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pastrychef's testing machine - HP Elite 8300 SFF - i7-3770 - GT 630

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Cut from same cloth: I prefer Dell too. Unfortunately, market here a bit different at the moment.

EB search term:
(tower, MT) , (elitedesk, optiplex, thinkcentre) -i3


I see what you mean. Most all of the Dell 7010 MT desktops would have to ship from the US to AU. Way too expensive to consider.
https://www.ebay.com.au/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=optiplex+7010+MT+i7&_sacat=0&LH_PrefLoc=1
For anyone in the US though the huge oversupply of these makes for a real good deal !
 

I see what you mean. Most all of the Dell 7010 MT desktops would have to ship from the US to AU. Way too expensive to consider.
https://www.ebay.com.au/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=optiplex+7010+MT+i7&_sacat=0&LH_PrefLoc=1
For anyone in the US though the huge oversupply of these makes for a real good deal !
One last option, have this 9010 MT motherboard shipped to you and install it in any mATX or ATX size case. All standoffs will line up perfectly. The USB 3.0 and 2.0 headers are standard. You might have to just buy the power switch cable and CPU cooler at Ebay.AU. Note that gfx card length should be under 9 inches.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-M9KCM...339?_trksid=p2349526.m4383.l4275.c10#shpCntId
 
Thanks gentlemen.

Appreciate your swift input.

I have some, er... "bigger" gpu's lying around, and have already boxed myself in with an SFF build. The Mini Towers look more attractive. Sort of the "deluxe" version of a value build? :)

Think you're right, the price differential is not as great to (please see my sig) - Put my thinking cap on with EB search parameters and dug deeper, perhaps a one-off fire sale was the dramatic difference in price, otherwise about 10-20% in favour of Lenovo.

The bots here won't let me edit previous post to reflect mainstream prices correction. Still 45 to 85 AUD better, which is nice in the up to 400 category (not putting dollar signs, sorry, think thats why I got flagged??).

Hmmm. Scratches chin.

Edit: Doing some due diligence on the Lenovo forums for bios/licence keys/psu/sata, support/mods/updates/options etc...

All things being equal, I'd go for the Haswell and the slight speed bump it should bring with it.
 
All things being equal, I'd go for the Haswell and the slight speed bump it should bring with it.

Hmm this has me thinking.. i see the i7-4770s on ebay for under $200US, you could pair this with the M73 in the previous post and have a decent i7 Haswell based system for under $400.
 
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Hmm this has me thinking.. i see the i7-4770s on ebay for under $200US, you could pair this with the M73 in the previous post and have a decent i7 Haswell based system for under $400.

I've seen some Haswell systems at very good prices recently and have been very tempted but I just don't have room for yet another computer... If I can find a good home for my 8300, I'd take the plunge. At current price levels, going Haswell makes much more sense than Ivy Bridge.
 
I've seen some Haswell systems at very good prices recently and have been very tempted but I just don't have room for yet another computer... If I can find a good home for my 8300, I'd take the plunge. At current price levels, going Haswell makes much more sense than Ivy Bridge.

Haswell also seems to have better CPU power management routines compared to Ivy Bridge (i.e., Intel 4th and 3rd gen), on real Macs.

At home I have an ridiculously "maxed out" 27" i7 Ivy Bridge iMac, RAID 0 SSD etc, and a bog standard i5 Haswell with platter drives! The i5 has less sleep/wake stutter issues. We're talking hundredths of a second here and there, but I do notice it.

I also work as a Mac consultant, and see the same played out on the non trivial amount of Macs I attend to in any given year. Haswell is the sweet spot for me too.

In this 'budget' class, an i5 8400 build - new, say mini itx - would be the next step up in my books, with a single 8gb stick. (Intel gen 8, aka Coffee Lake).

4th gen to 8th gen, cheat sheet:

View media item 190498
 
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Haswell also seems to have better CPU power management routines compared to Ivy Bride (ie Intel 4th and 3rd gen), on real Macs.

At home I have an ridiculously "maxxed out" 27" i7 Ivy Bridge iMac, RAID 0 SSD etc, and a bog standard i5 Haswell with platter drives! The i5 has less sleep/wake stutter issues. We're talking hundredths of a second here and there, but I do notice it.

