I seriously love watching these videos. Giving old tech a breath of fresh air with up to date specs. It warms my heart to think someone could do this and still have some good fun with specs that aren’t top of the line
I love seeing an old unique rig like this being upgraded. Giving a solid 1080p60 on most games, i'm surprised by how well the 1650s did, and that's with it being bottlenecked by the 4770s, 145 pounds for it that 1650s a lot though. The upgrades were still decent value despite that.
It's because it was purchased retail so it has markup plus 20% VAT levied on it, so with a 2 year warranty it really isn't that surprising of a price. Minus the VAT they sold it for about £120 and either paid £68 for cash or £96 for trade in against something else so with a max markup of £52 to make a profit and warranty the card it's not excessive. And that's if they took the card in very recently, a lot of these cards they sell they took in when prices were higher so there's every chance that the store is making a notably lower markup than it looks on their prices declaration.
Its the 2 year c.e.x. warranty that makes it attractive for the less tech savvy viewers. Also he likely saw it and bought it in a hurry rather than risk a fail from ebay.
@@stevenollier64 My first setup is the same but my CPU is the Xeon version of the 4790. Don't have any issues with bottlenecking. I even put my 6700xt in it once just to see how bad the bottleneck would be, and honestly I think it depends on how well the particular game is optimized.
Great video showing that old tech shouldn't just be tossed into the garbage. For awhile now I have been trying to figure out how to affordably build something for my nieces for Christmas. If that doesn't happen it will eventually happen. Just got to keep looking for the right deals. Also though I think I need to put to paper what my goals are in terms of the build. I want it to be a computer they can use for school and other regular tasks but yes I want it to be able to game like your MSI Nightblade Upgade showed here. I have tried to look at buying parts local but yes I may have to look to Ebay eventually. I prefer not to though. I really still am not comfortable with it.
If you decide to ease into using ebay, a sensible initial approach is to only bid on items listed by sellers that accept returns, which have good pictures and preferably some kind of dated screenshot which shows the item working (such as CPU-Z or GPU-Z), or in the case of a motherboard at least a pic showing the BIOS being accessible. When it comes to looking for deals, in general they will be cheaper if searching local, but on ebay probably the best deals are combo bundles such as CPU+mbd or CPU+mbd+RAM. A year ago I built something for a friend's family that sounds fairly similar in intent, a gaming PC for two boys (aged 7 and 11). I wanted to combine the sensible best of used and new that would last them a long time, so the CPU/mbd was new (Ryzen 5600X and MSI B450M Mortar Max) but the GPU was a used GTX 1080 8GB from a server reseller company for a very good price, but what I did with it was set it to run with a 70% power limit, which reduced max GPU performance by 9% (making it more like a 1070 Ti) but dropped max power draw by 20%. Combined with CPU optimisations this resulted in the overall system including the monitor having an idle draw of just 37W, with a typical gaming power draw of only 110W; in these times of unpleasant electicity prices I wanted to keep the power draw as low as possible. The case was a CiT F3 Blue, while I think the PSU was a Thermaltake 650W GF1. If I'd wanted to lower the costs though then I could have gone for a used Ryzen 3600 and a used MSI B450 Tomahawk Max/II, the latter an excellent mbd but very cheap on ebay atm. Heck, even a Ryzen 2600 would have run fine. Really though there are sooo many options. Note btw if you do decide to search local, such as Gumtree or FB Marketplace, then follow the advice given by Bryan of the Tech Yes City channel, eg. never meet anywhere neutral to do a deal because then you have no recourse if the item turns out to be bad, always ask to see it working if possible, and so on. Also, if the seller seems to be decent then ask if they by any chance have other things they want to sell off, as this can be a great way to pick up further bargains as people will often be happy to sell multiple items to the same person as it's less hassle for them. Check out Tech Yes City for lots more advice on making the most of local deal hunting. And yes, begin by deciding what you want the system to be able to do, no point spending more than is necessary. Used hw can be quite upside down though, ie. sometimes more powerful hw can actually be cheaper, such as the many-core XEON server CPUs, or the old 6-core 3930K (down side with this latter example is finding a good X79 mbd; Aliexpress has some decent models but alas the shipping time by now is probably too late for Christmas), though these are perhaps poor choices if one is looking to build something with minimal power consumption. The newer the hw choices, the more efficient it will be. Used PC cases can save some pennies aswell, but for some items it's not worth going the used route, namely the RAM, SSD for the C-drive and the power supply. New SSDs, inparticular NVMe, are well priced now (such as the WD Blue SN550/SN570, the newer SN570 being especially good), and a new sensible PSU isn't that much. Btw, for a used GPU the venerable GTX 970 is a good option, very well priced on ebay, especially via normal auction, but again probably even better locally. An RX 580 8GB would also be good, but carries a tad higher premium on the used market, or for something a little more up to date the GTX 1060 6GB (the 1600 series is newer but costs a bit more). The PC I built for my fiance has a GTX 970, plenty for her needs, an MSI GamingX model which runs silent (it has a Ryzen 2600 in the same CiT F3 Blue case, she loves the case's blue lighting accents). Oh, another good GPU option (if the aforementioned are overkill) is the GTX 1050 Ti 4GB; my office machine has one of these, bought cheap off ebay, runs very well but it's also fine for light gaming, while the system runs silent (Ryzen 2700X on an Asrock X470 mbd), though the most taxing thing I use it for is converting raw videos from my camera to h264 mp4 using NVEnc, for which it does over 200fps at 1080p. Best wishes and I hope you can sort something out in time! 8)
I've just upgraded my daughters system to very similar specs! Her i7 4770 and 16gb of ddr3 1866 are now paired with an RX 5500 XT 4gb because the GTX 970 blower card was getting mighty thirsty and hot, and is obviously on its way out. I promise I'll clean the nvidia beast up and repaste it, but with the amount of power it's been sucking down, the RX 5500 XT is going to save it's £90 ebay price in power savings within a year no problem. It sits at 4watts on video playback. 4!
Great video. I really enjoy "tech rescue". Many old computers can be upgraded with inexpensive new parts and feel brand new. Please continue to provide high quality content. Thanks
The fact we came to "more cores is good" from "you don't need that much cores, games dont support it anyway" is just mind blowing. If someone back in 2012 said that games will utilize most of the cores - I would've laughed that off.
