The possibilities are only limited by your own imagination* with these budget desktop PCs. I prefer the flexibility of SFF over USFF.
Pick your poison.
Dell OptiPlex 7050 SFF 128GB SSD SOLD OUT
Lenovo ThinkCentre M900 SFF 256GB SSD SOLD OUT
HP EliteDesk 800 G3 SFF 256GB SSD SOLD OUT
*Or the minimum system requirements of the software.
Any of them; they've all got the same processor, and more storage and RAM than you need.
USFF ones as they are more silent and use less power.
You can even use a fanless thin client like this one: https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/830122
What a shame that's sold out! Would have loved to have picked that up. Is this unit slower than a RBP5 though?
Pi 5 would probably be 20-50% faster, but that shouldn't be a major issue with Home Assistant.
There are many thin clients around the same price on eBay.
Any of them is wifi version or all Ethernet connectivity only?
Ethernet but wifi cards are cheap on Aliexpress.
They all have pci-e slots, so you can put a cheap ax210 card from aliexpress in it (should be less than $25).
I'd go with either the lenovo or HP for this purpose - they look like they have at least 2 pci-e slots so you still have a spare for e.g. 2.5gbe.
What are these like for additional SATA ports and HDD space? I've got a few HDDs I'd want to drop in if I bought one.
Only 1 x NVMe slot and 1 x 3.5inch drive.
NVMe to SATA adapter boards are pretty cheap, mind.
3x sata ports inside, plus the nvme.
Good for a dedicated torrent PC?
Yes. That's what I use mine for.
I got a SSD for the OS. A 3TB drive for downloading torrents to (lots of constant writing, deleting, seeding and rewriting) and a huge 12TB drive externally where I store the stuff I want to keep.
Brilliant! Thanks for the idea
how about building a nas from it? its performance should be much better than synology high level models
It depends how you want to set up your drives. These won’t have space for 4xHDDs AFAIK
I got a cable split and have 2 HHDs sitting on the case for like ~2 years. Still don't want to bother set it up properly.
It's possible, with m.2 plus 3x2.5".
What’s the average power consumption on these?
They all use the Intel i5 6500 chip which has a TDP of 65W which is pretty typical of modern PCs so I'd expect the power consumption to be average.
Which averaging 40W in reality works out to be an average of $100/year. Not sure it's quite a replacement for a RBP in that case for low-mid level tasks.
Nothing like that unless you are bitcoin mining or training an AI.
Maybe 15W idle?
The micro PC with T series uses a bit less.
The Dell thin clients from a couple of months ago are probably equivalent to Raspberry Pis in terms of power consumption given that the TDP of the Pentium J5005 processor is 10W.
As per others below.
I have also just tested my 800 G1 SFF with an older I5 4670, 16 GB RAM, 256 SSD and 4TB WD red on windows 10 Pro. 60W at boot up, 30-50 on app start, page loads on Chrome, but once stable drops down to 22 idle. Youtube videos goes up to 35, 1080P x265 playback 26 to 35W.
I do turn mine off if not used for extended periods. Sleep mode with Chrome opened is 2W !!!
Not too bad for an old unit. I use it for office stuff, web browsing, and occasionally maximise the CPU converting videos using Handbrake!
I think it's probably going to run forever.
Oh the 4TB Red is supposed to be 4-6 W in power use, so if I remove that, it probably would idle at 16-17 watts. Really quite good.
Mine has ubuntu installed. It uses 5w when idle and 10-30 when I have someone watching plex from it.
Any practical difference between the 3 brands/models?
Port/slot selection looks to be it. The HP has two PCI-e x1 ports, Lenovo has one, Dell has none (handy for network, TV cards, sound cards, etc). Only the Dell has a HDMI port (all have two DP ports), Dell has PS2 ports if you still have a keyboard from the 1990s, an extra SATA port in the Lenovo/HP. Supposedly the HP does alt mode out of the front USB-C port, whereas the Dell is power only (basically a charging port). For some reason the GPU slot on the Dell is 35W instead of 45W, so if you plan on putting a low profile GPU in maybe look at the Lenovo/HP.
IMO I'd just look at a specific use case and make sure the one you buy has all you want.
Whack a cheeky lil 1650lp in their and you got a stew going!
Would this be better or worse than i7 4790 Dell optiplex
I don't fully understand how a 6500 can be worse than a 4790 even though they are 2 gens apart?
What would you guys reccomend?
https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/compare.htm…
4790 is technically slightly superior to the 6500.
In practice it probably would not be noticeable, also for a mini-server the extra power consumption of the 4790 would be undesirable.
Is this a good purchase to use as a jellyfin server?
Prob not terrible if you have something else for storage…
It's what I use it for. Torrents and Jellyfin.
I much prefer a recent Intel N100 or N95 NUC. It's much more power efficient, which will add up in the long run.
The N100 delivers similar performance to the i5-6500, but runs at 6W. The i5-6500 runs at 65W.
At $0.30/kWh and assuming you run this 24x7; and let's generously say the i5-6500 runs at an average of 25W and N100 at 4W (since it won't be at load 100% of the time), you will save $55.20 per year; or $276 over 5 years.
what's the compute difference like on single core/mutli-core between the two?
Within 10%. SC favours the N100. Multi core slightly favours the 6500.
Bear in mind I’m comparing this to the full powered desktop chip. A lot of the SFF and USFFs have laptop chips. The N100 is much better than those in compute, and higher efficiency still.
You also get better (more modern) Intel QuickSync encoding and decoding, supporting more modern formats and generally working better. Lastly, NVMe support, etc etc.
