You Can Build A Low-Cost Small Form Factor PC For Emulation & Gaming Right Now!
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- čas přidán 16. 06. 2024
- We put together a $200 Small Form Factor PC that’s perfect for high-end emulation and it can actually handle some of our favorite AAA PC Games! It's 2022 and you want to build a Gaming PC but prices are crazy and spending $2000 is out of the question, so in this video, we try to build the cheapest Gaming /Emulation we can in 2022.
Buy The Optiplex 3050 on eBay: ebay.us/Z4vdAa
Other Used Office PCs: ebay.us/8YcyHN
Nvidia GT 1030 Low Profile GDDR5 Version: ebay.us/OohFz9
Follow Me On Twitter: / theetaprime
Follow Me On Instagram: / etaprime
00:00-Intro
00:10-Overview
01:41-The Build
03:53-Overall Performance
04:30-4K CZcams Video Playback Test
04:53-Genshin Impact Test
05:22-Forza Horizon 5
06:18-Skyrim Special edition
06:42-GTA5
07:12-Doom Eternal
07:33-PSP Emualtion Test PPSSPP
07:58-Gamecube Dolphin EMulator
08:28-PS2 Emulation Test PCSX2
08:53-3DS CITRA Emulator
09:16-Orginal Xbox EMulator CXBX Reloaded
09:38-PS3 RPCS3 Emulator
09:43-Final Thoughts
Equipment I Use:
Screen Capture Device: amzn.to/2STpX4C
Tool Kit: amzn.to/2M6l9WS
Soldering Station: amzn.to/2FtdVeu
Camera: amzn.to/2M6KFLB
Tripod: amzn.to/2CmdYVY
Raspberry Pi 4: amzn.to/3cCrvKb
Flirc Case: amzn.to/2OBQTXz
DISCLAIMER: This video and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission at no extra cost to you!
This video and Channel and Video are for viewers 14 years older and up. This video is not made for viewers under the age of 14.
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ETAPRIME
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#Gaming #etaprime DISCLAIMER: Under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education, and research. No Games Or Applications Are Included Or Added On Or To Any Device In This Video - Hry
I found an OptiPlex 7050 SFF for $180 dollars which was a steal. It was the i7-7700 with 8GBs of ram. Upgraded it to 32GBs, put in a GTX 1650, and threw a fan in the front and it runs all my media / game servers and can play games decently.
Exactly what i did exvept the RAM amd Fan
@@fred-youtube I had to put a fan because my GTX 1650 was thermal throttling at 82c, now it's good at 65-70c.
😁😁😁👍👍👍
Yeah, these SFF systems really need an added fan when you move up to a 1050 Ti or a 1650. They just dump too much heat into the system. Did you use the fan as intake or exhaust? I've found that exhaust seems to be a bit more effective.
@@TheGameBench used it as an intake and it improved temps so well. I might add an exhaust to the side panel maybe like a really thin noctua.
Absolutely love these videos. Been looking everywhere for a budget build that'll run a decent amount. Love the mini pc and tiny pc videos as well
Great stuff, man! Videos like these make me feel warm inside. Makes me want to build one of these just to go through the proccess.
A ETAPrime vid a day, keeps me happy all the way😅. Great to see back2back content every day or 2. Thanks for your efforts. Love em.
What I personally see as an additional benefit over many newer or smaller computers is the DVD drive.
I just built a similar setup with a SFF Lenovo and GTX 1050ti low profile. Great little build!
Have a similar setup but non TI version built 2019 i believe thats still chugging along
That's the safer bet. Lenovo MBs tend to last a lot longer than Dell's in my experience. I have a couple 4th gens upgraded to a i7-4790. Even running at full tilt days on end doing media encoding doesn't phase them.
I bought a OptiPlex 7040 SFF i5-6500 8GB last week for $75 without a drive. Added a NVMe and some more ram I had sitting around. It is a great system.
I got 5080 for cheap and threw in an old GT 1030 and I use it for editing and a little gaming. Love how easy Dell machines are to work with.