@@ClayWheeler I always have been a Intel guy but my last intel rig was a i7 9700k and I was seeing a CPU bottleneck in many games with a 3080 such as watch dogs legions and assassin's creed Valhalla where the CPU would hit 99% then back to 86% and back up 99% and so on. Was sick of the stuttering, I placed a order for 13700k and a strix z790 mobo and canceled because the 13th gen intel was the last CPU on that platform and when I saw AMD promising to support AM5 beyond 2025 I jumped to AMD, after knowing how great the support for AM4 was, so AMD AM5 users should see the release of 4 plus new CPUs on that platform, I instantly bought a 7900x and a mobo and gonna use my 3080 on it
@@thealien_ali3382 I will upgrade my CPU at some point (probably a R 7 5800x as they are a bargain now), But my current R 5 3600 and 3080ti are killing it in 4K gaming lol. Moving to AM5 won't really pay off for me, And because I game at 4K 60hz my "middle of the road" 3600 is hauling ass with no issues, I probably won't even see the benefits of upgrading unless I move up in hz.
Great video, man. It's always far more interesting to see someone turn beaten down old hardware into something useable again, than "ultimate gaming rig '22 edition".
To be honest though, when I build my own PC (I've had enough of laptops and the limitations they have), I'm going all in - i9 13900k, 128GB DDR4 and RTX 3090Ti all going onto my wishlist. :)
@@TheSpotify95 do you edit or use cad or similar because you can save some money going with less ram tbh 32gb is alot 64 overkill for gameing and 128 is kind of imho a waste of money if and big if you're only gameing
@@TheSpotify95 I mean, you're throwing money away unless you're a video editor or do some kind of productivity tasks for work. You really aren't getting enough frames to justify the increased price over a 13600k with a 3080 or 6800xt.
ive been watching your content for years now, and honestly, the improvement in quality is absolutely amazing, and I do love seeing what older hardware can do, x58 being my favourite platform and a platform i quite often tinker with myself. thank you for the content over the years man, and hope you hit 500k soon
Around the same price it's possible to hop on AM4 with 1660 Super, with some entry CPU like 1600AF, with a PSU that will enable high TDP GPUs. Then later there's upgrade path towards 5600 or even 5800X3D when they get cheaper. Building this MSI was probably fun though, thanks for the vid!
The Ryzen 5 1600 (being a first gen Ryzen) doesn't support Windows 11, which is probably why you'll see it cheaper than a Ryzen 2000 or Ryzen 3000 series CPU!
@@TheSpotify95 That's right, 1600 could be even cheaper option. But hey, 2600 got really cheap now too! At this point, I think getting 3600 is not worth it, because 5600 price got so low. So it's better to jump start the build with a cheap 1600/2600 with a budget card like 1660S/2060 and then upgrade straight to 5600 for a mid-range GPU or 5800X3D for high-end GPU.
That one was a nice one, i wouldn't think of building a cheap gaming capable pc with a GTX 1650, will have that one in mind, if someone asks me the next time if i can build a capable machine for a budget. You've inspired me to build cheap gaming capable pcs from the point i am watching your content and i've build a couple of machines on a budget, for people on a budget and made a couple of people happy (most people i know, don't have much to spent, but there is still a demand for a capable pc). I have to thank you (& a couple of other budget and retro channels), for showing a bunch different hardware from low spec to mid range to semi-high end. It helped me a lot and the people around me, that are on a tight budget. Keep the work up, always love to watch and learn ☺
I got a gtx 1660 super dell gpu similar to this for only £100 on ebay. The seller thought it was a standard 1660 because it has a 6 pin power but to my surprise it was a SUPER.
I can't believe the GTX 1650 super looks like a graphics card from the 2000s or early 2010s, is the cooler replaced or is that what it actually looks like?
Kinda seems like with some titles it's more of an optimization issue rather than a bottleneck. Then again though it is a 4770, but still. It shouldn't be hovering around 50% in some of those games. It should be pegged, unless it's not actually working hard(like GTA V' case). Games aren't utilizing it properly or something.
I bought this new as a barebone case I think back in 2012. I installed an Intel 6700k CPU, MSI GTX 1070, 32 GB RAM, Samsung 950 Pro 1TB M.2 SSD. It was a wonderful gaming PC at the time and is still working. I am surprised the power supply was enough to run that hardware. The CPU cooler is a blower style fan and is very loud now. I think I am going to pull the 1070, add new thermal paste to the CPU, install a Asrock A380 and a couple 3.5 hard drives and turn this into a Plex server/NAS/2nd PC for stream encoding/streaming. I always liked the size/look of the case.
I am addicted to this old stuff. I love all the new tech out there but just can’t afford any of it. I have found that mixing and matching old tech for new builds adds a uncompromising respect for the history and the progression of parts and tech which enriches the experience and knowledge of the builder connoisseur. If I had a lot more money I would build computers…so I would still have no money, lol.
old i7s are a blast if you don't want to play the latest and greatest at 4k 60fps, I have a 3770 paired with a 6gb 1060 and it storms through everything I ask it to do like a champ
Nicely done sir. I have a old Dell 9010 I have kept and upgraded. I7 3770, 16 gb ddr3, 500 watt ps, sata ssd, extra fans, rx5500. It's my back up rig, but she still is a beast for basic computing tasks, and fortnite!
Just in case anyone cares, main rig: x570, 3700x, 970 Evo, 16 gb @ 3600 MT, gtx 1070, 280 mm aio, maglev argb fans, corsair 5000 airflow, too many extra hdd/ssd's, joysticks, racing wheels, 1440p monitors... That's just my rigs... My wife and children have their own.. I may have taken this PCMR thing too far...
What's your computer look like? Hand made? Just using your phone? I'm kind of hurt you didn't tell me the rx5500 is a pcie 4.0 x8 card, and my old Dell will never be able to access it's full power...
nice 2022 Haswell revival, i did too. went i5 4460 to xeon 1246 v3 aka i7 4771 and 1060 3g to 1660ti for the price of your slow 1650. runs CP well at 1080p 60fps high FSR HiQ dips to 45fps before 25fps. 2nd cheap same speed 8gb would be enuff here, even with a 2nd 4GB ram would run most games imo
Brilliant video but the remark you made about yourself during when the 1650 super was uncalled for, you’re amazing and thank you for such amazing content ❤
Personally I'd choose a used 1650S from CEX other than a new 1650 for £180 as they are. Same warranty but about 50% more performance makes it a no brainer. I would also choose one over my old favourite the 1060 6GB because in raw power they're about the same but the 1650S is a more modern DX12U compliant card giving it more lifespan.