Hey thanks for sharing. Never really considered the cost difference on electricity. I have a HP laptop with a i5 6500. Runs Home Assistant on Windows VirtualBox. I'm going to check the power consumption as currently the laptop, 2 bay NAS, 5G modem router and Unifi Dream Router running together via a UPS chew about 70w at idle. Can hit 95w if copying stuff from the laptop to NAS.
Edit: just checked my HP laptop power consumption using a smart power socket with power monitoring. Uses between 11.5-13w mostly idle and the laptop screen on. Will monitor it further and see how much the real life power savings are.
and let's generously say the i5-6500 runs at an average of 25W and N100 at 4W
I feel like that's an exaggeration, these PCs are intended for office use so they'll have bare minimum stuff. I'd expect the idle power difference between them be more like 0-10W.
Ok, I just checked my own tests. Optiplex 7040 with i5-6500 uses 15W idle with Linux.
Is that with only 1 SSD 2 sticks of RAM?
The N100 delivers similar performance to the i5-6500, but runs at 6W. The i5-6500 runs at 65W.
I don't think that you can use TDP figures to extrapolate power usage. TDP is only used for cooling design.
You really need to measure real power consumption, and as Bargaino points out, it's a lot less than even the 25W of your estimate.
Good for playing remuxes?
The Dell 7050s are great for pfSense.
I am interested into looking this. I guess I will an ethernet expansion card for that right?
Yes, if you want to use the existing ethernet port for either in or out.
Probably overkill, but I wanted to experiment with SFPs and 10Gb networking so I'm running an Intel X520 dual NIC with a managed switch. Runs like a dream and is kind of future proof if we ever get anything faster than 1Gb NBN.
Sounds interesting. Is there any guides or prebuilts? Guess would need something with 2 NICs, 1 connected to NTD feeding it the connection and the other to a switch with all my devices connected to it?
I'm not savvy enough to purchase one of the above in this deal and install a NIC. Is something like this good/just as powerful?
@johnnytran: There are literally dozens if not more guides on how to DIY a home router. Youtube and text. Just Google. pfSense and OPNSense are probably the two most commonly used OSes.
Guess would need something with 2 NICs, 1 connected to NTD feeding it the connection and the other to a switch with all my devices connected to it?
Pretty much this.
@rumblytangara: Cheers, yeah I watched a video shortly after posting this where someone turned an old PC into a router. It was a decent sized tower so I'm open to suggestions for something smaller people are currently using.
The ebay item I posted above is obviously worse specced but more $$. I don't think I would need to turn an actual PC into a router for general home use and I just wanted something to tinker with
@johnnytran: Something like what you linked should be fine. The usual thing for those routers is "get an Intel NIC", though there are also plenty of anecdotal reports of Realtek working okay with pfSense.
The industrial-PC style computers are low power because they don't run fans for cooling. But this is totally okay as a router needs very little computing power.
Too big!
I'm using a micro (USFF) for a router. Got a cheap m.2 2nd NIC, though USB ethernet seems to work fine for home use.
i just had an optiplex die (i think), on me, with a flashing orange light on boot up and doesnt turn on.
best option here?
I had a one faulty at work i7-8700, check out the flashing sequence. The one i was dealing with got a flashling sequence for memory fault & doesn't turn on. It was a faulty Ram Stick. New ram stick & working great. If yours with 4th gen processor or below might be a good time to upgrade.
Dell is Out of stock.
HP is also OOO
I was going to post a deal then realized it's low stock:
$111 i5 7500 https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/156132475362
$159 i5 8500 https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/186356501397
$160 for the 8500 is a great deal. I paid $240 in May, 2023.
Will the $160 be good for an older couple, for social media, zoom/social video meetings, general internet use and MS Office Suite? @DASHCAM NOW DUDE
Absolutely.
I'm getting error when applied code in the coupon code box as This code can't be applied to your order.
So not sure how you got the discount.
I'm a bit thick when it comes to PC's and specs so would love some advice. Would this option be ok for a home office? The most advanced thing it would be running is excel, teams, word and YouTube at the same time.
well I've run all of that simultaneously on a considerably worse specced out laptop, this should be fine
Absolutely.
Seems like most of these are SFF, any mid tower cases that could fit 2-4 3.5" HDDs for a NAS? Something like a Dell Optiplex Tower might suit but can't find definitive info on the Dell website about the # of 3.5" bays.
Bought similiar product like this before, will reinstalling the OS cause license/activation loss to the preinstalled windows 10 ?
thinking about reinstalling to reduce malware risks.
Nope. it'll activate it self online.
great ! thanks mate
Curious, Dell & HP are sold out faster than Lenovo? I'm planning to get one for the NAS setup. Is still Lenovo good option? Is it consumes more power than Dell or HP?
Can you put a GPU in these?
Worth mentioning: The Lenovo is the only one left. It's out of support now so doesn't have firmware support for new security vulnerabilities.
Very interested as I have a use case for one of these however I thought worth mentioning the sellers abysmal rating and common complaint is sending damaged and faulty items, misleading descriptions.. I will pay more elsewhere.Who needs the hassle , not me.
Looks like all the stocks are back.
My kids gaming PC just died, he has a i5 4570 with a 1060 6gb, would any of them work as a replacement as far as the graphics card is concerned, or would they not have the required connection.
SSD, graphics card, Power supply are all working so looks like I just need a new motherboard and CPU.
You can't fit a full sized GPU into these SFF PCs.
![[Refurb] SFF PC, i5 6500, 8GB RAM, Dell / Lenovo / HP ($92.82 with eBay Plus) @ ACT via eBay](https://files.ozbargain.com.au/n/96/839096.jpg?h=f6d66b1b)
Which of these is the best for a HoMe Assistant install?