yeah i bought a infected and old/dust pc from a shop, it was £200 and it had a gtx 1060 6gb , 4gb ddr3 800mhz ram and a fx4300, i put in 16gb ddr3 1600mhz ram, fx 6300, i swapped the stock cooler for a cooler master hyper 212 led, and i still have the 1060, i get 53fps on nearly every tripple a title on 1440p medium, in total i spent £380 and i get really GOOD thermals and i am trying to put in a 512 gb kingston sata ssd
@@Druzhh yeah, triple A of 7 years ago maybe, lol I'd like to see that on horizon zero dawn, god of war, dying light 2, cyberpunk... I can't be that stable with a 2060 and a Ryzen 2600 in 1440p in some newer games, lol Also, 53 fps is such a specific number
VERY IMPORTANT: 12:26 if someone is actually doing the same in a similar way (drilling or removing metal parts from the case) make sure to sand it down or atleast use a vacum cleaner to remove all of the metal dust to avoid the chance of any of them falling on the motherboard or get sucked up by some fans, this could kill your components as it could short some stuff or it can cause other damage to your hardware and potentially start a fire
This is just like watching Top Gear. Their segments of “here’s 1200 bucks, buy a car and travel across the country” were always the best and much funnier then seeing some new HyperCar from Rivian or whatever. These budget PC builds are a joy to watch. Keep ‘em coming
True. I wish LTT did more of these budget/"normal" pc content. This is way more interesting and relatable to me than some crazy fan that costs hundreds of dollars.
I have never heard a sponsor segment with the sponsors name in it so much. After Linus' commentary on the WAN show about the whole "thanks for sponsoring THAT part of the viceo" makes this segment hilarious.
Another top tech tip: Search around because *sometimes* there are modified BIOS images which can bypass arbitrary locks/blocks. Not always recommended but can be useful for those really annoying error messages which don't need to be there
Yo ima add this to your comment bro- For the more casual or novice pc builders, the only BIOS/UEFI changes you should be making is updating to the most up to date one from the boards official website. If you are not 100% confident and know EXACTLY what you're doing when flashing a BIOS/UEFI image that IS NOT provided for that board by its manufacturer, DONT do this. If you are already budgeting your build components, running the risk of making a miniscule mistake and completely bricking your motherboard just doesn't outweigh the rewards here. There are a lot of lessons you can afford to learn the hard way, any lesson involving your BIOS/UEFI is not one of the ones you ever want to have to trial by error to learn. Take the extra time, spend 10 more dollars or so. To those who know what they're doing however, this is a great idea and would really expedite the completion of your build. I would check beforehand however and make sure that wherever you're getting your BIOS/UEFI from, is consistently updating it so that you aren't left with any vulnerabilities like a day zero or something that was patched by the board manufacturers but was unknown to whoever provided your modified BIOS/UEFI.
yes, I have a T440p with a modern wifi card in it because I was able to patch out the wifi whitelist, you should be able to find a bioa patch if the computer is popular enough
exactly this. thats how I used to run SLI on my old `asus p6t se` board. the non SE had SLI support, but they dropped it for the SE, the only real differences in the board were a lack of fdd connector and a few less sata ports (the non se had a port multiplier built in, so no real loss). I found a modified p6t bios and was able to cross flash it and run SLI no problem.
HP is a nightmare regarding using non-standard components in their PCs and workstations. They literally don't want you upgrading ANYTHING without getting their whole upgrade package OR just getting a new PC or workstation. To be fair, Dell and Lenovo are up to the same tricks. The worst it typically using a non-standard PSU, meaning that you can't replace it with a standard model in case you need to upgrade or if it breaks.
It doesn't really matter unless ur going to do super super intensive gaming with really high end hardware, but most people will never. For example, I have nearly the exact same Build (except a bit better), and it fucking kicks every games ass. My build is the HP z440 workstation, and it comes standard with a 700w PSU that can support my 1080ti and let me tell you, I haven't found Any game this system can't play, and tremendously at that! I mean, I'm playing the latest and greatest triple AAA titles and never fall below 60fps @1080p on MAX settings! Infact, it almost always gets 60fps+, this thing is a Champ! Yes, it's true. You won't be using a rtx 4090 on this thing anytime soon, and you'll never get 200fps+. But for $200 for the system + $200 for the 1080ti, this is a great value!!!
dell isnt that bad, had a prebuilt that was shit, not dell, and upgraded it to some old dell parts i had (mobo cpu ram all came from old dell pc) (every other part was from prebuilt). never had an issue with changing the ram or any fan errors or anything like that. never changed cpu but cooler was changed a few times and still never ran into an issue with dell bios/compatibility, although i did burn out one of the ram slots. board was like 10 yrs old though so
As someone who nabbed an old dell server and threw a rx580 8gb into it for a quick and cheap gaming PC. I had no idea about clover, and I've been using a pcie m.2 adapter for years. It's like this video was made specifically for me. Thanks Ltt.
@@strydyrhellzrydyr1345 you can get an old server, dells are actually really good on the server side. The numbering is r for rack, t for tower, 700 2u, 600 1u, 500 2u low end, 400 1u low end. The second number is generation. An r720 is a 2u rack server that is cheap and the oldest I would buy. The r 730 is the next Gen if that makes sense. This would be preferable due to name and pcie bifurcation support. You fan get like over 750w 80 plus titanium for these systems for dirt cheap. Extremely loud though
Incredible how you can even include an SSD into a system of this calibre if you plan carefully enough and know how to deal hunt. The level of responsiveness going from spinning rust makes such a world of difference.
Was he upgrading from an HDD or SATA III SSD? I don't think Linus would survive testing with the spinner. And I am also surprised that there is a noticeable difference in the responsiveness in Windows upgrading from SATA III to M.2.
Biggest upgrade ever. I got a intel 545s 512gb. And i'll never use a spinning HD again. (my next pc has the same m.2 shows in this video samsung 970 evo plus. brand new, $150 aus)
@@spyier53 There is some context you missing. On the WAN show around when this video came, Linus complains about sponsors. He doesn't like that they don't want to sponsor the whole video, just a segment. They are too cowardly to endorse all of the video.
I love watching these. I really wanna build a bunch of low budget PCs so my friends can come over and lan party classic games. Maybe an emulation station.
Finally some old school LTT low budget handywork, this is the kind of LTT i suscribed for, i'm glad they haven't completely lost the core concept of the channel
Honestly this is the first LTT video I've watched the entirety of in a long time. It's still a good channel but lost its roots. This was a nice refreshing one!
@@tehwabbbit A lot of that has, at least according to Linus, been externally imposed. Can't do budget builds or make sensible consumer recommendations when even secondhand parts are expensive or unavailable. They've had to focus on "expensive and flashy" at least in part because absolutely everything has been expensive.
if you look at some other tech videos like Jays he says it gets a little samey doing top tier builds cause him along with us sort of know what the performance will be but says he likes to do budget builds for the lowest amount cause you never know with prices what you can get together.I think they do it cause we like it and because they also have fun with it.Look at Linus he seems more excited about this build then he does with most of his high end computer builds.
Yeah, it was a very nice DIY video of budget building a computer. It had things that were a bit on the iffy side, like cutting and connecting wires all around the computer. Like I know Linus and the crew know what they're doing, but not doable to most people. Still amazing how much performance they got out of such low budget computers.
I have an M.2 adapter with 1 slot on it, it rocks. I just ordered another one with 2 slots on it! Fingers crossed it works just like the 1 slot. I was looking at 4TB SSDs and I realized I could get a 6 times faster 4TB M.2 for $10 more dollars.
The RX 580 is such a ridiculously good card when found for the right price. Got mine for $100 early 2020, and sold it to a fellow enthusiast for the same price about 4 months ago. Could've still gotten more for it, but didn't feel like scalping someone when I personally got it for such a good deal. It was the 8GB Sapphire Pulse model btw. Got me thru the pandemic, and kept up with everything I threw at it till I (finally) got a 3060ti.
I have an over $2000 computer and I still love watching these budget builds. It is so cool to see how much can be done with so little. Gives me something to recommend to my friends to get them off of consoles and actually able to play games with me.
same man, i wanna get into building pc’s as a hobby and these budget builds give me so much inspiration, im thinking about grabbing one of these and doing basically this build for a file server
Seeing how much even Linus is struggling here is the reason many people prefer consoles. It's fun to watch an expert at work. Not so fun when you try this at home...
