If you're a budget gamer,
who's less concerned with 4K 120 Hertz
and more concerned with running any games at all,
then this video is for you.
Riley here, who's actually gonna be doing some more work
here on the LTT channel moving forward,
was given the task of taking our previous $69 gaming PC,
which frankly was barely deserving of the title PC,
let alone gaming, and taking it out behind the shed
and putting a bullet in its head.
Oh, that's violent.
And looky what he found on eBay.
A full PC for, get this, $27 US.
27 bucks.
And can it game?
Actually, yeah, kind of.
And we're gonna show you guys how
after this message from GlassWire.
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We always say that when you set out to build a PC,
the most important consideration
is what you intend to use it for.
That's how you avoid spending too much
or cheaping out and hurting the experience.
So then, knowing that we weren't gonna be running
Shadow of the Tomb Raider with RTX on,
we set out with what we hoped would be a reasonable goal,
running casual and eSports games like Minecraft,
League of Legends, Dota 2, and CSGO
with Overwatch for extra credit.
So do you wanna run me through this beauty?
So this is a Dell Optiplex 380, beautiful machine.
It's got an Intel Core 2 Duo E7500 in it,
four gigs of DDR3 RAM, and a 160 gig hard drive.
That's 7,200 RPM.
Beautiful.
It didn't come with Windows 10.
And a parallel port.
Oh, yeah.
You need one of those.
Oh, yeah, there, buddy.
Oh, yeah, buddy.
Drivers for everything.
$27.
For 27 bucks.
Yeah.
Dang.
Plus shipping.
Right.
Plus shipping was another 30.
How much for shipping?
$37.
Oh, okay, well.
Okay, in fairness to us, though,
if we were in the US, shipping would've been way cheaper.
Yeah, oh, it actually booted up.
Oh, see, here's another quirk.
Take a little bit there.
No, here's another quirk.
You have to plug the USB.
The mouse into a different USB port.
Oh.
And then it works.
Beautiful.
Wonderful.
Okay.
Now, Optiplexes are more geared towards
the corporate or education markets.
So while they do tend to have decent networking,
this guy's got Gigabit, which is nice to have,
and reliable components, they lack some of the features
that you would normally find in a gaming rig,
like a graphics card.
There is nary a graphics card
to be found, which isn't to say, though,
that we aren't gonna try to run games on it
straight out of the box.
So what do you got there?
I have a crash message.
Yeah.
Oh, beautiful.
Oh, beautiful, too.
You've got matching.
I got two.
In SLI.
Yep.
Even though we did find drivers for everything,
that doesn't mean that they're perfect.
None of the games we tried to launch
managed to successfully open.
And among other probable issues, we did discover,
that the G41 Express chipset,
which is this little high-tech beauty right here,
doesn't support OpenGL on Windows 10.
No.
With that said, I mean,
what kind of performance were we expecting?
Not very good.
I just wanted to know, you know?
I wanted to believe in something.
So anyway, it's time to move on to our real plan,
which is installing a graphics card.
Right.
Which, even though there's a PCI Express slot here,
is probably gonna be a little bit trickier
than you might think.
Yeah.
The only graphics cards that actually fit in the case
have to be a low profile and single PCIe slot card.
So you're gonna have a hard time finding a modern,
any kind of relatively modern card
that fits that description.
So check this out.
This was back in the era when Intel was still trying
to flip the ATX standard upside down.
So you notice this opens on the opposite side panel
that most modern cases do.
So a graphics card that you put here doesn't take up
this next PCIe slot.
It'll interfere with the CPU heat sink,
the parallel port potentially, some of these capacitors.
Like it's just, it's kind of a mess.
Unless, ooh, you get a little creative.
Now, our target graphics card for a system of this caliber
would be something like a GeForce GTX 650,
which you can find on eBay for anywhere from 30 to 50 bucks,
bringing the total cost for this machine right in line with our target.
Plus shipping.
Problem is, that is not a single slot,
nor is it a low profile card.
Now, what we could do is Dremel out this part of the case
right here, which would allow us to get it to fit in there,
but it's a little easier if you just use
a PCI Express extender.
It'll only cost you about five bucks.
You won't get like a fancy shielded one like this
for five bucks, but you could get something functional.
So, oh, it does fit all the way in.
Extender in, card into the other end.
We'll just kind of sit it in there.
And this system has, come and look at this,
has literally no extra power connectors
other than a floppy power connector,
which we could actually like cut off and strip
and then like solder onto a piece.
Yeah, that's probably not a great idea.
