I literally bought about 30 of these compact Dell desktops back in maybe 2011 or 12. The reason I went with the desktops as they could be placed under the monitors, in a lab setting where horizontal space is very limited - and unlike AIOs, parts could easily be changed out or upgraded as needed. These were replaced with AIOs, and eventually replaced those with Lenovo Tiny systems. I used one of these Dells after it was pulled from service as my primary machine for about two years, and at the end of the day, none of them ever gave me an ounce of trouble.
I am not arguing that they are solid machines, I just don't see a reason to chose the desktop over the SFF if you were buying them new aside from the small chance you need a half height PCI slot. I have a Dell OptiPlex 980 (which is the same size as the machines shown here) SFF which has a large 19" CRT monitor which fits ontop of it perfectly fine. I don't know, the SFF versions of the machines seem to be just as reliable and up-gradable as the Desktop form factor machines would be. Honestly, I find the SFF machines to be more easily serviced, the desktop form factor machines have the power supply cables routed under the disk drive, under metal clip things and all the way around the side, when you are removing over 100 of them in one day, the SFF machines are much more friendly.
Well, I have over 100 computers in my personal collection, but they are all older ones. These though are bought at surplus auctions, taken apart, and the parts sold online. Sales for parts from decade old office PCs is actually a lot more successful that most would expect.
I love getting comments like this because it illustrates that the commenter has no idea how money works. If it were simply giving away a machine, that would be easily and would cost me nothing other than the cost of the machine (which when you account for the profit from all of them, would be negligible.) However, nothing is every that simple. I would have to ship the machine. I would have to pack it using materials which cost money, and take time to pack it which is money, and then spend money on shipping the machine. Suddenly, I have more money into giving the machine away for free than it is even worth.
Well these types of PCs can be found on eBay for dirt cheap. I've seen some, albeit with dogshit specs, for less than 30 bucks sometimes. Been thinking of snagging a few for myself to convert into various purposes. Prob gonna build a few budget gaming rigs to sell my friends for cheap and turn another into a home media server. My dad's work upgraded recently and he brought back one of the old ones for me but it's one of those stupid slim ones so I'm not all too sure what I can do with it yet but I have some ideas. Based on what Walter said, I may even have some success buying the really cheap ones being sold off in mass on eBay to take apart and flip the parts online for more than the system was worth.
It depends on what the machine is as far as being able to make a profit on selling parts. With these old machines, it isn't too much. (we will use a 9010 as an example.) Most of the ones we get are i5s, and a 3rd gen i5 only goes for around $20. 4gb DDR3 only goes for around $10. Take into account for shipping, fees and so, it really isn't that much of a profit unless you really have a bunch of them and can sell in bulk like we commonly do. Now if you get newer machines, it gets better. There are some cases on newer machines where we can get them for around $60 each, and then get $150 back for the CPU, so everything else is just a plus. A good bit of the good bulk orders are out of the country. We had an order for over 100 (I forget the exact number) half height graphics cards which go for around $20 each which was going to Vietnam. PC parts are harder to come by in other countries, and I am assuming that the people who are buying large lots like that are going to resell them locally for an upsale. There are certain things that sell better than others. RAM, CPUs and GPUs seem to be the best sellers. Other stuff which is more specialized like motherboards and power supplies do sell (a good bit of small form factor 990-9010 power supplies for some reason,) but not as quickly. Other stuff like the tons of hard drive caddys laying around really should just go to the landfill because it really isn't even worth the effort of keeping them around.
I got a Thinkstation P520 I'm going to build out. First desktop I've used in years, got it because I've been using a Thinkpad T430 up until now and figured I'd go with the same brand.
So, I started my "journey" with OptiPlexs as referbed office & gaming PCs. Low profile cards CAN be more expensive at times. Most "good" sff cards are dual slot (750ti, 1050. 1650, etc). The late model SFF optiplex OFTEN puts the x16 slot RIGHT up against the power supply. You'll be lucky to fit an old quadro or GT1030 in a single slot spacing. That "desktop" model can fit a dual slot GPU low profile AND a wifi card or a capture card rather easily. ALL of that being said? if you don't need the extra space? It's easier to deal with the "full" tower design which is still more like a micro ATX/ small atx size overall. The larger "workstation" / "server" desktop units that are Haswell and newer are VERY nice value for their age and you can often upgrade them and STILL have plenty of cores for modern tasks. E5 v3/v4 Xeons are cheap now.