Is a budget pc more worth than upgrading to the new consoles? I'm just worried I won't get the hang off a pc and if things go wrong it would be difficult to fix lol
These builds are incredibly awesome for someone with an extremely low budget. The problem I see with them it's that it only works well in the north American market, I've looked a lot in my local market and there isn't pretty much anything worth to buy to make a budget system. But either way these are so awesome to see!
i have the same issue, you can find reasonable deals if you're willing to clean or troubleshoot dirty parts. eg i grabbed a 4790k + 16gb ram pc with 1 tb hdd for 160 usd cause it was filthy.
@@valuehunter5544 lol you can't expect sparkly clean 7 year old computers. Most people will never open a side panel and that's just how it is. Consumers are lazy these days they don't want to do any maintenance or upkeep on anything they'd sooner throw it away and buy new or make it someone else's problem. That's the biggest issue is our wasteful and stupid society we've evolved into. Well, some of us lol
I used to do stuff like this before, still love watching this. Time can be turned into money, but when you can't you still can turn it into saving money and better performance. And the emotional attachment to a computer you hacked the hell out is just something else. And it makes you appreciate the expensive stuff later on much more, because you have experienced times when it wasn't that easy or even available. Besides things like this teaches you a shitload of stuff you probably never would learn otherwise.
CapitalOne being so needy requiring Linus to interrupt the middle of his video for an ad instead of waiting patiently until the end like 95% of LTT's other sponsors. Also very cool budget video definitely want more of these.
@@notenoughtime23 i guess it can help you save money while looking for parts although what's funny is that the last time i heard of capitalone, it was when they were sponsoring the verge pc build lol
This video tells me to do everything I was specifically told NOT to do during my first year of computer science at college back in the day, and I love you for it.
They likely told you that because these things require experience and confidence in your knowledge. Plenty of industries have things that are widely suggested against, but done by experts.
It's one of those things that if you did it in a professional environment, you'd at least raise eyebrows or at worst lose your job because of some company policy, service level agreement or yada yada.. but on a technical level is totally sound xD
@@ShinGidora I wasn't told anything but i learnt that you shouldn't go around jumping pins without thoroughly going through data sheets of the IC. Even then you're risking a short between Supply voltage and ground
I love that you don't just edit out all the frustrating moments we all experience when the Bios says No! I don't wanna allow you to upgrade without a fight.
Nvidia fanboys, my rx 580 is good with ancient i5 2400 budget build, it does require six pin power. Don't install win 11, I have 10 but 7 might be better?
Right? Unlimited-budget projects aren't impressive - sure, if you don't care how much you spend, yeah, you can do anything. Making a top-tier gaming rig for a few hundred dollars actually requires a strategy (and some janky workarounds, but that's ok). This is a legitimately impressive setup for a very attainable price point.
I love these repurposed-old-workstation videos. I got my start 3-4 years ago on a very used z440 and this reminds me of all the misadventures I had, looking for adapters and workarounds for its proprietary BS. I’ve long since switched to complete DIY builds but this stuff brings me back…and makes me want to dig my old z440 out of storage for more tinkering. 😅
Fellow Z440 user here. For the ease of use and installation I just bought the front fan. The custom bracket is to clear the PC speaker and some cabling. As for processor mine came with the 2680V3, which is a 12 core 24 thread unit. Finally for a GPU I grabbed a 2060 for about $250. All in at about $600 it's a very usable rig.
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Those wacky solutions to those problems were really interesting. I hope to see more projects like this one.
I had to do something similar in my build. I needed to plug my AIO into a USB header, but the case was using the only two headers on the MOBO (case has top USB and front memory card reader). Luckily one of them (I think the card reader) was only using one row of pins so I was able to de-pin the connector, transfer those pins to the unused row in the AIO's connector and everything works. AIO, USB, and card reader are all still fully functional.
@ I guess almost all of my social circle is STEM graduates and engineers now. To me, a "normal person" has no issue whatsoever dealing with those things... How do people who can't solve it deal with all of the other stuff which occasionally needs fixing, like fixing something in the household and whatnot?
When I was a kid, my dad's ongoing project was taking a little Datsun 510 and stuffing the largest engine and best suspension in it, and racing it on the weekends. He spent a lot of time in the garage hand-tuning and fabricating parts and brackets and suchlike and whatnot. This PC feels like the techie equivalent, and it warms my heart to see it. Love it!
Really Really Love these videos. I have much more money to spend with but this really would have helped me back when I had these sort of budgets. Still love watching them and refering people to them
Back in 2014 I bought a similar machine from my school for $20, except it was Core 2 Duo based. I upgraded it to a Core 2 Quad Q6600, a 750ti I found on Ebay, 8 GB RAM and a cheap SSD. That thing played almost every game I threw at it, assuming it was from the PS3/Xbox 360 generation. Not bad considering I invested about $100 into it.
Im trying to build a low.budget pc, im so ignorant that i was trying to buy an intel celeron G5900 with a motherboard (those thing cost a lot to hold that processor), can you help me a bit? I cant believe how cheap that processor you said is, just found it for X3 less price that the intel celeron. Can you link me with a combo or something? Maybe a good motherboard to hold that processor and that. Thanks.
@@juannunez4436 Intel Xeon E3-1220 V2 @ 3.10GHz is cheap. But it require a motherboard with socket LGA1155. Communicate with motherboard sellers and ask them about this socket motherboard, this processor is available cheap online.
I have that exact PC model and I used to use it and I loved it. I changed the graphics card out to a GT 1030 and it was pretty fast. It died 2 years ago and we haven't been able to fix it ever since. I would use it as a PC to stream my main computer, but we're not sure what the issue is.
one thing to note with the PCIe to NVMe adapters is to make sure you mount them on top of the GPU instead of the bottom, the gpu fans will blow hor air into the SSD and fry it I had it happened to me, not a pleasant experience
Favourite video in a while. Love the tinkering style, make it work type videos. I've got a pretty high end rig (until 4090 sunk it that is) and like the idea of building something else on the cheap maybe for my daughter, but know it'll take tinkering to actually run. Keep these up, they're interesting and fun to watch!
I've been using a Z420 for almost 5 years now, its a hell of a machine. Its awesome to see Linus and the crew give it the love it deserves! Im running mine on a 570, and also with the e5-2678W CPU, basically the same setup as in this vid! For anyone looking to get one: The solution I found to the CPU fan problem was to get the 5-pin HP proprietary fan that was made for the Z820. Its muuuch better than the stock fan, fit into my system no problem, and there's no risk of an AIO Water Cooler breaking inside my machine ( and I didnt have to mess with the fan pins)
Whilst I love tech and build a new PC every 3rd 4th year or so this type of video is vastly more important than just catering to people as myself following the latest hardware trends. There are a ton of people with very limited budget and often parents with kids that want to get into pc gaming. This video will surely be of great assistance to many such people.
just recently built a budget gaming pc for my kid for 200€ asus b150m-a, i5 7400 stock cooler , asus dual 1060, 2x4GB kingston HyperX, NOX case and 500w PSU, kingston 2.5" SSD 240GB, 500GB HDD running on a Dell Monitor that only does 900p it runs amazing. hadnt build a rig for like 20 years, have to admit I was more excited than my kid :)
@@yashasvirallabandi9070 Yeah, while this pc is good and can run games well, if he ever decides to change anything about it (add new parts, and stuff) it'll be a lot of troubleshooting and just a hassle. Rather than just being able to pop in a new ssd whenever you want, pop in a new cpu, change case easily without worrying about the 5pin and 4pin thing or anything else, etc.
@@Jasonsadventures That's actually a damn fine starting point for "upgrade-able workstation PC" There are a couple nice examples on ebay, most with 16gb in quad channel.
12:00 DO NOT ever cut off the ends of the heat pipes for any reason. I just saw a post on a forum the other day where someone was asking why their temps went so high after they build a new computer... They used side cutters to cut off the tips of the heatpipes on their CPU cooler in order to fit it into the case 🤦🏻♂🤦🏻♂
My previous employer had a ton of Z420 Workstations. We had boot SSDs on a card from HP. I remember we had to update the system's firmware and then the SSD appeared on the firmware's boot menu.