This is a splendid build you have done here giving new life to that prebuilt. I would totally use that as a daily PC. I had given some thought to trying a low power i7, Haswell as a matter of fact like you did here, and now after seeing this I'm adding a 4770S to the list of future builds to tinker with. How does that OEM GTX 1650 super compare with an OEM GTX 1060 3gig card? I just cannot bring myself to replace that 3gig 1060 because it does everything I ask of it in my HP Pavilion Power daily PC. As always, loved today's video and look forward to more.
Gonna write me comment early before I forget: Another great tip, and basically, I live in rural Northumberland, and if you're like me, it's a good time befriending your local PC builder/repairman. He won't give me full second hand price for obvious reasons, but he always gives me a reasonable price for my used parts if I'm struggling to find a buyer elsewhere. He even sometimes gives me a ring to ask if I have a part laying around that he needs to finish a build or repair.
I think the upgrades you picked closely matched what I suggested in the other video. I think you've extracted the maximum amount of potential out of that prebuilt without doing extensive modifications or breaking the bank.
I really enjoy watching old rigs getting revived with new parts. Though if it were me, I'd push the budget just a little bit higher by going for a 1TB SSD, completely phasing out mechanical HDD in the rig.
Yo been watching you since you made that pc(maybe 75£) vs ps3 videos,I think you only had like 7k subs.Just wanted to say that I am really happy for you!
The 4770 is plenty fast enough to max out a 1650 super. I had a 4770 system and a 5800x Ryzen system. Tried the 1650 super in both I'm cyberpunk and at 1080p with medium settings the frame rate was basically the same. Popping an rx6600 into the system was a huge improvement and made cyberpunk a very nice experience.
Great video, love the refurbished PC series. Haswell HP/Dell office machines can be had for sub £100 with 16GB ddr3 1600 and Xeons (4770 equiv) if you buy wisely. Some of the HP machines have strong PSUs too and can handle up to 2060.
@@razorr3751 the i5-9400f is a 65w tdp CPU so not the highest power hungry CPU. I figure that the PSU comes with an 8 pin pcie connector and therefore must be able to deliver the power required by the ATX specification for such a connector. The 1070 only has an 8 pin connector. Gold rating should also mean it's a high quality PSU. I've had no issues playing for hours on it. I'm not sure id risk a higher power CPU at the same time though.
@@roasthunter tdp doesn't reflect power consumption, so no im sorry it doesn't use 65w, so to speak, but it's impressive how well these systems can do with as little as 300w, but i think that power suply you have is overspecced...
I'm not a PC gamer, but I am surprised that a i7-4770S processor can handle Cyberpunk 2077 so well. I snagged a i7-4790S for a project because I got it at a better price than a non S or K model. Not bad for a 22nm processor.
4th gen i7 cpus does not bottleneck gtx 1650 super level card at all, in fact, even 2nd gen i7 would perfectly hold something like a gtx 1660. As for 4770s, i would happily pair it with RTX 2060.
That processor is NOT holding you back, it's never pegged in usage. You're sitting between 60-90% on both the CPU and GPU for all of these games, it's almost 1 for 1 on the display readout in all your game footage. Those parts are matched just fine.
Thank you for the ultra quality content! Could you make a video on HP Elitedesk G1 800 SFF ? I would love to see your upgrade path. Anyways... Keep up the awesome work
Such a nice upgraded machine I really enjoy such kind of content because it's so entertaining to see poor performing systems like that get a chance in the gaming field) Really enjoyed watching the video! Thank you))
To me, you look like the default banker, yet you seem to have found your niche and been making videos that i watch 90% till the end. Dunno if I sounded like an asshole there, apologies if i did, however I just want to say keep up the videos mate, I watch your GT310 videos even if I have a 3090 myself.
a game you should be testing is Elite Dangerous, the Odyssey expansion. it's VERY graphically intensive and while the devs say they used an X58 board with an X5675 and GTX 780 as a firm base to play against for low system requirements, something tells me this should also be in your arsenal as well.
G'day Random, That was a really good upgrade for the $$$, while I was expecting the i7 & SSD for OS Drive getting a 1650Super rather than 1650 or 570 was a nice surprise & shows that used prices in some regions are reasonable again, my nephews PC is an i7-3770, 16GB DDR3-1600 + ASUS Strix 16560Super so I will be very interested to see the difference a modern CPU can make for him in a future video.
I'm a bit surprised Haswell aged so much, I've honestly expected 1650 Super would be the bottleneck. That said, it's an old chip, not sure what I was expecting.
@@lagginswag true, but it's still 65w down from 84, it can still boost all cores up to 3.5. Maybe not in a more demanding workload, but in gaming it should be hitting that clock speed easily, while non-s should be able to go up to 3.7 if my memory serves. It is old though, but it was easily enough for a 1070 not that long ago - which is usually quite a bit faster than the 1650S. Guess Gpus aged better this time around, as they had way less improvements over the recent years.
I've never found it worth my time selling old cheap computer components. I guess I just don't have the patience to do it. Still got an old GT 210 chilling in a cardboard box somewhere and a huge assortment of DDR2/DDR3 from random old computers.
my dailydriver "gaming" pc with i7 3770 and gtx 1060 6 gb,16 gb ddr3 ram paired with 250gb ssd and 2 500gb 5400rpm "budget" drives for gaming.i feel this build.