As an alternative I might suggest the HP 600/800 G2 SFF over this since HP doesn't put the 16x slot right next to the PSU, then you don't have to deal with the single slot limitation. Otherwise, they're pretty much the same thing.
best thing about the 1030 is it massive overclock potential, shame very few youtubers mention this, I would love to see what a healthy over clock would do to this system
Reminds me of the Lenovo M81 I bought awhile back. Still holds up, and it has similar specs with the same graphics card. I bought it around $150. It can even play Switch games too.
Keep up the good work, ETA.
So you know, on a setup like yours it does upscale switch games up to 2x with no negetive effect on performance which means you can play switch games at 1080p and higher with no issues.
Damn, I used this exact model of PC up until about a week and a half ago when I finished building the PC I currently use.
I increased the RAM from 8 GB to 32 GB. Replaced the 500 GB hard drive with a 1TB NVMe and a 4TB 2.5 inch SSD (I actually pulled the 4TB SSD out of the Optiplex so I could put it in my new PC). Added a USB WiFi/Bluetooth adapter so I didn’t need to keep it tethered to an Ethernet cable, as the motherboards in these PCs don’t have WiFi or Bluetooth built in. I also replaced its original 180 watt PSU with a 240 watt PSU (some 3050s were shipped with a 240 watt PSU instead of a 180 watt unit so, this was still an OEM PSU upgrade).
I wanted to put a low profile 1050ti or 1650 in it, but I’ve so far been unable to find one that wasn’t being scalped to hell (I was able to get a decently priced MSI RX 6600 for my new PC though). I suppose I could wait for Nvidia to release a low profile version of the RTX 3050, or for Intel to release a low profile card. I’ve also been pondering the possibility of upgrading from the i5-7500 this computer came with to an i7-7700
These are excellent little PCs. Shame Microsoft won’t support them for upgrading to Windows 11. Guess I could just put Linux on it
I really enjoy these sorts of builds, I have a small workstation Acer Aspire XC-605 which I fitted a GT-1030 to. Very similar to this Optiplex build. I don't really play many AAA games so definitely more than enough for me. Runs most emulators and most recently Monster Hunter Rise on steam on 1080p Average 60fps with very few dips, can't argue with the price:performance.
Thanks for the informative and interesting vid...as always.
Man these used OptiPlex are such an amazing deal. Got me a 7040 and using it as an ESXi server.
When a "Low-Cost PC" is much better than your main gaming PC.
=/
That sucks.
In april, my PC will be 10 years old. 🤭
@@superangrybrit as a temporary solution get a sff pc with 4th gen i5 or above you can even swap the case and transfer the mb into your current build but you'll need adaptors especially for psu.
@@Fernando-Rodriguez Yeah like a ATX case which is what I plan to do with my HP Compaq 8200 Elite Small Form Factor
Thanks, I was actually considering building in an Sff optiplex too. I have a 3010, 4th gen I will attempt it with. Nice to see a half height GPU is still possible to find.
I have a similar build, mine is an HP pre-built it's decent and capable I mostly play older games and it offers 70 plus fps at the highest settings I can't complain.
I 've seen a lot of your videos about android controllers but I wanted to mention it would be great and very very usefull to see a video comparing all the controllers you have tested. Just an idea.
Just put together a rig like this the other day with a 750 (2gig variant iirc). I opted to go with a PCIE riser so I could use a full size card. Just took a little Dremel work. I find that the SFF GPUs tend to have a markup and even with the additional cost of a riser cable it works out cheaper. Not to mention just giving more options in general. Only extra mod was an Artic F9 Silent which is nice because I can let it run at full speed without noise issues (I used a SATA power adapter cable). - I will say, on any OEM type system that's a few years old you definitely want to feed her some new thermal paste. After a few years, the cheap stuff they use ends up like playdoh left out for a month.
I have a Dell Optiplex 7020 with a GT 1030 and 16gb ram that can even run certain NSW titles without any dips. As for Wii U, it varies depending on the game files .
The gt-1030 is a boss for emulation i been using one for 3 years on my
Mame cabinet w dell optiplex i-5 3rd gen
Ahh.. love sff office machines...