For single CPU (SandyBridge), both the HP Z420 and the DELL Precision T3600 are excellent considerations. Consider the E5-2689 (8C/16T, 2.6Ghz base/3.6Ghz turbo) with a TDP of only 115W. Price for this CPU is around $20, delivered. Stock proprietary cooler is enough. Spend the money on an SSD (and install the OS on this drive) and buy a PCIE card for an NVME m.2 drive for your games storage. I have the T5600 at our apartment, which I upgraded from dual E5-2667 to dual E5-2689. Did the other above upgrades and installed a GTX970 (though I prefer the RX580 approach in today's market). I acquired this Desktop server from my company after it was decommissioned. It was gifted free of charge, though I did offer to pay for it. I blinged the side panel by wrapping it with 3D-carbon vinyl wrap (that I purchased on AliExpress). Looks good. Also, bought a single use Win10Pro license for about $12 (make sure it is a retail version). GreenPCgamers on TH-cam has excellent upgrade scenarios for these rigs.
As I found out when trying to connect an nvme drive with a 2600k, you can also use UEFIDUET, a program similar to Clover, to enable that functionality. Worked like a charm, but the speed was limited to pcie gen 2.0 x4 speeds. Still was very snappy and more than enough
I've built a few computers like this and when looking online for research/inspiration, I always see arguments on forums & in comments sections about the OEM power supplies. I'd love to see a video in the future where you guys use your new power supply tester to test old used OEM's and their ability to run cards.
@@psttech4290 yea, the z420 's that came from the factory with a 6+ core cpu came with a 600w delta unit (the one in this video has I believe a 400w unit, forget which manufacturer). These older server psu's would probably test really well
I had to work with a HP Z420 Workstation before i started my own business. Seeing this thing again after so many years brings back some memories of CAD shenanigans.
I love these builds because they make me feel like a kid again, trying to get the most gaming performance I possibly could from my Sonic carhop tip money
@@ydfhlx5923 I think people just want the newest and greatest and don't realize you can do a lot with less.. but some of the next gen games use technology for games that the older cards dont fully support but for most cases that does not matter.
@@thecasualfly Unfortunately it's also because most graphically intensive modern AAA games just aren't worth playing anyways because it's more than likely they've dumped their money into visuals and neglected everything else. The games that are worth playing tend to run acceptably on a 750 ti or are indies that don't even need that.
There are no more low end cards out there that can also offer any kind of 3D performance, that's why those cards can still sell. And old mid range cards are much better options if power consumption is not a problem. I have an ancient HD 5670 that beats a somewhat more modern and still selling GT 710, thanks to the fact that it has more memory bandwidth(128bits vs 64 bits).
call me a lunatic, but the action of hotrodding a computer from whatever you can find and make it work and perform like a brand spanking new machine is awesome, it kinda gives a soul to your creation, it makes it truly yours
Been doing these for years for friends and family. A Refirbed Dell Optiplex tower + GPU that only needs mobo power. (1050ti, 1650, etc.) A good solid entry level PC for about $350.
So many people get caught up with getting 1440p 144hz and 4k 120hz that we forget that 1080p 60fps is a great starting place fo gaming. So many games don't need a huge GPU. Slay the Spire, FTL, Team Fortress 2. Basicly most games from 2010s can run on cheap hardware today :D
Except bloody and shittiley optimized minecraft which most people play it seems for some reason. That shit refused to run well on a 3060 paired with a 3600xt (by refused to run well I mean it wouldn't give me 120 fps in a few months old world)
Tbf for the same price u csn just get a console and get about the same performance if not more. U can get Series S's easily around $200 and play most new titles, and u get up to 1440p120hz in some games.
The rx580 displayed at the start was the 8gb OC version from sapphire. That's why it has more power require etc. Would be so much better to game on but as you say you have power supply issues.
hey linus, i actually have been using an hp z420 like this for about a year and a half and you can use ivy bridge xeons. HP added support for them in a later bios revision and all you have to do to gain support for them is update to the lastest bios. im currently using a E5-2697 v2 and 128gb of ram and it works without a hitch.
I believe there are are least two "versions" of the Z420 which can be determined by the date on the bootblock and version "1" doesn't support Ivy bridge. Unfortunately a BIOS upgrade doesn't change this bootblock but there are some hacks to upgrade it.
Very nice to see you guys using clover! I work everyday on a hp z800 with 2x5675s, rx570, 48gb ecc ram and nvme and on Mac OS using a clover based hackintosh! This machines are pretty good and stable for Mac OS, been using mine for the past 6 years with near zero downtime!
I enjoy the high end, wallet busting products but I think sometimes the channel gets a little heavy on covering that stuff. This kind of thing is also pretty awesome!
Not necessarily defending them because I don't know about the shopping ads you're talking about but I've had a credit card with them for years plus got my car financed through them and they've been awesome for me lol
The z420 is a legendary computer in the used PC space! I upgraded mine to an 8 core, 16 thread, xeon E5 1680 V2! (IMPORTANT!: Make sure the BIOS are up to date before upgrade!) The z420 isn't overclockable by normal means, but, I have found a way to mildly overclock it in the past. It just requires you being finicky with older versions of Intel XTU. However, it has to be re-adjusted every boot... and it power throttles under heavy load... Since that was so annoying, I gave up on it. Although, it can be said that while the ram can't be overclocked you could try and find ECC Ram with lower timings to improve performance. I ended up eventually upgrading to a Ryzen build and giving the z420 to my older brother. But that old workstation kept me going for quite a while, and is still kicking! My brother loves it!
Dude I tried everything to overclock my 1620 v2 lol I run Linux though so xtu wasn't an option. However I used cpu-power to set it to run at 100% 3.9 on 8 threads when playing games for a boost. I had it in an antec nine hundred case full of fans to keep it cool
this is one of the most fun vids ive seen from the channel in a while. really enjoyed the small details, and im excited for other niche-like budget builds.
I was pretty sure that the Z420 in the standard board configuration actually had a USB port on the motherboard just for situations like that bootloader, security keys, and so on, that can be locked inside the case ... in this case probably wasn't necessary to get the old header dongle. It could be ordered without it, but it's a handy feature in a ton of workstations and servers.
Both my servers have internal USB ports like that. Of course the HP Proliant refuses to boot from the internal USB if there are any other USB devices connected. 🙄
Very nice i always enjoy your videos i wish i could do what you just did because i try to build my first gaming PC and thing didn't go to well thanks you for all the info keep up the good work take good care of yourself and your love one stay safe.
the good old Z420.. even perfect for parents because it runs 100% stable and even has Firewire for old camcorders (or music equipment). Once i get one for 20EUR on a flea market with a Quadro M4000.
I cant believe the value I've gotten out of my 1650. videos like this are great to encourage people to do their research and build a machine on their terms!
I've had a GTX 1060 since like 2018 and it's still a great card for the vast majority of games. The biggest difference I noticed was actually using a SSD as a boot drive.
I have 100% done this process and was laughing so hard with all these work arounds. Yeah, I had to buy all those adapters, yes I had to press F1 each time I started my computer. I feel like I'm watching myself make this build lol
A tip for people PC part shopping: Try to see if you have a local college surplus store. Sometimes, you can score good deals from the old devices they're phasing out. I'm waiting until I can build a $2k budget PC, but I did get a nice old monitor for $50.
I just picked up a tiny Lenovo PC from a place like this. I7 6700T, 16GB ddr4, 256GB ssd, and very quiet for what it is. About the same as a normal laptop.
The Z420 (and probably other workstations in this series) have a handy little feature behind the mobo to be aware of, there is a latch built into the cooler back plate that hooks it into the chassis. More support for potentially heavy coolers. You just have to slide the mobo (up, I think) a bit to make it release. I wish all of them had this. I chose the E5-2690's because they were VERY cheap on eBay. Have upgraded 8 of these machines.
I cannot express how much I am grateful for this video. The format of showing small continuous upgrades really helps. My old PC broke, and I was doing fine with my budget laptop for web browsing and schoolwork, until I started to want to play my PC games again. I can convince my parents to contribute money to revivng and upgrading my old PC. I can work with the engineering teacher at my school during office hours and my dad who is an aerospace engineer with a P.H.D. in mechinical engineering a bit, because while I may be more technically inclined than some people, I am not a god. I have little to no electrical knowledge.