Yeah, I was talking more about if you were a business buying them new, but that is a point I have never thought of. Although, I really do think just going for the tower would be a better option unless you specifically needed the space.
I mean....the DT form factor as you show is something I've not seen from Dell brand new since at newest the Core ix-4xxx series CPU's, sooo it looks like everyone agreed with you that it made no sense. However the nice thing about them in my mind is the standard 5.25" disk drive. The slimline drives like the ones that were/are sometimes still used in laptops tend to fail at a far higher rate, and being able to easily swap out your DVD drive (if it does fail) for a very readily-available 5.25" replacement is a big bonus. These days, and for some years now, if you have a 5.25" DVD drive fail, you can often just make a quick trip to a thrift store and find one for $5.
Correct, they don't make them anymore; but IMO they stuck around way longer than they had an actual specific place in the market and are really just a pain to deal with compared to the other 2 form factors in the lineup. I believe I did mention the standard size disk drive, which is an upgrade over the small form factor. I just can't say it would have been enough of an upgrade over the small form factor for me to have ordered the desktop versions of the machines if I were buying them new. The good news is that out of the (literally) thousands of these machines that I have dealt with, I have only seen a handful of bad disk drives in the small form factor machines, so they are fairly reliable for what they are.
Im guessing the desktop form factor still exists because its older than the SFF. So there is probably a none zero amount of companies that still request that specific form factor because that what they have always had. Its become ingrained in the SOP docmentation for selection during the upgrade cycle (to prevent expensive unecessary overspecing occuring) and no lowly percurment officer is going kick up the fuss to change it even if it makes sense to do so.
I mean, I guess that makes sense. I am as big on resisting change as anyone. Hell, I am still running Windows XP on a computer that is nearly 2 decades old. These desktop form factor machines are really annoying though, and I am glad that Dell finally stopped offering them.
For the pci slot, I have a pc that I use for storage and tools that the motherboard is an MSI z170 which comes with an old pci I simply installed a Wi-Fi card to use it since the board didn’t come integrated with it, also let me use the remaining slots for graphics and raid add ons etc
I am not questioning that there are uses for PCI slots. However, in the hundreds of these machines I have dealt with, I can't really say that I have ever seen one of the desktop form factor machines with the half height PCI slot utilized. I am sure there are some rare cases where a machine like this would be needed, but those would be very few and far between. I have seen plenty of the towers with the PCI slots occupied with something though. It just seems like they are filling a gap that really doesn't exist with something that isn't solving a problem that doesn't really exist.
If you want to do upgrades, the tower form factor is the way to go! It's the only one that will fit a proper graphics card. Otherwise, you're stuck with something half-height.
Totally true. You could just buy the small form factor version and put that underneath your monitor. Its even the same height (?). Possibly they still make those for historical reasons. Large corporations often are resistant to change and buy the same thing because they always did it that way. Think government and universities.
This video was filmed at work. Where we work on computers, and sell parts in bulk. But thanks for the engagement. Comments no matter how stupid help the algorithm.
I never understood the point of these either, but to be fair, are they still a thing? I was under the impression that Dell did away with the DT form factor after the 20 series.
You are correct. The 4th gen machines (3020,7020,9020) were the last ones to offer this form factor. I am glad they don't make them anymore because they are a pain, but I really believe they stuck around way longer than they should have.
If I had to make a guess, so many years ago this was a high selling form factor from Dell so now they just keep making them because a handful of companys/ schools would be upset that they can no longer buy a updated machine from Dell that fits in the specific under desk/ podium mount they got all those years ago. Enterprise customers can be weird like that. When I was in college, the school threw a huge fit because the projectors they upgraded to no longer fit in the ceiling mount caddys they used in their previous model.
@@WalterKnox Depending on the mount/ caddy, yeah. But id imagine theres some that are similar to those projector caddys that hold on to the top and bottom of the tower so that they can be securely mounted to a wall, or under a desk/ podium without worry of them slipping out
Or maybe they already produced a lot and have to do something with those PC cases. See Alienware for example. They pretty much always use ancient dell cases. Despite the horrible airflow.
Yeah, I am sure that was the case for the last few generations of these machines, still think they stuck around way longer than they had a real place in the market though.
@@DarkHors-rf9zz I can see that being the reason they used this specific case for so long, but they still make the Optiplex in a full size tower, just in a new look. So if that was the case id assume they wouldve just discontinued this size, but they didnt and gave it a new modern look
How do you get so many of these? Me and my kid find them and upgrade and sell them off for different use cases. I hate the stupid desktop SFF. I have a hp z200 that is in that size. Truly annoying. The purpose, is to sell you a SFF GPU that costs the price as the unit.
