example is running with 45 to 58 fps.
Also the start screen is also slowmo.
Dont know why.....
In India for 160$ an i5 4th gen and 500 gb hdd + DDR3 4gb ram ....(optiplex 9020) Really sucks ....
The current pcsx2 nightly builds are so much better on these old 7th gen quad core chips now that it has multithreaded vu1 and dx12 support. With an i7 7700t, my optiplex3050 can run a lot of PS2 games at 1080p full speed, which is nice givin the 7700t only has hd630 graphics not uhd. God of war even runs at 100% if I lower the resolution to slightly under 720(1.75x native). The "stable" version of pcsx2, i think its v1.6 wouldn't run any ps2 game in a playable state with a 7700t. Which is weird because it worked alright with the duel core i3 7100t my optiplex originally shipped with. I guess it had better single core speeds.
I'm pretty new to emulation so forgive my question but is Vulkan and dx12 supported within Batocera now?
I have the same 3050 Optiplex Micro i5, 7th gen as shown in this video lying around. I was a little bummed when I watched it that PS2 performance was a bit rubbish within Batocera, but if it's the case you can use something other than OpenGL then that could be quite promising for performance.
And yeah I think they put the 7500T in the 3050 micro towards the end of production.
@@AndySomething Im not that familiar with batocera really. I've always just used stand alone windows emulators. Seems to be for the best as far as im aware. As far as ps2 is concerned go for the latest nightly build.
Someone remembered that Optiplexes exist. Yay?
Please upload the tutorial soon to set this all up. I am waiting.
Just bought a HP g3 with an intel quad core i5 7500t with 16 GB DDR4 hopefully it can run beam NG.
İ would like to see how to install batocera full detailed and how to make games work
This is a nice little unit.