And we think we've got a better solution anyway,
but it needs an optical drive, any who.
Let's check this out.
Would you look at that?
A SATA to PCI Express power adapter.
It can fit, you just gotta believe Linus.
Bam.
Wow.
There we go.
Building PCs is fun.
So that's it.
We can fire it up now, right?
Yes.
I'm fired up.
It's powered.
It's plugged in.
Yep.
Okay.
And we've got DVI output now.
And we installed everything with the power cord connected.
That's fine.
Oh yeah.
We probably shouldn't have done that.
Wow, that is a dusty, gross card.
Yeah.
Wow, look at that.
Just boots up fine, drivers installed and everything.
It's like we've done this before or something.
It's almost like we prepare these videos.
Anyways, moving on.
So once you've roused the system from its deep sleep,
now we can safely attempt to play some games, I'd say.
All right, play CSGO.
CSGO, look, that was actually pretty quick.
Yeah, I'd go with bots.
Don't subject other people.
Yeah.
So what are we, what settings are we running at here?
No, 720.
720.
720 low.
Limbo low.
I'm going right under this computer.
What?
No!
Wow.
Where's he going?
Really impressive.
Ah, I'm stuck.
Are you, do you need, jeez Louise.
Oh, were you using the table to cheat?
No?
Oh, jeez.
So we're still running at about 50, 60 FPS.
That's actually not too shabby.
Yeah.
Oh no.
Yeah.
See, you will get some frame drops.
Yes.
Cause the CPU, you're gonna kill them with a smoke grenade.
Yeah.
I just, I want to see what happens to our frame rate
when we walk through the smoke.
Okay.
So we saw an initial dip down to like 30,
but it's staying in the 35, 40 range.
I mean, it's usable.
It's usable.
Yes, I would like to stop playing now.
Okay.
Do you want to do the next one?
Yeah.
Okay.
Pretty good.
All right.
Well, next one.
Oh, you're gonna play with real people, your teammates?
Well, against AI.
That's how you do it.
Or do you want to play just training?
No, fine.
Well, they don't have to deal with this.
Yeah, yeah.
We do.
Well, they just have to deal with that.
We're gonna lag out.
I don't know.
I was getting pretty good ping.
No, but we're gonna close the game.
Yeah, we are.
Yeah.
Where's the gun girl?
Camping Ezreal.
So does everyone else have to wait for our Epic hard drive
to manage to load it?
Yes.
Hey, we're not the slowest.
Are we not?
Check this out.
This guy's at 40%.
Master Yi over here.
Dang, dude.
Hey. Hey.
Hey.
Here we go.
Whoa.
Wow.
We're getting like 90, 100 FPS.
Look at those graphics.
Not bad.
Is this even 720p?
This looks like 1080.
I actually have no idea what settings this is at.
This looks pretty good.
Hold on a minute.
Can I just poke around in here?
How am I gonna kill them if you...
I'm gonna kill...
We're running at 1080, medium high.
What?
Dang.
Wow.
Oh, bad guys.
For 70 bucks.
Yeah.
You can play one of the top games in the world no problem.
I mean, can you even get like a...
Like, can you even get like an old Game Boy Color
on eBay for 70 bucks?
Like, that's kind of what I'm talking about here.
Like...
That's true.
We're gaming for 70 bucks.
We haven't been killing anybody yet, so...
Well, yeah, we should probably get on that.
Boom, boom.
Hey, Linus, watch this though.
Watch this.
Yeah, that didn't even...
Even with a bunch of action going on here,
we haven't dipped below 55.
Okay.
I think we've probably hit 50.
We've probably had enough of this at this point.
Okay.
Minecraft.
I should run on a potato.
Confess, I don't know how to play Minecraft.
Oh.
Ooh.
Okay.
There's a horse.
Can we go get the horse?
Let's get him.
That's a cow.
Well, I didn't say...
What?
I said get it.
I didn't say kill it.
What are you doing?
You said get it.
You're a monster.
What does get it mean if not...
What's wrong with you?
If all you were trying to do was harvest kelp
and smack fish in the face,
which I have done successfully.
Picked up some kelp.
I mean, that's pretty playable.
But watch this, Linus.
I guess you didn't see this coming.
Let's go down to six chunks.
Minecraft has a lot to do with chunks.
Okay.
If you don't know your chunks in Minecraft,
you're gonna be in trouble.
Thank you.
So it's just a little bit of tuning there.
Minecraft, 200 plus FPS.
Yeah.
I was like compulsively playing Overwatch for a little bit.
Oh, okay.