Great video as usual. I guess switch emulation was out of the question. Thanks for your hard work.
With a better graphics card like the gtx 1650, no problem. I don't even have as good a CPU and I can get several Switch titles to work.
I took the internals of a Precision T1700 with a i5 4570 onto the back of an Element TV. Works amazing and looks cool too. Nothing some 2-sided VHB and some squarely-placed SSD's. Even managed to include the stock low-pro DVD/RD drive, and strapped on an ethernet switch for good measure. 16 gigs of ram is plenty, and Windows 11 seems to be "fine". All 4 of these same T1700's were throw-aways from an HVAC shop.
Built a 3046 with a 950gtx in it a while back, the card was longer than the case but I was able to use some metal snips to make clearance. Removed the hard drive replace with an nvme, power for gpu provided from both sata power connectors adapted over.
Hi there. First off I am a subscriber to your CZcams channel and want to say I really enjoy your videos and appreciate all the work you put into what you do! I am not the most computer savvy and your videos have done wonders to educate me. I was just wondering if you had time to answer a quick question/advice on a project I have related to this build?
Love that intro!!!
I love watching your videos! Totally epic! Today I just picked up a AMD FX (Tm)-6350 6 cores with 6 threads with 16GB of 1600mhz DDR3 Ram with a 900W RGB PSU, 3 RGB case fans, all for $40, this build I picked up end up being a $850 build alone without a GPU and SSD, currently looking for a 700 series GTX but would prefer the 900 or thousand series but it is expensive, also am gonna grab a PNY 1TB SSD for my OS and Storage since the motherboard doesn't have a place for the SSD'S that are for the OS, but yeah your builds you do are really simple and easy
Around a year ago I did a very similar build for my girlfriend who wanted to play Valorant. Optiplex 7020 with an i5-4590 (only around 6% slower than the 7500, as per usual with pre 11th Gen Intel), upgraded with a GDDR5 GT 1030, an AliExpress snowman CPU cooler, thermal paste, SSD and a super small Noctua fan at the front. Runs Valorant and Fortnite incredibly smooth, with low settings obviously, even at 1440p. I was pleasantly surprised by how much of a great deal a good GT 1030 is nowadays if you're on a budget!
I love these SFF build videos
Hi man, you should consider looking at low profile quadro GPU's, they're a hidden gem on the used market as they're less known.
A P600 would be the same performance as a gtx 750 ti & a K620 would be the same performance as a GT 1030 (for $30 or so).
k620 is basically a gtx 745 oem but its on really slower than 750ti and slightly slower than 750 even with OC, And yes i'm using one right now!
I was looking on line and it seems that the K620 is about 25 to 30% slower then the GT 1030. Is there a particular benchmark I should be looking at?
@@megan_alnico This is from my personal experience with the card really. Not so much benchmarks. I did get very similar framerates between the GT1030 & K620, definitely not a 25-30% gap though!
@@djkido316 More memory too I believe. :)
@@megan_alnico GPU benchmarks from CPU Benchmark:
gtx 750 TI 3924
quadro p620 3669
quadro p600 3302
gt 1030 2580
quadro k620 2268
I stuffed a GTX 1070 into this same chassis and it's a great little SFF sleeper. Required some major surgery to make fit though!
Love the video as usual, GTX 745 still a great option for low profile
GT 1030 is a little beast when you consider how cheap you can get one, if you utilize costume resolutions such as 1400x900p or 1280x900p you can play almost any game with modest visuals and playable framerates, it handles older games such as COD BO2 like a king (almost 200fps at 900p), Esport titles will run at competitive framerates so for now just get a gt 1030 it doesn't matter where you live you can find this card for cheap prices almost everywhere.
Hi ETA PRIME, love your vids! Which prebuilt mini PC would you recommend for 4k 60fps emulation of everything up to 7th generation consoles?
I brought a HP 800 G1 tiny FF pc with 30k roms pre installed from a local retro shop. Runs really well for £120 / 146 usd it plays everything before ps3/ 360 easily at 1440 sometimes 4k.