This was an awesome video because this is what us normal people go through on a daily basis.. janky solutions are the root of all IT things and exactly how we manage to get buy without emptying our pockets year-in-year-out because of planned obsolescence. Thank you! Appreciate this
I really like these budget options, but all the workarounds require quite some skill. Which, the person who would spend this amount of money on a pc, probably doesnt have. Still amazing what you can get for 269$
I recently got two Z240 workstations (slightly different, newer I think) for $250 total from an auction, it was a pretty incredible deal. Came with 512gb M.2 NVMe drives One went to my mother as is and gave the other one to my friend and he will get a decent GPU for it eventually, he's just had a really tight budget so I'm glad I was able to get him something and he can spend whatever budget he has on a simple GPU upgrade
With the current market there isn't really more to add. Either buy super old shit or buy a console if all you want is gaming on a "budget" (and a console with a disc/physical reader obviously, 2nd hand physical game are much cheaper than console locked demat stores)
This is why the ddr3 generation was so good, for the first time xeons into consumer sockets with soldering or adapters, used server hardware being so much cheaper due to it being misunderstood at the time
You did a good job of showing some of the issues that upgrading old prebuilts can give. Would have been nice to have had a warning that some old Dells require connections from the original case in order to boot making a case transplant extremely hard if not impossible. Research is everything when it comes to buying old prebuilds with the intention to upgrade them.
I had a very similar setup (z420, NVMe adapter) with an E5-1650. It was pretty good. I ran an RTX 2060. You can get a 6-pin to dual 6-pin splitter to power the 2060 and it works just fine. I still have the machine (sans the video card) running vSphere and video surveillance.
Pro tip since I also used an HP Z420 for a while: DO NOT DAMAGE THE AMBIENT TEMP SENSOR IN THE FRONT OF THE CASE! It being disconnected or damaged will cause all the fans (including the PSU fan) to run at 100% all the time, it’s extremely annoying
Reminds me of the iMac. A relative brought me an older iMac about 7 years ago. I replaced the hard drive and forgot to plug in the HDD temp sensor. It worked fine but I noticed the fan would ramp up to 100% after a few seconds of booting up.
What I love about computers is there are always jank workarounds for unsupported workflows. What I love more is that these jank workarounds have remained almost the same since I was a kid, so it's like reliving the glory days of piecing together whatever pieces you could afford on odd jobs
I have a z420 I used for production until I spotted a deal for a z620 dual processor. I used an SATA ssd for boot and a 2TB drive for storage. I got an E5-2667 v2 which is almost the same speed as yours, (same turbo) but allows for a slightly lower TDP of 130. I kept the stock cooler and paired the CPU with a M6000 GPU for rendering. All the fans ramp up during rendering, but stay well below throttle. The machine was very fast and responsive, even in the occasional game. It's retired now and performing PLEX server duties, just fine. That butcher job you did was uncalled for.
Budget Builds are so underrated. Media and many creators make you believe you need the latest and greatest. A friend of me still plays at 1080p. He does not need a 500€ GPU. It's simple as that. Don't waste your money is all I wanted to say.
I want more budget projects like these. It's really fun to see what you can build with a low budget if you play your cards right.
I agree
oh my god, I think this is finally some tech tips I can use and try: finally 😅😂
I see what you did there... 🙄
yeah i bought a infected and old/dust pc from a shop, it was £200 and it had a gtx 1060 6gb , 4gb ddr3 800mhz ram and a fx4300, i put in 16gb ddr3 1600mhz ram, fx 6300, i swapped the stock cooler for a cooler master hyper 212 led, and i still have the 1060, i get 53fps on nearly every tripple a title on 1440p medium, in total i spent £380 and i get really GOOD thermals and i am trying to put in a 512 gb kingston sata ssd
@@Druzhh yeah, triple A of 7 years ago maybe, lol
I'd like to see that on horizon zero dawn, god of war, dying light 2, cyberpunk...
I can't be that stable with a 2060 and a Ryzen 2600 in 1440p in some newer games, lol
Also, 53 fps is such a specific number
VERY IMPORTANT: 12:26 if someone is actually doing the same in a similar way (drilling or removing metal parts from the case) make sure to sand it down or atleast use a vacum cleaner to remove all of the metal dust to avoid the chance of any of them falling on the motherboard or get sucked up by some fans, this could kill your components as it could short some stuff or it can cause other damage to your hardware and potentially start a fire
This could also kill you, but it is less important than your motherboard, protect the motherboard at all costs
or, you know, buy cpu cooler that actually fits lol
@@ragazoub Motherboard > Humanlife.
Or just play case-less and don’t care about dust 😅
@@OneShotCS o_O
This is just like watching Top Gear. Their segments of “here’s 1200 bucks, buy a car and travel across the country” were always the best and much funnier then seeing some new HyperCar from Rivian or whatever. These budget PC builds are a joy to watch. Keep ‘em coming
Glad there is an audience for normal Budget builds too. I plan to do these in the future too 🙏
The dis against Tesla was well made.
actually british top gear watcher 👀
"Oooooh, feel that low end powaaaaaah!" -- Linus Clarkstian
I'm just imagining the response you'd get from Jeremy or James for using the word 'bucks'. It's a British show, they were given a £1000 budget.
Rare thing for a huge channel to value every last bit of $ spent on a gaming PC. I approve the effort man :D
Budget builds are always really cool to see!
Yup for people like us. Yup
Glad to read that people are interested in "normal" builds as well. I plan some in the future 🙏
True. I wish LTT did more of these budget/"normal" pc content. This is way more interesting and relatable to me than some crazy fan that costs hundreds of dollars.
Agreed!
These builds are more important for the pc building community than generic top spec branded PC over 2000$ in price.
I have never heard a sponsor segment with the sponsors name in it so much. After Linus' commentary on the WAN show about the whole "thanks for sponsoring THAT part of the viceo" makes this segment hilarious.
But where's the WAN show. Isn't the address edited out yet? I can't workout without it. :(
@@mutant69 TH-cam is taking forever to process it
@@sandmaster4444 No. Linus leaked sensitive information by accident. Video is being edited
Have YOU SEEN IBM sponsorships...
@@mutant69 Apprently he leaked his address on the show so they're editing it.
Another top tech tip: Search around because *sometimes* there are modified BIOS images which can bypass arbitrary locks/blocks. Not always recommended but can be useful for those really annoying error messages which don't need to be there
Yo ima add this to your comment bro- For the more casual or novice pc builders, the only BIOS/UEFI changes you should be making is updating to the most up to date one from the boards official website.
If you are not 100% confident and know EXACTLY what you're doing when flashing a BIOS/UEFI image that IS NOT provided for that board by its manufacturer, DONT do this. If you are already budgeting your build components, running the risk of making a miniscule mistake and completely bricking your motherboard just doesn't outweigh the rewards here. There are a lot of lessons you can afford to learn the hard way, any lesson involving your BIOS/UEFI is not one of the ones you ever want to have to trial by error to learn. Take the extra time, spend 10 more dollars or so.
To those who know what they're doing however, this is a great idea and would really expedite the completion of your build. I would check beforehand however and make sure that wherever you're getting your BIOS/UEFI from, is consistently updating it so that you aren't left with any vulnerabilities like a day zero or something that was patched by the board manufacturers but was unknown to whoever provided your modified BIOS/UEFI.
yes, I have a T440p with a modern wifi card in it because I was able to patch out the wifi whitelist, you should be able to find a bioa patch if the computer is popular enough
exactly this. thats how I used to run SLI on my old `asus p6t se` board. the non SE had SLI support, but they dropped it for the SE, the only real differences in the board were a lack of fdd connector and a few less sata ports (the non se had a port multiplier built in, so no real loss). I found a modified p6t bios and was able to cross flash it and run SLI no problem.
HP is a nightmare regarding using non-standard components in their PCs and workstations. They literally don't want you upgrading ANYTHING without getting their whole upgrade package OR just getting a new PC or workstation. To be fair, Dell and Lenovo are up to the same tricks. The worst it typically using a non-standard PSU, meaning that you can't replace it with a standard model in case you need to upgrade or if it breaks.
It doesn't really matter unless ur going to do super super intensive gaming with really high end hardware, but most people will never.
For example, I have nearly the exact same Build (except a bit better), and it fucking kicks every games ass.
My build is the HP z440 workstation, and it comes standard with a 700w PSU that can support my 1080ti and let me tell you, I haven't found Any game this system can't play, and tremendously at that!
I mean, I'm playing the latest and greatest triple AAA titles and never fall below 60fps @1080p on MAX settings! Infact, it almost always gets 60fps+, this thing is a Champ!