Is this gonna get you back
on the...
Yeah, maybe.
I think I'm gonna make it to championships here tonight.
This year.
This is gonna take you all the way.
Oh, I thought it just turned off.
I was like, what did you do?
The graphics card is just loose in there.
Oh my gosh.
Oh yeah, there's a missing blade.
Two missing blades.
That'll do it.
You know what?
I bet if we ripped off one more blade,
that wobble would go away.
Let's maybe not do that right now.
Right, but then it wouldn't wobble anymore.
So we're at 720, 60.
Yeah.
V-sync off.
Everything, most, most everything off.
Low, everything.
Low, low, low, low.
Off, off, low.
Let's do mystery heroes.
Is there actually a delay when I shoot?
Or like, is that just an animation or what?
Like- What do you mean?
Like, do I have to leave the target?
Yeah, you do.
Oh crap.
Well, that wasn't working.
Why can't I see people through walls?
Oh no, you're dead.
No, I'm not dead.
It's over now.
It's not over now.
Yeah.
When you see, when you say May, it's over.
Oh.
Yeah.
Jump Linus for your life.
Blah, blah, blah, blah.
Okay. Did I get one?
Yeah.
I got one!
Oh, I didn't get a kill.
Yeah.
I got an assist.
Okay, what's this?
What do I do?
You're Zenyatta now.
Now you're a robot.
Okay, telling me the name of the character
and like what type of being they are.
Press E when you see them.
Shift is like a long one.
And then-
I'm gonna go.
Left click is a short range.
Hey, get back here.
I've had enough of this.
This is a bad, this is a bad experience.
I'm a bad Overwatch coach.
Bad experience.
And you're the worst Overwatch coach.
Okay, wait.
So the frame rates we're getting
aren't gonna blow anyone away,
especially as we get to more newer, more demanding titles.
And we're basically limited to 720p
and in many cases, low details
if we want things to run smoothly.
But like if you're a high school student or something,
this can be had for less than a hundred bucks.
If you get like a gray market Windows 10 key
or you can otherwise get one on the cheap.
So you, I mean, you throw some emulators and stuff on here
and this is a pretty freaking
adequate experience.
Adequate is the right word to use, yeah.
There are a few things we could do on the cheap
to make it a lot better.
Like an SSD would be a great upgrade.
And all you'd really need is an extra SATA cable
since there is an extra port on the motherboard.
But you would need a SATA power splitter to do that.
Yeah, just make sure that if you're splitting
one of the SATA power connectors,
you split the one that's going to the hard drive now
as opposed to splitting the one
that's going to your graphics card.
Even if your graphics card isn't super demanding,
we're still kind of adapting power cables,
which isn't necessarily the best thing.
Yeah.
And if that's not enough,
you could still throw in eight gigs of RAM
and a 750 TI or a 950,
which might even get you playable frame rates at 1080p
because again, we were at 720p low.
You might end up CPU bottlenecks though.
The fortunately though,
this motherboard should be compatible
with cheap quad core 775 processors like the Q6600,
which you can get for as little as five
or 10 bucks or even free
in just like a bargain bin in some case.
And you can throw that baby under there.
This cooler will handle it just fine.
And even if you made all of those upgrades,
you'd still be in the like $200 neighborhood.
So all in all, a pleasantly surprising end result.
And while I can't say that you guys
will have an identical experience
because buying used hardware on eBay
is always a bit of a gamble,
there's also no reason to think
that you couldn't build something similar.
I mean, hey,
if Riley, someone who isn't qualified
to review the RTX 2080 can do it,
so can you.
Great work, Riley.
That's the end.
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So guys, thanks for watching.
If you disliked this video
or you dislike Riley personally,
you can hit that button.
Yeah.
But if you liked it,
hit like, get subscribed,
or maybe consider checking out the link
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Thank you.
Wow.
Where to buy the stuff we featured
at the link in the video description.
If you guys wanna see more Riley on LTT,
guys, hit that thumbs up button.
We will be paying close attention
and leave a comment letting us know how you thought he did.
Cause honestly, I thought this was awesome.
This is an amazing value.
I did too.
For like 50 to 80 bucks.
Oh, the value.
Depending on configuration. Oh, the value.
Not the video.
I thought you were saying the video was amazing.
I thought you said that.
Are you really gonna play more Overwatch on this thing?
Yeah, well, you've ranked me down.
I gotta get back up, you know?
All right.
Also linked in the video description is our merch store,
which has cool shirts like this one
and our community forum,
which you should definitely join.
Love ya.