I’ve been thinking about tying to build something in this form factor that could be used to play PC VR games on my Oculus Quest 2. Would be really interested in seeing how inexpensive that could be done for while still offering enough performance.
If you have the single slot variant of the SFF Optiplex like this and the GT 1030 isn't enough, see if you can find a Quadro P620 and a mini displayport adapter. The P620 in theory should be approximately 25% more performance and might pull you out of the mud on some of those games. Synthetics also show a fairly solid lead for the P620. P620s can be regularly found for $130 USD sometimes less
I got one of these on ebay uk, bear in mind they don't have wifi, a dongle is only cheap but if you're planning on running Batocera instead of windows bear in mind most wifi adapters wont be recognised, so ethernet might be required to scrape artwork, transfer roms etc. Also remember to check the SATA set up in the bios before installing any OS, as mine was set in RAID which required me to mess with the registry in windows to get it to run after I set the bios up right.
You should go with HD7570. very close performance to gt730, but much cheaper and also an LP card.
last year i got a a320 matx board for 30€ and a a8 9600 for 10€ + 20€ for a pico psu and 20€ for 2x4gb ddr4 sticks. it does emulation very well, ps2 games run at 3x the resolution.
Thank you for the build and Genshin Impact testing ETAPrime.
I have a HP Compaq 8200 Elite Small Form Factor with a i5-2400 and a 2047MB NVIDIA GeForce GT 1030 (ZOTAC International) GDDR5 with windows 10 PRO. It runs well and has no blue screen issues and so far have had no driver issues. I plan to get a ATX case and upgrading the PSU along with the GPU if I am able. Lots of stuff I plan to do with this Office PC build just have real life problems, so I am holding off spending the last of my money till the worry is gone lol I am excited and getting impatient to try and get the upgrades I want which are many xD
I got a MSI 750ti 1gb from Newegg for cheap before the cards went nuts and the coof . A single slot card that can do SFF. Works great for her Xeon PC with a Chinese 1366 motherboard and 8gb of ddr3 . Just the 256gb Silicone Powder ssd is kinda slow to boot up for an ssd . She ain't gettin' my spare 138gb Samsung Evo though !
ETA PRIME, what's the current state of retro gaming on Wii U? Up to what platform can it emulate?
Dang it man I was just looking at these. The prices are going to jump now AGAIN.
Got an elitedesk with an i3-9x for free... threw in 32GB RAM, an 18TB HDD, filled it up with my collection. Now i'm undecided if it's worth to wait for newer LP graphics, or use a 1030 and invest in an i7 for PS3 emulation
Yay a new video
Decent build 👌🏻 👏
I actually just picked up a Dell Precision Tower 3420 SFF with E3-1220v5 and a Quadro P600 in it. This video gave me an idea to swap out the P600 for a GT1030 (I have one on hand) for a similar build. The P600 will go into my rack server for video transcoding. Only problem... I already have a desktop, a laptop, and three rack servers, plus another Inspiron desktop which I use as a test bench. 😅
Great video buddy, but I didn't find the prices you mentioned not in any place not even in ebay, I know that my country is a bit unsupported but still
I have a sff 7040 with i5 6500 and gt1030, and runs great with Batocera
Similar - I grabbed a "Dell OptiPlex 3020 SFF 4th Gen Core i5-4590 8GB 240GB SSD DVDRW Win10Pro" from Amazon, had an issue with the video card slot (was only 1 slot wide and right next to the PSU so video card didn't fit) and the seller went above and beyond, got it switched up to the next model, which gave me a slightly beefier CPU and a diff mobo arrangement all at no extra cost. Was £160 all in. Slapped in a "MSI NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 1030 GPU '2GB GDDR5, 1518MHz, Low Profile" and its now my emulation macine hooked up to 65" TV. I can do it all up to and including PSP and WiiU stuff. Living the dream, and it was one of ETAs earlier "buy a SFF refurb office PC" videos that inspired me. Thanks ETA.
Did mange to get my hands on a much older OptiPlex. Going to see what I can do with it.