Yes, it's true. You won't be using a rtx 4090 on this thing anytime soon, and you'll never get 200fps+. But for $200 for the system + $200 for the 1080ti, this is a great value!!!
I regularly get 80-110 fps @1080p MAX settings on newer games, this thing is no slouch!
Which brand is better
dell isnt that bad, had a prebuilt that was shit, not dell, and upgraded it to some old dell parts i had (mobo cpu ram all came from old dell pc) (every other part was from prebuilt). never had an issue with changing the ram or any fan errors or anything like that. never changed cpu but cooler was changed a few times and still never ran into an issue with dell bios/compatibility, although i did burn out one of the ram slots. board was like 10 yrs old though so
@@tristanheaton2127 dell is best when swapping parts probably
As someone who nabbed an old dell server and threw a rx580 8gb into it for a quick and cheap gaming PC. I had no idea about clover, and I've been using a pcie m.2 adapter for years. It's like this video was made specifically for me. Thanks Ltt.
How many fps do you get ? And at which resolution and detail ?
Lol nice! Hardware hacks for life! I've had unauthorized hardware and software working in machines with windows, Mac os, and even game consoles.
An old server... Mannnn... This chann makes me feel so dumb...
Do you know of any good videos on what to buy on the cheap.. to make a ok game rig...
Yeah man I had a optiplex that couldn't boot from nvme, clover would have been such a lifesaver
@@strydyrhellzrydyr1345 you can get an old server, dells are actually really good on the server side. The numbering is r for rack, t for tower, 700 2u, 600 1u, 500 2u low end, 400 1u low end. The second number is generation. An r720 is a 2u rack server that is cheap and the oldest I would buy. The r 730 is the next Gen if that makes sense. This would be preferable due to name and pcie bifurcation support. You fan get like over 750w 80 plus titanium for these systems for dirt cheap. Extremely loud though
Incredible how you can even include an SSD into a system of this calibre if you plan carefully enough and know how to deal hunt. The level of responsiveness going from spinning rust makes such a world of difference.
not any ssd...its freaking pcie m.2 ssd😱
Was he upgrading from an HDD or SATA III SSD? I don't think Linus would survive testing with the spinner. And I am also surprised that there is a noticeable difference in the responsiveness in Windows upgrading from SATA III to M.2.
Biggest upgrade ever. I got a intel 545s 512gb. And i'll never use a spinning HD again. (my next pc has the same m.2 shows in this video samsung 970 evo plus. brand new, $150 aus)
Um wut ssd is super cheap
@@researchandbuild1751 depends on the ssd model
So BRAVE of Capitol One to sponsor that ENTIRE segment of video.
How so
@@spyier53 There is some context you missing. On the WAN show around when this video came, Linus complains about sponsors. He doesn't like that they don't want to sponsor the whole video, just a segment. They are too cowardly to endorse all of the video.
@@H_elios oh ok thanks
@@H_elios so he's complaining that they don't give him more money?
@@ProntoLamaticthey’re probably complaining because viewers get annoyed by “sponsoring this portion of the video” bit. That’s annoying as hell IMO
I love watching these. I really wanna build a bunch of low budget PCs so my friends can come over and lan party classic games. Maybe an emulation station.
Have u ever made a batocera machine? It's not hard and it is fun
@@humanbeingfromearth raspberry pi 4 is still a fantastic option for this
I’m down to show up lol I wanna build a pc but I’m not really funded for a badass one and I need to know what to do lol
that's so cool your house will be an arcade
It fun more fun to watch these budget builds than "super high end" kind of builds
Definitely because as fun as seeing what's currently possible to achieve, the story behind a cheap build is better
Agreed!
@@ewensimon2608 you could still think of it as what's currently possible to achieve, just within a budget
Well high end builds would also be entertaining to watch. But the answer to any problem there is just "Throw more money at it".
@@andreit1685 Yeah not really as creative as budget builds
Finally some old school LTT low budget handywork, this is the kind of LTT i suscribed for, i'm glad they haven't completely lost the core concept of the channel
Honestly this is the first LTT video I've watched the entirety of in a long time. It's still a good channel but lost its roots. This was a nice refreshing one!
@@tehwabbbit A lot of that has, at least according to Linus, been externally imposed. Can't do budget builds or make sensible consumer recommendations when even secondhand parts are expensive or unavailable. They've had to focus on "expensive and flashy" at least in part because absolutely everything has been expensive.
if you look at some other tech videos like Jays he says it gets a little samey doing top tier builds cause him along with us sort of know what the performance will be but says he likes to do budget builds for the lowest amount cause you never know with prices what you can get together.I think they do it cause we like it and because they also have fun with it.Look at Linus he seems more excited about this build then he does with most of his high end computer builds.
that sounded underhanded lmao
Yeah, it was a very nice DIY video of budget building a computer. It had things that were a bit on the iffy side, like cutting and connecting wires all around the computer. Like I know Linus and the crew know what they're doing, but not doable to most people. Still amazing how much performance they got out of such low budget computers.
would love to see a whole lot more budget builds. they are always so creative and fun. thank you again for your content
I had no idea M2 adapters like that existed! Definitely going to be useful next time I spot a really good deal on a drive.
m.2 makesn't a url
thanks
@@WohaoG what?
@@notme9049 B'sn't A
I have an M.2 adapter with 1 slot on it, it rocks. I just ordered another one with 2 slots on it! Fingers crossed it works just like the 1 slot. I was looking at 4TB SSDs and I realized I could get a 6 times faster 4TB M.2 for $10 more dollars.
Serious game changer for old pc collecting dust.
The RX 580 is such a ridiculously good card when found for the right price. Got mine for $100 early 2020, and sold it to a fellow enthusiast for the same price about 4 months ago. Could've still gotten more for it, but didn't feel like scalping someone when I personally got it for such a good deal. It was the 8GB Sapphire Pulse model btw. Got me thru the pandemic, and kept up with everything I threw at it till I (finally) got a 3060ti.
god bless people like you
Same, except with a 570 8gb
@@kurnma3776 for me its rx 570 4gb haha
tell me lad you did not buy a gigabyte 3060ti... this shit reeks of chineese worst kind of plastic... msi 3060ti all the way in.
I am getting a new pc. Should i go for rx 6600
I have an over $2000 computer and I still love watching these budget builds. It is so cool to see how much can be done with so little. Gives me something to recommend to my friends to get them off of consoles and actually able to play games with me.
same man, i wanna get into building pc’s as a hobby and these budget builds give me so much inspiration, im thinking about grabbing one of these and doing basically this build for a file server
Mine is about 800 dollars maybe 900
I got a 500 euros used gaming laptop
Seeing how much even Linus is struggling here is the reason many people prefer consoles.
It's fun to watch an expert at work.
Not so fun when you try this at home...
Is a budget pc more worth than upgrading to the new consoles? I'm just worried I won't get the hang off a pc and if things go wrong it would be difficult to fix lol
These builds are incredibly awesome for someone with an extremely low budget. The problem I see with them it's that it only works well in the north American market, I've looked a lot in my local market and there isn't pretty much anything worth to buy to make a budget system.
But either way these are so awesome to see!
i have the same issue, you can find reasonable deals if you're willing to clean or troubleshoot dirty parts. eg i grabbed a 4790k + 16gb ram pc with 1 tb hdd for 160 usd cause it was filthy.
@@valuehunter5544 lol you can't expect sparkly clean 7 year old computers. Most people will never open a side panel and that's just how it is. Consumers are lazy these days they don't want to do any maintenance or upkeep on anything they'd sooner throw it away and buy new or make it someone else's problem. That's the biggest issue is our wasteful and stupid society we've evolved into. Well, some of us lol
I feel like buying new parts as smart as possible and then using it for a loooong time works better in most markets.
@@MrTytyjohn64
A WiFi USB dongle is 10 bucks? A PCIe card around 15? I think you can save much more than that with a simpler mainboard.
@@MrTytyjohn64 I can't find any good used parts to build a decent PC at that price in Europe.
I used to do stuff like this before, still love watching this. Time can be turned into money, but when you can't you still can turn it into saving money and better performance. And the emotional attachment to a computer you hacked the hell out is just something else. And it makes you appreciate the expensive stuff later on much more, because you have experienced times when it wasn't that easy or even available.
Besides things like this teaches you a shitload of stuff you probably never would learn otherwise.