I also work as a Mac consultant, and see the same played out on the non trivial amount of Macs I attend to in any given year. Haswell is the sweet spot for me too.

In this 'budget' class, an i5 8400 build - new, say mini itx - would be the next step up in my books, with a single 8gb stick. (Intel gen 8, aka Coffee Lake).

One of the reasons I'd like to upgrade my 8300 to a Haswell system is because I have some spare DDR3 RAM laying around. RAM prices being what they are, I'd like to avoid having to buy new RAM if possible.

I've seen some comparisons between the i5-8600K and the i7-7700K and they perform remarkably similarly. So, if I were to start fresh, I'd probably go with the Coffee Lake for its extra PCI lanes and UHD 630.
 
One of the reasons I'd like to upgrade my 8300 to a Haswell system is because I have some spare DDR3 RAM laying around. RAM prices being what they are, I'd like to avoid having to buy new RAM if possible.

I've seen some comparisons between the i5-8600K and the i7-7700K and they perform remarkably similarly. So, if I were to start fresh, I'd probably go with the Coffee Lake for its extra PCI lanes and UHD 630.

Agreed: I'm in same boat with DDR3.

You also get M.2. Which is very nice.

Recap:
In Australia for an "i7" pre-build $300 to $400 AUD (basically halve that for USD*) will get you an SFF Ivy Bridge to Haswell, your Dell Optiplex, HP Elite Desk, Lenovo et al.
$500 AUD to $600 AUD will get you a Mini Tower version of a Dell Optiplex, HP Elite Desk etc, which allows for a slightly bigger gpu (usually with psu mods/replacement).

Over $600 will get you a "decent" Mini itx with an i5 8400 - 6/6, see buyers guides on this site.

or even go ALL OUT and look at pastrychef's most excellent 8700k build.

* Not just the exchange rate, overall market forces.

Screen Shot 2018-05-12 at 6.53.40 pm.png
 
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A friend recently gave me an i7-6700K that was damaged from a botched delidding job. I managed to bring it back to life and was looking around eBay for cheap barebones 100-series system to use with it. I noticed that used, complete Skylake systems are starting to appear for under $200. Here are two examples:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-Prodesk...815397?hash=item1cab49a825:g:Ds4AAOSwru9a-bWm
https://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-ProDesk...124084?hash=item1ca5493ab4:g:yQ8AAOSwAghasRKu

With Skylake systems now available at these price points, I'd recommend looking for one of these instead of an 8300. The more modern architecture of Skylake will yield much snappier performance especially if you intend to use an NVMe SSD. It would also allow you to use a more recent system definition which will have macOS support further in to the future. Also, for those who wish to be able to play 4K content, Skylake and newer have HEVC decoding.

Personally, the only scenarios where I would still choose an 8300 are (1) you can find one for under $100, (2) you have lots of DDR3 RAM laying around, or (3) you need an older platform to run specific, legacy software.
 
A friend recently gave me an i7-6700K that was damaged from a botched delidding job. I managed to bring it back to life and was looking around eBay for cheap barebones 100-series system to use with it. I noticed that used, complete Skylake systems are starting to appear for under $200. Here are two examples:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-Prodesk...815397?hash=item1cab49a825:g:Ds4AAOSwru9a-bWm
https://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-ProDesk...124084?hash=item1ca5493ab4:g:yQ8AAOSwAghasRKu

With Skylake systems now available at these price points, I'd recommend looking for one of these instead of an 8300. The more modern architecture of Skylake will yield much snappier performance especially if you intend to use an NVMe SSD. It would also allow you to use a more recent system definition which will have macOS support further in to the future. Also, for those who wish to be able to play 4K content, Skylake and newer have HEVC decoding.

Personally, the only scenarios where I would still choose an 8300 are (1) you can find one for under $100, (2) you have lots of DDR3 RAM laying around, or (3) you need an older platform to run specific, legacy software.
Are those HP machines known to work as seamlessly with macOS as the 8300? A big part of the appeal of the 8300 for me was the guides here and the fact that, with HD4000 graphics, they "just work". I also picked mine up for about USD70 equivalent, so that was also an appeal!

Is there a reference to what 100/200/300 series machines are?
 
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