I like your live wallpaper recently. May I know where to find or purchase it?
Thanks ETA I have been using a pc like this with no graphics card and I had been wondering if a 1030 would be worth it. After watching this I think it might be.
I got a free optiplex saved by my sister from recycling, I put a Xeon 12341v3 in it, 32gb ram, a heatsink and a 1030 in it, and it works great.
some people cut out the case to put bigger gpus inside of these. you could make something to the gpu sticking out of the case and paint it or make it look cool if you dont like to see a gpu coming out toe the side of it lol.
I did the same thing i5 sff with a 1030 using it on a modded arcade 1up outrun mod with bigbox. Plays all the racing greats. Mario kart 8 on wii u works perfect at 60fp ps2 gamecube dc more than happy as the graphics card was under 100usd. The next gen up is ps3 and that needs a top of the range card and pc which will cost 4 times more so I can really recommend the gtx1030
You need to learn how to do the non-internlaced and widescreen hacks on pcsx2. It takes that emulation to the next level.
You can try quadro series cards like t400, t600 to fit on these machines as they are single slot cards and low profile form factor
I just repasted an old Dell 9020 and I had to basically chip the old paste off. MX5 FTW.
Finally an Fzero test that isn’t just the first level
Dear ETA PRIME, I quite like your videos. They always entertain me. Today I got a question for you which, considering your experience, you might be able to answer.
I got a chance to get an old "workstation" PC with a dual Xeon processor.
I can choose dual X5690 or dual X5687.
X5687 maximum frequency is a bit higher than X5690 (3867 MHz vs 3733 Mhz)
but the latter is a 6 core when the X5687 is instead a four core.
All this said, when it comes to RPCS3, which processors would you advise me to get?
Mind that I cannot overclock and the workstation comes with a nice GTX 980ti.
Thanks for your answer.
Eta on when you might get your odin unit i like to see some gameplay with nfsu2 please even if it dosent run good
HD-PLEX do a 400w blade psu that comes with a laptop powerbrick. That would net you more space for a gpu, if you truly needed it.
@ETA, thanks for another splendid video! Can we see batocera performance on this rig?
Yes, I’m putting together an image now
@@ETAPRIME ❤️! Maybe also some Cemu performance on batocera 🤩
Awesome video as usual. Has anyone been able to look at performance of some older Quadro and Radeon pro cards? There are some okay prices to 2gb variants (like the wx2100) Wondering if they can handle emulation. I might try it if I can use it for dual purpose.
I wish they make an RTX 3050 low profile edition, they would be great for these kinds of PCs
It sips too much power
It never dawned on me to look under the hdd/cd cage to see if there was an M.2 slot. I bought a GTX 1030 last year for around $90 (new) to go into a Dell Optiplex SFF I picked up off of Amazon for $230. I ended up turning it into a NAS that I never plugged back in after some major December storms had rolled through. That thing doesn't have a PSU power switch. I have seen what type of damage lightning can do if there's an exposed wire, like on a UHF/VHF antennae (thanks Dad), and what rapid consecutive power surges can do to computers (storms and one occasion when the power company installed a digital meter).
Anyways, maybe it's time to change the Optiplex back.
Love your content about emulator
My friend got me a Dell optiplex 9020 sff. It has 16gb of ram. No hard drive. But I just used my ssd out of my laptop. It's got the core i5 4570. Got it at a auction for $20
Where can I get that awesome wallpaper?
I have a Dell precision T 3600 with a 2687W Xeon with a RTX 2070 and a 1300 W power supply and I can run just about any modern AAA title at 10:80 P at 100 FPS that’s really awesome for my set up but this is cool too
Hey man, I've been wanting to set up a *very* large emulation collection and I was wondering how good large capacity drives, like say, an 18TB Seagate Exos drive, would be for running games from. Did you ever make a video on this kind of thing?
Would run just fine! Swap that 500gb sata out for a 14tb Seagate exos and you’d be off to the races! Gonna add $250 to your build cost, but if you want massive storage this 14tb Seagate drives are your best price / gb right now.
Can you make a video a building a mini 6core gaming pc that can also run Mac OS?