CapitalOne being so needy requiring Linus to interrupt the middle of his video for an ad instead of waiting patiently until the end like 95% of LTT's other sponsors.
Also very cool budget video definitely want more of these.
It was delightfully short tho
Thats probably a big markup
Ltt should stay away from advertising that encourages debt lots of teenagers watch thus. Advertise something that promotes saving instead
@@notenoughtime23 who wouldn't want money though.
@@notenoughtime23 i guess it can help you save money while looking for parts
although what's funny is that the last time i heard of capitalone, it was when they were sponsoring the verge pc build lol
This video tells me to do everything I was specifically told NOT to do during my first year of computer science at college back in the day, and I love you for it.
I’m curious what they told you not to do in computer science! I’d love to hear it
@@ShinGidora probably to not beak out the drill/Dremel.
They likely told you that because these things require experience and confidence in your knowledge. Plenty of industries have things that are widely suggested against, but done by experts.
It's one of those things that if you did it in a professional environment, you'd at least raise eyebrows or at worst lose your job because of some company policy, service level agreement or yada yada.. but on a technical level is totally sound xD
@@ShinGidora I wasn't told anything but i learnt that you shouldn't go around jumping pins without thoroughly going through data sheets of the IC. Even then you're risking a short between Supply voltage and ground
Linus should make more builds like these, its always so interesting and entertaining
There was the scrapyard wars series he did for a while. If you haven't already, you should check them out.
do it yourself ?
@@KillerPojo12🤓
I love that you don't just edit out all the frustrating moments we all experience when the Bios says No! I don't wanna allow you to upgrade without a fight.
I'm imagining you just tackling your bios and jamming a firmware update down it's throat. "IT'S... FOR... YOUR OWN... GOOD!!!"
Nvidia fanboys, my rx 580 is good with ancient i5 2400 budget build, it does require six pin power. Don't install win 11, I have 10 but 7 might be better?
This is just amazing! Please do more builds like these rather than super expensive ones
Right? Unlimited-budget projects aren't impressive - sure, if you don't care how much you spend, yeah, you can do anything. Making a top-tier gaming rig for a few hundred dollars actually requires a strategy (and some janky workarounds, but that's ok).
This is a legitimately impressive setup for a very attainable price point.
I love these repurposed-old-workstation videos. I got my start 3-4 years ago on a very used z440 and this reminds me of all the misadventures I had, looking for adapters and workarounds for its proprietary BS. I’ve long since switched to complete DIY builds but this stuff brings me back…and makes me want to dig my old z440 out of storage for more tinkering. 😅
Fellow Z440 user here. For the ease of use and installation I just bought the front fan. The custom bracket is to clear the PC speaker and some cabling. As for processor mine came with the 2680V3, which is a 12 core 24 thread unit. Finally for a GPU I grabbed a 2060 for about $250. All in at about $600 it's a very usable rig.
Those wacky solutions to those problems were really interesting. I hope to see more projects like this one.
Imagine a normal person trying to figure out how to solve all these problems.
@@jacobnunya808 That PC will soon find its way to the trash if a normal person encounters those issues.
I had to do something similar in my build. I needed to plug my AIO into a USB header, but the case was using the only two headers on the MOBO (case has top USB and front memory card reader). Luckily one of them (I think the card reader) was only using one row of pins so I was able to de-pin the connector, transfer those pins to the unused row in the AIO's connector and everything works. AIO, USB, and card reader are all still fully functional.
@ I guess almost all of my social circle is STEM graduates and engineers now. To me, a "normal person" has no issue whatsoever dealing with those things... How do people who can't solve it deal with all of the other stuff which occasionally needs fixing, like fixing something in the household and whatnot?
LOVE these budget build videos. Well done! According to AnandTech this CPU's MSRP was $2141 in 2014. Damn!!
When I was a kid, my dad's ongoing project was taking a little Datsun 510 and stuffing the largest engine and best suspension in it, and racing it on the weekends. He spent a lot of time in the garage hand-tuning and fabricating parts and brackets and suchlike and whatnot. This PC feels like the techie equivalent, and it warms my heart to see it. Love it!
@@kurtlamprecht93 ☹️
Really Really Love these videos. I have much more money to spend with but this really would have helped me back when I had these sort of budgets. Still love watching them and refering people to them
Back in 2014 I bought a similar machine from my school for $20, except it was Core 2 Duo based. I upgraded it to a Core 2 Quad Q6600, a 750ti I found on Ebay, 8 GB RAM and a cheap SSD. That thing played almost every game I threw at it, assuming it was from the PS3/Xbox 360 generation. Not bad considering I invested about $100 into it.
Im trying to build a low.budget pc, im so ignorant that i was trying to buy an intel celeron G5900 with a motherboard (those thing cost a lot to hold that processor), can you help me a bit? I cant believe how cheap that processor you said is, just found it for X3 less price that the intel celeron. Can you link me with a combo or something? Maybe a good motherboard to hold that processor and that. Thanks.
Can you maybe recommend something more of 2010>? As processor i mean
@@juannunez4436 go for intel xeon processors
@@juannunez4436 6 core 8mb can be found in just 10 dollars
@@juannunez4436 Intel Xeon E3-1220 V2 @ 3.10GHz is cheap. But it require a motherboard with socket LGA1155. Communicate with motherboard sellers and ask them about this socket motherboard, this processor is available cheap online.
I have that exact PC model and I used to use it and I loved it. I changed the graphics card out to a GT 1030 and it was pretty fast. It died 2 years ago and we haven't been able to fix it ever since. I would use it as a PC to stream my main computer, but we're not sure what the issue is.
one thing to note with the PCIe to NVMe adapters is to make sure you mount them on top of the GPU instead of the bottom, the gpu fans will blow hor air into the SSD and fry it
I had it happened to me, not a pleasant experience
Favourite video in a while. Love the tinkering style, make it work type videos. I've got a pretty high end rig (until 4090 sunk it that is) and like the idea of building something else on the cheap maybe for my daughter, but know it'll take tinkering to actually run. Keep these up, they're interesting and fun to watch!
More please, with alternative base systems. This is really useful stuff.
I upgraded from a WD blue HDD to a 970 last week and it's so much snappier.
underrated comment
bro my hdd drive was 350mb speed on start and its 25mb speed even if empty
I've been using a Z420 for almost 5 years now, its a hell of a machine. Its awesome to see Linus and the crew give it the love it deserves! Im running mine on a 570, and also with the e5-2678W CPU, basically the same setup as in this vid!
For anyone looking to get one: The solution I found to the CPU fan problem was to get the 5-pin HP proprietary fan that was made for the Z820. Its muuuch better than the stock fan, fit into my system no problem, and there's no risk of an AIO Water Cooler breaking inside my machine ( and I didnt have to mess with the fan pins)
im running a 220 and its surreal seeing linus look at my computer (come on the case is strikingly similar)
This is why I'm glad I fuckin' mine the comments. Thank you.
Whilst I love tech and build a new PC every 3rd 4th year or so this type of video is vastly more important than just catering to people as myself following the latest hardware trends.
There are a ton of people with very limited budget and often parents with kids that want to get into pc gaming. This video will surely be of great assistance to many such people.
Linus just said the other day in wan show that he doesn't like when sponsors force creators to say "a portion of this video"
It's sad but the sponsors pay good :))
I think that's why he include multiple instances of it to make sure they're still sponsor another "portion" of the video
I wonder how nice the check was. Capital also forced them to throw in the sponsor segment mid vid instead of at the end too
Yeah and it's particularly annoying the way it's done... There's what? 3-4 sponsor spots for the same exact thing?
@@gcc989 why do u say capital one forced them to do it? They do it every video with different sponsors
just recently built a budget gaming pc for my kid for 200€
asus b150m-a, i5 7400 stock cooler , asus dual 1060, 2x4GB kingston HyperX, NOX case and 500w PSU, kingston 2.5" SSD 240GB, 500GB HDD
running on a Dell Monitor that only does 900p it runs amazing.
hadnt build a rig for like 20 years, have to admit I was more excited than my kid :)
Gosh, these budget builds make me want to buy parts right now instead of saving for a better computer.
At least if you save up you'll have brand new parts that'll hopefully work for a long time, better performance and warranty.