I7 4770 2x4 Kingston Fury 1866 2x8 Kingston Fury 1866 Asus GTX 1660 super TuF 3 2x 128gb intel ssd in raid 0 512gb Samsung ssd Asus Sabertooth Z97 mark 2 Power 750w My son still enjoy in this machine.
i7 990X here. ASUS Rampage ii Extreme, 16GB, 1TB Samsung SSD, ASUS ROG GTX1070 Gaming 8GB. All in a big ass Coolermaster HAF 922 case. Any chance you can do a video using the i7 990X? Being what it is, it would be a very worthy candidate for a comparison. Cheers Steve! 👍
Pretty nice upgrades and the good thing about this was that you didn't need to change the motherboard on it. I think that the 4th gen i7's, and what you have done here, is the best you can do with this sort of system without spending far too much on it, since you don't want to be changing the motherboard, or the proprietary power supply. That 1650 Super was a nice pairing as well, though even a regular 1650 would have worked in that rig, since the CPU was more of a limitation (even though I didn't see it hit 100%).
that's the catch here, the CPU isn't that much of a limitation as people think, yeah sure it's old and the fact that it's an S series i7 is quite limiting (which i agree with) but if that was a normal 4770 i think that it could have been easily paired with a 1070 if not more powerful, but yeah for this tiny prebuilt it's the max we could work with
I bought an MSi Infinite i5-9400F 1660Ti off ebay for £368 and sold the 1660Ti during the 2nd mining boom for £350. Used prebuilts are some of the best bargains going.
recently built a £300 gaming rig (for someone) i5 4590, gtx 980, 16gb 1600mhz DDR3. 1tb sata SSD, similar sort of spec. and yeah it could run everything pretty smooth still, only game it struggled with was Fortnite where the CPU seemed to struggle a little and it would stutter early into the drop. but yes found all AAA titles capable of hitting 60FPS with some tinkering (normally high textures everything else low). amazing to think what a GPU cost 6 months ago and what you can build now.
I've got a computer that I use for a nas that matches these specs down to the "t," and for how cheap you can get them these days, they're really nice. It used to be a gaming computer, but with the four cores, it's more than capable as a basic starter server as well.
In a world where you can now get a GTX 1070 for around £100 on eBay, I feel like you overpaid quite a bit on that card, but then I didn't catch what the PSU was, and you may have been limited by power constraints. Interesting video as always.
I have a a MSI Nightblade and I put a RTX 2060 graphics card in it and I can play all my games on Ultra specialty in VR at a great little pc when you want to play VR games on its Max settings
A MSI Nightblade was my first Gaming Pc it came with an i5 8400 and an Msi Armor GTX 1070. It was cool and practical because of its size but i remember it beeing very loud.
I can see both your CPU and GPU max out at around 75% in some of these tests, that would suggest to me that memory bandwidth is the bottleneck, I doubt the RAM will go over 1.6GHz on that board but you may be able to tighten the timings to get some more gaming performance.
I think the 4770s is a good pair for the 1650s. You might be able to tune it a bit with xtu. Extend the boost duration. I have a 4820k with a gtx 980 (both overclocked, obviously). According to userbenchmark it's the same as this and the gpu gets maxed out way more often than the cpu.
Wait... I thought Maxtor was no more ? I used to always buy Maxtor hard drives back in the day, that or Western Digital. Edit : Oh, they are owned by Seagate now. That's too bad. Out of every hard drive I have owned the only ones to die on me have been Seagate drives.
Quality content, no clickbait face, and giving old tech a new life! you tick all the boxes, my friend!
Thanks man :)
Spot on! This guy gets it!
Greatest man in the wild west
@@RandomGaminginHD I love u my beautiful friend!
@@12bucklemyshoe34opennanoor everything but the 1650 super is ancient
0:26 Good old days when the performance of a G3258 paired with a GTX 750ti was comparable to the PS4 in many 2014-2015 games.
@John Hooper 900p* and yes.
@John Hooper its upscaled
@TheRealJohnHooperIt depends on the game. The PS4 upscales in nearly every game as well.
I seriously love watching these videos. Giving old tech a breath of fresh air with up to date specs. It warms my heart to think someone could do this and still have some good fun with specs that aren’t top of the line
Thank you :)
@@RandomGaminginHD I love u my beautiful friend!
Please never stop making videos. Love your content!
Thanks :)
Yes i agree much love
I love seeing an old unique rig like this being upgraded. Giving a solid 1080p60 on most games, i'm surprised by how well the 1650s did, and that's with it being bottlenecked by the 4770s, 145 pounds for it that 1650s a lot though. The upgrades were still decent value despite that.
It's because it was purchased retail so it has markup plus 20% VAT levied on it, so with a 2 year warranty it really isn't that surprising of a price. Minus the VAT they sold it for about £120 and either paid £68 for cash or £96 for trade in against something else so with a max markup of £52 to make a profit and warranty the card it's not excessive. And that's if they took the card in very recently, a lot of these cards they sell they took in when prices were higher so there's every chance that the store is making a notably lower markup than it looks on their prices declaration.
Its the 2 year c.e.x. warranty that makes it attractive for the less tech savvy viewers. Also he likely saw it and bought it in a hurry rather than risk a fail from ebay.
It's not being bottlenecked, he's saying that, but the numbers don't bear it out at all. That CPU is never at 100% usage in the footage he's showing.
@@kevlarandchrome mate cpu bottleneck doesn't mean ur pegging every core 1000%, lots of games don't even know what to do with more than 3 cores.
@@MrChriss000 If only CeX actually honoured their warranties.
1:49 "that looks ugly but is perfectly functional a bit like myself" 💀
2:29 i7 4770S is probably the fastest power efficient CPU for LGA 1150 motherboards.
The 8 threads are good enough for all PS4 era games at 60fps.
I am running an I7 4790K - totally worth it. Paired with an RX580 8GB OC.
@@stevenollier64 My first setup is the same but my CPU is the Xeon version of the 4790. Don't have any issues with bottlenecking. I even put my 6700xt in it once just to see how bad the bottleneck would be, and honestly I think it depends on how well the particular game is optimized.
Upgraded from my budget pc a long time ago, but still love seeing videos of what you can build at very low budgets. Love your videos!
your pc transformation videos absulately awsome!! thanks
Thanks for watching :)
Great video showing that old tech shouldn't just be tossed into the garbage. For awhile now I have been trying to figure out how to affordably build something for my nieces for Christmas. If that doesn't happen it will eventually happen. Just got to keep looking for the right deals. Also though I think I need to put to paper what my goals are in terms of the build. I want it to be a computer they can use for school and other regular tasks but yes I want it to be able to game like your MSI Nightblade Upgade showed here. I have tried to look at buying parts local but yes I may have to look to Ebay eventually. I prefer not to though. I really still am not comfortable with it.