Check out the Yeston RX550 or 560 for a higher performing single slot / low profile GPU.
Is the m.2 a 2280 or 2260? I don't know much about building pc's, but I am trying to follow these steps to make my first emulating project. Thanks!
You can find a Lenovo SFF as far back using a 4th/3rd gen intel that has a much better MB layout. The SFF case is the same size, but you'll have a mATX board with multiple PCI-E slots to use. Some even have two 16x slots spaced out evenly over 4 banks.
It's been my experience the Think line of Lenovo business desktops are built like tanks. Much more survive over the years than Dell or HP. Also, they tend to be easier in upgrading since they use less proprietary parts. I many occasions, I only needed to purchase a PSU wire adapter for less than $10 to allow a standard ATX PSU to power a beefier GPU.
I have an M93p, and honestly the PSU is the weak point of it, not really sure how I'd fit an ATX PSU in there considering the big cube that it is. but they do make Pico-PSUs with more wattage, too.
I've been wondering... How would something like this work, 1440p monitor for productivity, web, similar and use 720p resolution for gaming (since that's half res of monitor, so pixel perfect downscaling).
Okay, since I was looking for an upgrade from my AOC 1080p monitor for a while and they had a budget 1440p 165hz Element monitor at Best Buy, I went and bought it. Tried it out: in the main game I play (mechwarrior online) I got some fps but not as much as I would think, but I am pretty sure that MWO is more CPU bound. It looked a bit grainy but I played as well as usual. My PC is a Ryzen 1600AF, 16GB DDR4-3200, Asrock B450 motherboard, Zotac GTX 1660 Super.
I keep seeing you use Dell Optiplexs, but as an owner of a refurbed HP sff, I feel like it's certainly a reasonable option.
Yep, they're all the same. It's easy to be brand loyal when you learn the naming and configurations.
ETA you thouht about tryingthe Nvidia T400? its a $150 card but its running the newer architecture.
Could you please do a video about the Lenovo Tiny P320/330/340 and how to upgrade it with a low profile GPU?
Hook that bad boy up to Nvidia GFN 3080 tier and you have a streaming beast!
Yea the current market is pretty messed up. Was going to get a 1650 super last year for a sff build, but of course right when I get the money the price tripled. So, I'll just have to wait for my Steam Deck
is it possible to swap heatsinks on those 2 video cards as you did with the bracket?
I've got a 200ge build, if I didn't have that I'd probably get one of these.
4:04 "This will struggle"
The easier one to emulate like Odin Sphere did works fine on 4 cores and 4 threads...
This will keep you going till GPUs are more reasonably priced. Would it help you play PS3 games if you replace the i5 with an i7?
Please do relative GPU performance comparison with Emulation.
Are you selling that setup? You must have a crazy amount of setups 🤪 have a great day!
✌🏼😎👍🏼
How moch power does your power supply ok this pc have? No problems adding a GPU?
It's better than my actual setup
Hey man what would you say is the minimum gpu requirement for running most ps2 games in 4k? Or at least 2k. Emulating ps2 is the most important thing for me, so, trying to build around that.
If you could put the power supply outside the case you might have room for the other graphics card or maybe a 1650 low profile Card
@The Game Bench how did you manage to get a 1050ti in the sff. I picked up a 5050 sff for cheap and I have a spare low profile 1050ti but I'm having the same space issue eta prime has in the video.
I was wondering couldn't a person use a pico power supply with a adapter cable and that would open up room for dual slot low profile cards?
I hope there's a low profile single slot intel Arc, if it is better than 1650S as leaks say it would be the best upgrade for these desktops
That would be awesome
From what I’ve read Intel is able to make these claims due to higher power draw in the same class. That could be a deterrent to some people.
What do you think about the T600
I'm running an i5 6400 with a 1050ti. I'm going to try to get some emulators
I bought a 3040 sff, I added a 850 500 GB ssd, and it's quite fast, latter I'll get gtx 1030 lp like in the video, then I'll just have to add 4 GB more of ram for dual channel and I'll be more than happy 😊