The dell T5810 can run the E3 2860 V4 14 core Xeon and ddr4. It's what I run
@@yashasvirallabandi9070 Yeah, while this pc is good and can run games well, if he ever decides to change anything about it (add new parts, and stuff) it'll be a lot of troubleshooting and just a hassle. Rather than just being able to pop in a new ssd whenever you want, pop in a new cpu, change case easily without worrying about the 5pin and 4pin thing or anything else, etc.
nah save for a better pc, just have patience
@@Jasonsadventures That's actually a damn fine starting point for "upgrade-able workstation PC" There are a couple nice examples on ebay, most with 16gb in quad channel.
12:00 DO NOT ever cut off the ends of the heat pipes for any reason. I just saw a post on a forum the other day where someone was asking why their temps went so high after they build a new computer... They used side cutters to cut off the tips of the heatpipes on their CPU cooler in order to fit it into the case 🤦🏻♂🤦🏻♂
My previous employer had a ton of Z420 Workstations. We had boot SSDs on a card from HP. I remember we had to update the system's firmware and then the SSD appeared on the firmware's boot menu.
For single CPU (SandyBridge), both the HP Z420 and the DELL Precision T3600 are excellent considerations. Consider the E5-2689 (8C/16T, 2.6Ghz base/3.6Ghz turbo) with a TDP of only 115W. Price for this CPU is around $20, delivered. Stock proprietary cooler is enough. Spend the money on an SSD (and install the OS on this drive) and buy a PCIE card for an NVME m.2 drive for your games storage.
I have the T5600 at our apartment, which I upgraded from dual E5-2667 to dual E5-2689. Did the other above upgrades and installed a GTX970 (though I prefer the RX580 approach in today's market). I acquired this Desktop server from my company after it was decommissioned. It was gifted free of charge, though I did offer to pay for it. I blinged the side panel by wrapping it with 3D-carbon vinyl wrap (that I purchased on AliExpress). Looks good. Also, bought a single use Win10Pro license for about $12 (make sure it is a retail version).
GreenPCgamers on TH-cam has excellent upgrade scenarios for these rigs.
As I found out when trying to connect an nvme drive with a 2600k, you can also use UEFIDUET, a program similar to Clover, to enable that functionality. Worked like a charm, but the speed was limited to pcie gen 2.0 x4 speeds. Still was very snappy and more than enough
I've built a few computers like this and when looking online for research/inspiration, I always see arguments on forums & in comments sections about the OEM power supplies. I'd love to see a video in the future where you guys use your new power supply tester to test old used OEM's and their ability to run cards.
have to bare in mind, a lot of those oem psu's are done by manufacturers like fsp. they may look like chinese crap but they really aren't
@@psttech4290 yea, the z420 's that came from the factory with a 6+ core cpu came with a 600w delta unit (the one in this video has I believe a 400w unit, forget which manufacturer). These older server psu's would probably test really well
These budget videos are always fantastic.
Glad there is an audience for normal Budget builds too. I plan to do these in the future too 🙏
I'm really happy that they have budget versions like these, too bad the shipping fee in our country is higher than the retail price :(
I’d love to see more budget build from you in the future :)
I am glad the audience likes Budget builds as I am going to make them in the future 🙏
I had to work with a HP Z420 Workstation before i started my own business. Seeing this thing again after so many years brings back some memories of CAD shenanigans.
I used those for CAD in high school. It was pretty sick. Too bad the Quadro 600 was so underpowered.
Im glad this portion of the video was better than that portion of the video, thanks Linus!
17:22 You can just get an nVMe to PCIe card and use your nVMe drive as storage and boot from a SATA SSD too.....
I love these builds because they make me feel like a kid again, trying to get the most gaming performance I possibly could from my Sonic carhop tip money
The fact you can still get $30 for a 10+ year old GPU is actually quite impressive (the 760 is a rebadged 670).
The fact they you can get a $50-70 GPU with 8GB buffer (RX 580) is equally insane IMHO.
@@ydfhlx5923 I think people just want the newest and greatest and don't realize you can do a lot with less.. but some of the next gen games use technology for games that the older cards dont fully support but for most cases that does not matter.
@@thecasualfly Unfortunately it's also because most graphically intensive modern AAA games just aren't worth playing anyways because it's more than likely they've dumped their money into visuals and neglected everything else. The games that are worth playing tend to run acceptably on a 750 ti or are indies that don't even need that.
There are no more low end cards out there that can also offer any kind of 3D performance, that's why those cards can still sell. And old mid range cards are much better options if power consumption is not a problem. I have an ancient HD 5670 that beats a somewhat more modern and still selling GT 710, thanks to the fact that it has more memory bandwidth(128bits vs 64 bits).
@@strilight TRUE
😭 budget builds never get old, too many people feel like they need to get those new silicon to game
I don't care about having the latest, I care about reliability and longevity
call me a lunatic, but the action of hotrodding a computer from whatever you can find and make it work and perform like a brand spanking new machine is awesome, it kinda gives a soul to your creation, it makes it truly yours
I had that workstation for most of my childhood but with a Quadro 2000 instead of the GPU in the video, I upgraded from it last month, this is trippy.
Been doing these for years for friends and family. A Refirbed Dell Optiplex tower + GPU that only needs mobo power. (1050ti, 1650, etc.) A good solid entry level PC for about $350.
So many people get caught up with getting 1440p 144hz and 4k 120hz that we forget that 1080p 60fps is a great starting place fo gaming. So many games don't need a huge GPU.
Slay the Spire, FTL, Team Fortress 2. Basicly most games from 2010s can run on cheap hardware today :D
Except bloody and shittiley optimized minecraft which most people play it seems for some reason.
That shit refused to run well on a 3060 paired with a 3600xt (by refused to run well I mean it wouldn't give me 120 fps in a few months old world)
Tbf for the same price u csn just get a console and get about the same performance if not more. U can get Series S's easily around $200 and play most new titles, and u get up to 1440p120hz in some games.
Got a gaming Lenovo laptop for $500 on Black Friday. Added 32gb ram and 1tb ssd for $150. 244 fps on graphics highest.
Which one did u get?
Lol hell no quit lying lol. The graphics card and cpu that come in those versions cant even handle that much fps
Please, more of this budget focused build! That was the heart of the content with PC build wars with Luke that got me hooked into PCs with LTT ♥️
What pc is Linus using? 3:25 there are no ram plugged in!
at 0:34 "...or even 420 dollars. Spoiler alert, it's gonna get really FAST..." he should have said HIGH...it was right there...
I imagine that the fifth pin wasn't for another fan, but for the pump in the liquid cooler.
Which acts like a fan, even using the same header layout in *normal* computers.
@@Jmcgee1125 indeed
The rx580 displayed at the start was the 8gb OC version from sapphire. That's why it has more power require etc. Would be so much better to game on but as you say you have power supply issues.
hey linus, i actually have been using an hp z420 like this for about a year and a half and you can use ivy bridge xeons. HP added support for them in a later bios revision and all you have to do to gain support for them is update to the lastest bios. im currently using a E5-2697 v2 and 128gb of ram and it works without a hitch.
I believe there are are least two "versions" of the Z420 which can be determined by the date on the bootblock and version "1" doesn't support Ivy bridge. Unfortunately a BIOS upgrade doesn't change this bootblock but there are some hacks to upgrade it.
Only the later ones support Ivy Bridge. Same thing on Lenovo ThinkStation S30, mine is a Sandy-only version so I use a Xeon E5-2690.
Very nice to see you guys using clover! I work everyday on a hp z800 with 2x5675s, rx570, 48gb ecc ram and nvme and on Mac OS using a clover based hackintosh! This machines are pretty good and stable for Mac OS, been using mine for the past 6 years with near zero downtime!
I enjoy the high end, wallet busting products but I think sometimes the channel gets a little heavy on covering that stuff. This kind of thing is also pretty awesome!
capital one shopping is so annoying and misleading in their ads
I literally got that ad right before this video too 😂
Why would you ever watch ads anyway?
@@SucculentSpaz talking about the sponsor in the video
I kept closing the video until the ad stopped
Not necessarily defending them because I don't know about the shopping ads you're talking about but I've had a credit card with them for years plus got my car financed through them and they've been awesome for me lol
The z420 is a legendary computer in the used PC space! I upgraded mine to an 8 core, 16 thread, xeon E5 1680 V2! (IMPORTANT!: Make sure the BIOS are up to date before upgrade!) The z420 isn't overclockable by normal means, but, I have found a way to mildly overclock it in the past. It just requires you being finicky with older versions of Intel XTU. However, it has to be re-adjusted every boot... and it power throttles under heavy load... Since that was so annoying, I gave up on it. Although, it can be said that while the ram can't be overclocked you could try and find ECC Ram with lower timings to improve performance. I ended up eventually upgrading to a Ryzen build and giving the z420 to my older brother. But that old workstation kept me going for quite a while, and is still kicking! My brother loves it!