If you decide to ease into using ebay, a sensible initial approach is to only bid on items listed by sellers that accept returns, which have good pictures and preferably some kind of dated screenshot which shows the item working (such as CPU-Z or GPU-Z), or in the case of a motherboard at least a pic showing the BIOS being accessible.
When it comes to looking for deals, in general they will be cheaper if searching local, but on ebay probably the best deals are combo bundles such as CPU+mbd or CPU+mbd+RAM.
A year ago I built something for a friend's family that sounds fairly similar in intent, a gaming PC for two boys (aged 7 and 11). I wanted to combine the sensible best of used and new that would last them a long time, so the CPU/mbd was new (Ryzen 5600X and MSI B450M Mortar Max) but the GPU was a used GTX 1080 8GB from a server reseller company for a very good price, but what I did with it was set it to run with a 70% power limit, which reduced max GPU performance by 9% (making it more like a 1070 Ti) but dropped max power draw by 20%. Combined with CPU optimisations this resulted in the overall system including the monitor having an idle draw of just 37W, with a typical gaming power draw of only 110W; in these times of unpleasant electicity prices I wanted to keep the power draw as low as possible. The case was a CiT F3 Blue, while I think the PSU was a Thermaltake 650W GF1.
If I'd wanted to lower the costs though then I could have gone for a used Ryzen 3600 and a used MSI B450 Tomahawk Max/II, the latter an excellent mbd but very cheap on ebay atm. Heck, even a Ryzen 2600 would have run fine.
Really though there are sooo many options. Note btw if you do decide to search local, such as Gumtree or FB Marketplace, then follow the advice given by Bryan of the Tech Yes City channel, eg. never meet anywhere neutral to do a deal because then you have no recourse if the item turns out to be bad, always ask to see it working if possible, and so on. Also, if the seller seems to be decent then ask if they by any chance have other things they want to sell off, as this can be a great way to pick up further bargains as people will often be happy to sell multiple items to the same person as it's less hassle for them. Check out Tech Yes City for lots more advice on making the most of local deal hunting.
And yes, begin by deciding what you want the system to be able to do, no point spending more than is necessary. Used hw can be quite upside down though, ie. sometimes more powerful hw can actually be cheaper, such as the many-core XEON server CPUs, or the old 6-core 3930K (down side with this latter example is finding a good X79 mbd; Aliexpress has some decent models but alas the shipping time by now is probably too late for Christmas), though these are perhaps poor choices if one is looking to build something with minimal power consumption. The newer the hw choices, the more efficient it will be.
Used PC cases can save some pennies aswell, but for some items it's not worth going the used route, namely the RAM, SSD for the C-drive and the power supply. New SSDs, inparticular NVMe, are well priced now (such as the WD Blue SN550/SN570, the newer SN570 being especially good), and a new sensible PSU isn't that much.
Btw, for a used GPU the venerable GTX 970 is a good option, very well priced on ebay, especially via normal auction, but again probably even better locally. An RX 580 8GB would also be good, but carries a tad higher premium on the used market, or for something a little more up to date the GTX 1060 6GB (the 1600 series is newer but costs a bit more). The PC I built for my fiance has a GTX 970, plenty for her needs, an MSI GamingX model which runs silent (it has a Ryzen 2600 in the same CiT F3 Blue case, she loves the case's blue lighting accents). Oh, another good GPU option (if the aforementioned are overkill) is the GTX 1050 Ti 4GB; my office machine has one of these, bought cheap off ebay, runs very well but it's also fine for light gaming, while the system runs silent (Ryzen 2700X on an Asrock X470 mbd), though the most taxing thing I use it for is converting raw videos from my camera to h264 mp4 using NVEnc, for which it does over 200fps at 1080p.
Best wishes and I hope you can sort something out in time! 8)
Dont be so hard on yourself. Times are hard enough man. You are way more than just serviceable :).
I've just upgraded my daughters system to very similar specs! Her i7 4770 and 16gb of ddr3 1866 are now paired with an RX 5500 XT 4gb because the GTX 970 blower card was getting mighty thirsty and hot, and is obviously on its way out.
I promise I'll clean the nvidia beast up and repaste it, but with the amount of power it's been sucking down, the RX 5500 XT is going to save it's £90 ebay price in power savings within a year no problem. It sits at 4watts on video playback. 4!
Awesome :)
Great video. I really enjoy "tech rescue". Many old computers can be upgraded with inexpensive new parts and feel brand new. Please continue to provide high quality content. Thanks
The fact we came to "more cores is good" from "you don't need that much cores, games dont support it anyway" is just mind blowing. If someone back in 2012 said that games will utilize most of the cores - I would've laughed that off.
Then there's ryzen CPUs with 16 cores and 32 threads lol
Spiderman Remastered still only use 8 Threads of CPU lol.
Doesn't matter if you have 16 Cores 32 Threads, the game will only use 8 Threads anyway
almost like we went from low core high clock xbox 360 and ps3 cores to shit tier 8 core cpus in the ps4 and xbox one or something
@@ClayWheeler I always have been a Intel guy but my last intel rig was a i7 9700k and I was seeing a CPU bottleneck in many games with a 3080 such as watch dogs legions and assassin's creed Valhalla where the CPU would hit 99% then back to 86% and back up 99% and so on. Was sick of the stuttering, I placed a order for 13700k and a strix z790 mobo and canceled because the 13th gen intel was the last CPU on that platform and when I saw AMD promising to support AM5 beyond 2025 I jumped to AMD, after knowing how great the support for AM4 was, so AMD AM5 users should see the release of 4 plus new CPUs on that platform, I instantly bought a 7900x and a mobo and gonna use my 3080 on it
@@thealien_ali3382 I will upgrade my CPU at some point (probably a R 7 5800x as they are a bargain now), But my current R 5 3600 and 3080ti are killing it in 4K gaming lol. Moving to AM5 won't really pay off for me, And because I game at 4K 60hz my "middle of the road" 3600 is hauling ass with no issues, I probably won't even see the benefits of upgrading unless I move up in hz.