Dude I tried everything to overclock my 1620 v2 lol I run Linux though so xtu wasn't an option. However I used cpu-power to set it to run at 100% 3.9 on 8 threads when playing games for a boost. I had it in an antec nine hundred case full of fans to keep it cool
Great video. I especially enjoyed that portion of the video sponsored by capital one shopping
Which portion was it? Linus didn't specify.
this is one of the most fun vids ive seen from the channel in a while. really enjoyed the small details, and im excited for other niche-like budget builds.
Let's remember the recommended spec for battlefield 3 was a gtx 560
I was pretty sure that the Z420 in the standard board configuration actually had a USB port on the motherboard just for situations like that bootloader, security keys, and so on, that can be locked inside the case ... in this case probably wasn't necessary to get the old header dongle. It could be ordered without it, but it's a handy feature in a ton of workstations and servers.
Both my servers have internal USB ports like that.
Of course the HP Proliant refuses to boot from the internal USB if there are any other USB devices connected. 🙄
I have a dell r730 I wondered what that usb port was for. I use it to back up my plex database.
Love these creative budget PC builds! Thanks for still being you Linus
3:12 If only I had teammates as honest as Linus
Very nice i always enjoy your videos i wish i could do what you just did because i try to build my first gaming PC and thing didn't go to well thanks you for all the info keep up the good work take good care of yourself and your love one stay safe.
the good old Z420.. even perfect for parents because it runs 100% stable and even has Firewire for old camcorders (or music equipment). Once i get one for 20EUR on a flea market with a Quadro M4000.
I cant believe the value I've gotten out of my 1650. videos like this are great to encourage people to do their research and build a machine on their terms!
I've had a GTX 1060 since like 2018 and it's still a great card for the vast majority of games. The biggest difference I noticed was actually using a SSD as a boot drive.
nah gtx 1060 is shit i use rtx 3060
@E4Phantom I kindly beg to differ. Its a fine card if underpowered for the time. I have a 6700xt now and it's surprisingly quiet.
@@e4phantom157 bros tryna flex a 3060
@@tenorsaxhero oh ok thats alr
@@e4phantom157 lmao ur not even that much better lmaooo can you even run cyberpunk 1080p ultra at 60fps without dlss? LMAOOO
Genius!! I'm very glad you exist, seriously! Thank you for being in TH-cam!! 💪
I have 100% done this process and was laughing so hard with all these work arounds. Yeah, I had to buy all those adapters, yes I had to press F1 each time I started my computer. I feel like I'm watching myself make this build lol
A tip for people PC part shopping: Try to see if you have a local college surplus store. Sometimes, you can score good deals from the old devices they're phasing out. I'm waiting until I can build a $2k budget PC, but I did get a nice old monitor for $50.
I just picked up a tiny Lenovo PC from a place like this. I7 6700T, 16GB ddr4, 256GB ssd, and very quiet for what it is. About the same as a normal laptop.
The Z420 (and probably other workstations in this series) have a handy little feature behind the mobo to be aware of, there is a latch built into the cooler back plate that hooks it into the chassis. More support for potentially heavy coolers. You just have to slide the mobo (up, I think) a bit to make it release. I wish all of them had this.
I chose the E5-2690's because they were VERY cheap on eBay. Have upgraded 8 of these machines.
I cannot express how much I am grateful for this video. The format of showing small continuous upgrades really helps. My old PC broke, and I was doing fine with my budget laptop for web browsing and schoolwork, until I started to want to play my PC games again. I can convince my parents to contribute money to revivng and upgrading my old PC. I can work with the engineering teacher at my school during office hours and my dad who is an aerospace engineer with a P.H.D. in mechinical engineering a bit, because while I may be more technically inclined than some people, I am not a god. I have little to no electrical knowledge.
I love how the 212 Evo still gets shout outs after all these years. I also ran the TX3 Evo with the 90mm fan for ages, which was surprisingly good.
i still use a 212 evo from 2015 on my i5 11400f i just replaced the fan with a noctua nf-p12 pwm
@@Tonyx.yt. think I first bought one for either a Q6600 or 3570k (can't remember, been a while). Great little coolers!
It's just a great cooler. I've had one holding down my overclocked first gen Ryzen for 5 years now.
This was an awesome video because this is what us normal people go through on a daily basis.. janky solutions are the root of all IT things and exactly how we manage to get buy without emptying our pockets year-in-year-out because of planned obsolescence. Thank you! Appreciate this
I really like these budget options, but all the workarounds require quite some skill. Which, the person who would spend this amount of money on a pc, probably doesnt have. Still amazing what you can get for 269$
Glad there is an audience for normal Budget builds too. I plan to do these in the future too 🙏
I recently got two Z240 workstations (slightly different, newer I think) for $250 total from an auction, it was a pretty incredible deal. Came with 512gb M.2 NVMe drives
One went to my mother as is and gave the other one to my friend and he will get a decent GPU for it eventually, he's just had a really tight budget so I'm glad I was able to get him something and he can spend whatever budget he has on a simple GPU upgrade
We need more of these budget builds!
With the current market there isn't really more to add. Either buy super old shit or buy a console if all you want is gaming on a "budget" (and a console with a disc/physical reader obviously, 2nd hand physical game are much cheaper than console locked demat stores)
This is why the ddr3 generation was so good, for the first time xeons into consumer sockets with soldering or adapters, used server hardware being so much cheaper due to it being misunderstood at the time
I mean its still the same in 2022.
You did a good job of showing some of the issues that upgrading old prebuilts can give. Would have been nice to have had a warning that some old Dells require connections from the original case in order to boot making a case transplant extremely hard if not impossible. Research is everything when it comes to buying old prebuilds with the intention to upgrade them.
I had a very similar setup (z420, NVMe adapter) with an E5-1650. It was pretty good. I ran an RTX 2060. You can get a 6-pin to dual 6-pin splitter to power the 2060 and it works just fine.
I still have the machine (sans the video card) running vSphere and video surveillance.
“Capital One Shopping” ah yes. Rolls right off the tongue. All 50 times Linus said it.
These are my favorite videos. Each time I watch one it makes me feel lucky to have the PC I have and prevents me from getting unnecessary upgrades.
Pro tip since I also used an HP Z420 for a while: DO NOT DAMAGE THE AMBIENT TEMP SENSOR IN THE FRONT OF THE CASE! It being disconnected or damaged will cause all the fans (including the PSU fan) to run at 100% all the time, it’s extremely annoying
Reminds me of the iMac. A relative brought me an older iMac about 7 years ago. I replaced the hard drive and forgot to plug in the HDD temp sensor. It worked fine but I noticed the fan would ramp up to 100% after a few seconds of booting up.
4:30 funny to think that 8 cores was top tier just some years ago.. And you would shell out 4k for a system like this back then
Yeah, until 2017 the only way to get even 6c/12t was to go for HEDT
What I love about computers is there are always jank workarounds for unsupported workflows. What I love more is that these jank workarounds have remained almost the same since I was a kid, so it's like reliving the glory days of piecing together whatever pieces you could afford on odd jobs
I have a z420 I used for production until I spotted a deal for a z620 dual processor. I used an SATA ssd for boot and a 2TB drive for storage. I got an E5-2667 v2 which is almost the same speed as yours, (same turbo) but allows for a slightly lower TDP of 130. I kept the stock cooler and paired the CPU with a M6000 GPU for rendering. All the fans ramp up during rendering, but stay well below throttle. The machine was very fast and responsive, even in the occasional game. It's retired now and performing PLEX server duties, just fine. That butcher job you did was uncalled for.
This is a really well made video. He should make some more budget focused videos. Great job once again.
Budget Builds are so underrated. Media and many creators make you believe you need the latest and greatest. A friend of me still plays at 1080p. He does not need a 500€ GPU. It's simple as that. Don't waste your money is all I wanted to say.
Glad there is an audience for normal Budget builds too. I plan to do these in the future too 🙏
6:20 That's the name of the show!