Great video, man. It's always far more interesting to see someone turn beaten down old hardware into something useable again, than "ultimate gaming rig '22 edition".
To be honest though, when I build my own PC (I've had enough of laptops and the limitations they have), I'm going all in - i9 13900k, 128GB DDR4 and RTX 3090Ti all going onto my wishlist. :)
@@TheSpotify95 do you edit or use cad or similar because you can save some money going with less ram tbh 32gb is alot 64 overkill for gameing and 128 is kind of imho a waste of money if and big if you're only gameing
@@TheSpotify95 I mean, you're throwing money away unless you're a video editor or do some kind of productivity tasks for work. You really aren't getting enough frames to justify the increased price over a 13600k with a 3080 or 6800xt.
damn. i always wanted a msi nightblade back in 2016-2017 but i never got one lol. amazing content as always!
Nice Upgrade for this PC!
I like seeing old hardware getting a second life 🙂
ive been watching your content for years now, and honestly, the improvement in quality is absolutely amazing, and I do love seeing what older hardware can do, x58 being my favourite platform and a platform i quite often tinker with myself. thank you for the content over the years man, and hope you hit 500k soon
Around the same price it's possible to hop on AM4 with 1660 Super, with some entry CPU like 1600AF, with a PSU that will enable high TDP GPUs. Then later there's upgrade path towards 5600 or even 5800X3D when they get cheaper. Building this MSI was probably fun though, thanks for the vid!
The Ryzen 5 1600 (being a first gen Ryzen) doesn't support Windows 11, which is probably why you'll see it cheaper than a Ryzen 2000 or Ryzen 3000 series CPU!
@@TheSpotify95 That's right, 1600 could be even cheaper option. But hey, 2600 got really cheap now too! At this point, I think getting 3600 is not worth it, because 5600 price got so low. So it's better to jump start the build with a cheap 1600/2600 with a budget card like 1660S/2060 and then upgrade straight to 5600 for a mid-range GPU or 5800X3D for high-end GPU.
@@TheSpotify95 well the 1600AF is actually a rebranded ryzen 5 2600 so i think there is support for windows 11
That one was a nice one, i wouldn't think of building a cheap gaming capable pc with a GTX 1650, will have that one in mind, if someone asks me the next time if i can build a capable machine for a budget. You've inspired me to build cheap gaming capable pcs from the point i am watching your content and i've build a couple of machines on a budget, for people on a budget and made a couple of people happy (most people i know, don't have much to spent, but there is still a demand for a capable pc). I have to thank you (& a couple of other budget and retro channels), for showing a bunch different hardware from low spec to mid range to semi-high end. It helped me a lot and the people around me, that are on a tight budget. Keep the work up, always love to watch and learn ☺
Respect for spending a bit extra just for interesting content like this which I love to watch 🙏🤠
I mean, that poor GT 740 can do much better if it was not with that Celeron, in a lot of games it was iddling at 50% while CPU at 100%.
I got a gtx 1660 super dell gpu similar to this for only £100 on ebay. The seller thought it was a standard 1660 because it has a 6 pin power but to my surprise it was a SUPER.
I can't believe the GTX 1650 super looks like a graphics card from the 2000s or early 2010s, is the cooler replaced or is that what it actually looks like?
Yeah it’s the dell oem version it’s gtx 1650 super ugly haha
Kinda seems like with some titles it's more of an optimization issue rather than a bottleneck. Then again though it is a 4770, but still. It shouldn't be hovering around 50% in some of those games. It should be pegged, unless it's not actually working hard(like GTA V' case). Games aren't utilizing it properly or something.
I bought this new as a barebone case I think back in 2012. I installed an Intel 6700k CPU, MSI GTX 1070, 32 GB RAM, Samsung 950 Pro 1TB M.2 SSD. It was a wonderful gaming PC at the time and is still working. I am surprised the power supply was enough to run that hardware. The CPU cooler is a blower style fan and is very loud now. I think I am going to pull the 1070, add new thermal paste to the CPU, install a Asrock A380 and a couple 3.5 hard drives and turn this into a Plex server/NAS/2nd PC for stream encoding/streaming. I always liked the size/look of the case.
I am addicted to this old stuff. I love all the new tech out there but just can’t afford any of it. I have found that mixing and matching old tech for new builds adds a uncompromising respect for the history and the progression of parts and tech which enriches the experience and knowledge of the builder connoisseur. If I had a lot more money I would build computers…so I would still have no money, lol.
Awesome! Another video.
Quite a interesting video.Great work!
old i7s are a blast if you don't want to play the latest and greatest at 4k 60fps, I have a 3770 paired with a 6gb 1060 and it storms through everything I ask it to do like a champ
Nicely done sir. I have a old Dell 9010 I have kept and upgraded. I7 3770, 16 gb ddr3, 500 watt ps, sata ssd, extra fans, rx5500. It's my back up rig, but she still is a beast for basic computing tasks, and fortnite!
Just in case anyone cares, main rig: x570, 3700x, 970 Evo, 16 gb @ 3600 MT, gtx 1070, 280 mm aio, maglev argb fans, corsair 5000 airflow, too many extra hdd/ssd's, joysticks, racing wheels, 1440p monitors... That's just my rigs... My wife and children have their own.. I may have taken this PCMR thing too far...
@El Cactuar Thank you, and corrections made. Gracias senior. Usually I'm the pedantic one. Good day, sir. 👍
What's your computer look like? Hand made? Just using your phone?
I'm kind of hurt you didn't tell me the rx5500 is a pcie 4.0 x8 card, and my old Dell will never be able to access it's full power...
Think I saw you shooting at the statue head in MWII, I am so glad it's not just me that does that!
nice 2022 Haswell revival, i did too. went i5 4460 to xeon 1246 v3 aka i7 4771 and 1060 3g to 1660ti for the price of your slow 1650. runs CP well at 1080p 60fps high FSR HiQ dips to 45fps before 25fps. 2nd cheap same speed 8gb would be enuff here, even with a 2nd 4GB ram would run most games imo
Brilliant video but the remark you made about yourself during when the 1650 super was uncalled for, you’re amazing and thank you for such amazing content ❤
Personally I'd choose a used 1650S from CEX other than a new 1650 for £180 as they are. Same warranty but about 50% more performance makes it a no brainer. I would also choose one over my old favourite the 1060 6GB because in raw power they're about the same but the 1650S is a more modern DX12U compliant card giving it more lifespan.
1:48 made my day, Steve ❤️
Why is your voice so soothing? Great as always, love your videos.
Thanks dude 😁
This is a splendid build you have done here giving new life to that prebuilt. I would totally use that as a daily PC. I had given some thought to trying a low power i7, Haswell as a matter of fact like you did here, and now after seeing this I'm adding a 4770S to the list of future builds to tinker with. How does that OEM GTX 1650 super compare with an OEM GTX 1060 3gig card? I just cannot bring myself to replace that 3gig 1060 because it does everything I ask of it in my HP Pavilion Power daily PC. As always, loved today's video and look forward to more.
Gonna write me comment early before I forget:
Another great tip, and basically, I live in rural Northumberland, and if you're like me, it's a good time befriending your local PC builder/repairman. He won't give me full second hand price for obvious reasons, but he always gives me a reasonable price for my used parts if I'm struggling to find a buyer elsewhere.
He even sometimes gives me a ring to ask if I have a part laying around that he needs to finish a build or repair.
I think the upgrades you picked closely matched what I suggested in the other video. I think you've extracted the maximum amount of potential out of that prebuilt without doing extensive modifications or breaking the bank.
Don't sell yourself short, as a straight man I can confidently say you are a good looking bloke, also you're content ain't half bad either 😉
I really enjoy watching old rigs getting revived with new parts. Though if it were me, I'd push the budget just a little bit higher by going for a 1TB SSD, completely phasing out mechanical HDD in the rig.
Yo been watching you since you made that pc(maybe 75£) vs ps3 videos,I think you only had like 7k subs.Just wanted to say that I am really happy for you!
Thanks man
Great video, as always! :)
The 4770 is plenty fast enough to max out a 1650 super. I had a 4770 system and a 5800x Ryzen system. Tried the 1650 super in both I'm cyberpunk and at 1080p with medium settings the frame rate was basically the same. Popping an rx6600 into the system was a huge improvement and made cyberpunk a very nice experience.
I'd never risk buying a used SSD, especially at £18 for 240GB you could get a brand new one for only a few quid more.
You should do a series of builds under some kind of budget challenge.
love your vids
You and Tech YES man: collaborate
Great video, love the refurbished PC series. Haswell HP/Dell office machines can be had for sub £100 with 16GB ddr3 1600 and Xeons (4770 equiv) if you buy wisely. Some of the HP machines have strong PSUs too and can handle up to 2060.
I have an HP with 300w GOLD PSU and that can drive my 1070 with i5-9400F no issues.
@@roasthunter how so ??? with just the 1070 we are already at 200w, but ALL the system with just 300w ??? did you undervolt the cpu/gpu ?
@@razorr3751 the i5-9400f is a 65w tdp CPU so not the highest power hungry CPU. I figure that the PSU comes with an 8 pin pcie connector and therefore must be able to deliver the power required by the ATX specification for such a connector. The 1070 only has an 8 pin connector. Gold rating should also mean it's a high quality PSU. I've had no issues playing for hours on it. I'm not sure id risk a higher power CPU at the same time though.
@@roasthunter tdp doesn't reflect power consumption, so no im sorry it doesn't use 65w, so to speak, but it's impressive how well these systems can do with as little as 300w, but i think that power suply you have is overspecced...
Lovely job Steve! Haswell i7 and a 1650 Super, great little box
Older PCs being kept alive is the best kind of content.
I'm not a PC gamer, but I am surprised that a i7-4770S processor can handle Cyberpunk 2077 so well. I snagged a i7-4790S for a project because I got it at a better price than a non S or K model. Not bad for a 22nm processor.
4th gen i7 cpus does not bottleneck gtx 1650 super level card at all, in fact, even 2nd gen i7 would perfectly hold something like a gtx 1660. As for 4770s, i would happily pair it with RTX 2060.
That's not really true. It will heavily depend on the game.
That processor is NOT holding you back, it's never pegged in usage. You're sitting between 60-90% on both the CPU and GPU for all of these games, it's almost 1 for 1 on the display readout in all your game footage. Those parts are matched just fine.
true, and he could have easily used a better gpu if it wasn't for that power suply
"Looks ugly but is perfectly functional a bit like myself" 😂😂😂
My MSI Infinite S is so similare to this one, apart from the internal components 😂
And you installed the same GPU I have :)
Thank you for the ultra quality content! Could you make a video on HP Elitedesk G1 800 SFF ? I would love to see your upgrade path. Anyways... Keep up the awesome work
You should make an optiplex 9020 MT budget gaming build! Love em to bits!
Every video is a new adventure!
Such a nice upgraded machine
I really enjoy such kind of content because it's so entertaining to see poor performing systems like that get a chance in the gaming field)
Really enjoyed watching the video!
Thank you))
In Red Dead Redemption 2 and Grand Theft Auto 5, it looks like the processor and graphics card were even and not bottlenecked
To me, you look like the default banker, yet you seem to have found your niche and been making videos that i watch 90% till the end.
Dunno if I sounded like an asshole there, apologies if i did, however I just want to say keep up the videos mate, I watch your GT310 videos even if I have a 3090 myself.
I love the sff case of the Night Blade by MSI 🤩😵🥰🤯👍. Awesome compact gaming build 👍
a game you should be testing is Elite Dangerous, the Odyssey expansion. it's VERY graphically intensive and while the devs say they used an X58 board with an X5675 and GTX 780 as a firm base to play against for low system requirements, something tells me this should also be in your arsenal as well.
Would love to see you test RE:2 and RE:3 remakes with ray tracing on the next RT card reviews. Nice job!
G'day Random,
That was a really good upgrade for the $$$, while I was expecting the i7 & SSD for OS Drive getting a 1650Super rather than 1650 or 570 was a nice surprise & shows that used prices in some regions are reasonable again, my nephews PC is an i7-3770, 16GB DDR3-1600 + ASUS Strix 16560Super so I will be very interested to see the difference a modern CPU can make for him in a future video.
planning a HP Z230 build with this exact specs for $280! 1650 super really is the budget king these days
Been using a 3770 with a 1650 for years in an HP workstation. Never had any issues.
As a 1650 super owner i can't wait for your next look at the card
We appreciate the humor, but I don't think any of your mature viewers would find you ugly, love yourself now!
I'm a bit surprised Haswell aged so much, I've honestly expected 1650 Super would be the bottleneck. That said, it's an old chip, not sure what I was expecting.
It's mostly the low clockspeed. It's the low power variant.
@@lagginswag true, but it's still 65w down from 84, it can still boost all cores up to 3.5. Maybe not in a more demanding workload, but in gaming it should be hitting that clock speed easily, while non-s should be able to go up to 3.7 if my memory serves. It is old though, but it was easily enough for a 1070 not that long ago - which is usually quite a bit faster than the 1650S. Guess Gpus aged better this time around, as they had way less improvements over the recent years.
I've never found it worth my time selling old cheap computer components. I guess I just don't have the patience to do it. Still got an old GT 210 chilling in a cardboard box somewhere and a huge assortment of DDR2/DDR3 from random old computers.
Good job! I really liked the modifications. This machine is basicly still enough for every casual gamer.
Yeah definitely
my dailydriver "gaming" pc with i7 3770 and gtx 1060 6 gb,16 gb ddr3 ram paired with 250gb ssd and 2 500gb 5400rpm "budget" drives for gaming.i feel this build.
Great video as always steve.
Thanks :)
I7 4770
2x4 Kingston Fury 1866
2x8 Kingston Fury 1866
Asus GTX 1660 super TuF 3
2x 128gb intel ssd in raid 0
512gb Samsung ssd
Asus Sabertooth Z97 mark 2
Power 750w
My son still enjoy in this machine.
6:11 man really killed the teammate
I got an old Xeon 1230v3 with 32GB RAM, 256GB SSD and a 970 I'm gonna sell closer to Christmas.
Still a decent gaming computer imho.
i7 990X here. ASUS Rampage ii Extreme, 16GB, 1TB Samsung SSD, ASUS ROG GTX1070 Gaming 8GB. All in a big ass Coolermaster HAF 922 case. Any chance you can do a video using the i7 990X? Being what it is, it would be a very worthy candidate for a comparison. Cheers Steve! 👍
Yeah what a great old cpu! Hopefully do a video soon
Pretty nice upgrades and the good thing about this was that you didn't need to change the motherboard on it.
I think that the 4th gen i7's, and what you have done here, is the best you can do with this sort of system without spending far too much on it, since you don't want to be changing the motherboard, or the proprietary power supply.
That 1650 Super was a nice pairing as well, though even a regular 1650 would have worked in that rig, since the CPU was more of a limitation (even though I didn't see it hit 100%).
that's the catch here, the CPU isn't that much of a limitation as people think, yeah sure it's old and the fact that it's an S series i7 is quite limiting (which i agree with) but if that was a normal 4770 i think that it could have been easily paired with a 1070 if not more powerful, but yeah for this tiny prebuilt it's the max we could work with
really nice upgrade, that OEM 1650 super looks humble but it performs really good.
I bought an MSi Infinite i5-9400F 1660Ti off ebay for £368 and sold the 1660Ti during the 2nd mining boom for £350. Used prebuilts are some of the best bargains going.
I am wondering how will the performance be if it was a regular i7 4770 instead of the S version.
Same...cousin recently did a cpu mobo swap to a xeon e3 1231v3 which is basically a 4770. Seems to be on par with ryzen 5 1400/1500x.
You're not ugly dude! that 1650 tho...
Literally just got given one of these to upgrade for a friend but the newer 2017 model!
Great video it’s blowing my mind you have to love the GTX 1650 great budget card
Yeah it’s still holding up well
recently built a £300 gaming rig (for someone) i5 4590, gtx 980, 16gb 1600mhz DDR3. 1tb sata SSD, similar sort of spec. and yeah it could run everything pretty smooth still, only game it struggled with was Fortnite where the CPU seemed to struggle a little and it would stutter early into the drop. but yes found all AAA titles capable of hitting 60FPS with some tinkering (normally high textures everything else low). amazing to think what a GPU cost 6 months ago and what you can build now.
Nice but can you make a video about the Mac sunflower?
I've got a computer that I use for a nas that matches these specs down to the "t," and for how cheap you can get them these days, they're really nice. It used to be a gaming computer, but with the four cores, it's more than capable as a basic starter server as well.
In a world where you can now get a GTX 1070 for around £100 on eBay, I feel like you overpaid quite a bit on that card, but then I didn't catch what the PSU was, and you may have been limited by power constraints.
Interesting video as always.
It's a 350w unit with what looks to be only 1 6 pin
The 1070 is a 150w card so, probably pushing it for a 10 year old sff unit
Thanks I needed this video, a friend of mine has a 4430 i5 and needs a cheap upgrade before he finally caved to get a newer pc
Cheap xeon, more ram and an ssd
I have a a MSI Nightblade and I put a RTX 2060 graphics card in it and I can play all my games on Ultra specialty in VR at a great little pc when you want to play VR games on its Max settings
I am using a 1650 Super for 2 years over clocked it core+ 200 and mem +899 MHz it still does the job at 1080p
A MSI Nightblade was my first Gaming Pc it came with an i5 8400 and an Msi Armor GTX 1070. It was cool and practical because of its size but i remember it beeing very loud.
8:00 I think you're playing the wrong game, Insurance Fraud is in Saints Row.
I can see both your CPU and GPU max out at around 75% in some of these tests, that would suggest to me that memory bandwidth is the bottleneck, I doubt the RAM will go over 1.6GHz on that board but you may be able to tighten the timings to get some more gaming performance.
The OEM 1650 looks like a old GPU you would find in a high spec office PC from the 2010s.
I think the 4770s is a good pair for the 1650s. You might be able to tune it a bit with xtu. Extend the boost duration. I have a 4820k with a gtx 980 (both overclocked, obviously). According to userbenchmark it's the same as this and the gpu gets maxed out way more often than the cpu.
Wait... I thought Maxtor was no more ? I used to always buy Maxtor hard drives back in the day, that or Western Digital.
Edit : Oh, they are owned by Seagate now. That's too bad. Out of every hard drive I have owned the only ones to die on me have been Seagate drives.