These are not my personal machines, they are at work. We buy retired PCs from government surplus auctions in bulk, tear them down, and sell the parts out of them. We occasionally fix them up and resell them as "refurbished" machines, but not as much as we used to.
My guess is the ATX desktop form factor has stuck around as the de-facto "image" of what a computer is, so thats what sells to the average business? Heat and simplicity could also be a factor since the smaller boxes run hotter and are more fiddly and time consuming to (dis)assemble. I hate that everything is proprietary though, its caused an insane amount of e-waste to pile up in the world - no doubt to minmax cost to profit and make it a hassle for most people to upgrade components instead of just buying a new one.
These Desktop form factor machines are much more fiddly and time consuming to dissemble than the Small form factor machines or the tower machines are. I have taken apart hundreds of them, and the SFF machines are actually really easy to work on, so are the towers. The Desktop form factors though are annoying. And at this point it isn't even like they are the old Desktop machines from the 90s which used standard power supplies and full height slots (normally turned sideways,) so there really isn't any reason to go with that option.
@@WalterKnox oh man i just realised you're talking about the horizontally orientated ones. Yeah the only thing i can think of is refusing to let go of a Legacy design. You used to put CRT monitors on top of this form factor which saved space, but thats no longer a thing. Makes sense that the SFF machines are easier to work on since they were designed from the ground up decades after these were a thing.
Yep. The towers make sense because you can use full height cards, and they are a standard size board and power supply. And the SFF machines make sense because they are compact. But the desktop machines (which are in-between the two) really don't make sense. I also have 2 setups with SFF OptiPlex machines just like shown in the video with big 19" CRT monitors ontop of them, so even that isn't an issue with them. Looking at Dell's site now, it seems that they no-longer offer a Desktop form factor machine. They offer Micro, small, and tower form factors which all have their places as well as AIOs which are a completely other subject. Although the Desktop form factor definitely stuck around for way longer than it had a useful place in the world.
I agree, but you have to look at it from the point of view as their intended use case, which was enterprise settings. The most they are likely to do is upgrade the RAM and maybe storage. The power supplies are quite reliable, just limited in terms of large upgrades like a half-way nice graphics card, and the BIOS is functional for what it is intended to do.
they're definitely great to convert to a new purpose like a budget gaming rig or a home media server. My dad's work recently upgraded and he brought one back to give me when i told him I wanted to snag a cheap office PC to build a second system out of and I was disappointed to find out it's a slim one but I'll prob still figure out some way to use it. Prob could use a PCIe riser to fit a full size GPU and find a way to stuff it in there.
But that really just proves the point of my video. If you wanted to use full height cards, you are going to have to modify the machine. If it were the tower version, you would need a power supply adapter at most depending on the model, and that would be it. So having the Desktop form factor over the small form factor really provides no functional benefit. The small form factor machines are just as up-gradable, serviceable and reliable. I understand buying a small form factor because you want to use less space, and I understand getting the tower because you want to use full height cards and/or multiple drives. But the Desktop form factor has most of the dis-advantages of the small form factor machines with none of the advantages of the tower machines. It is simply a small form factor machine which uses up more space, and is more difficult to work on. Now of course, if it is a situation like you are presenting where it is given to you or you get it used cheaply, that is fine. But if you were buying one brand new, I just don't see why anyone would order the desktop form factor instead of just getting the SFF unless they had the rare use for a half height PCI slot.
@@WalterKnox Yeah I do actually agree that some of the form factors of these and especially the ones without standard parts kinda suck ass. I do wanna try to snag some more of these for various purposes but I wanna make sure I find ones that are full sized with standard PSUs so I can actually cram a GPU in there or something. I'm honestly not too experienced with these old desktop PCs and what to expect from them because so far I've only built dedicated gaming rigs from typical standard parts.
The Dell OptiPlex 9010 was the last one to use a standard 24 pin power supply connector. After that with the 9020, they moved to an 8? pin connector. They do make adapters and a regular power supply can be used though. Anything newer than the 9020 uses a weird small power supply even in the "tower" versions, so those really aren't great for upgrading.
@@WalterKnox I GOT IT!!!! I know the one thing you can do with the desktop... you can fit a 2-slot half height GPU, which opens up the (actually pretty good) options of the RTX A2000, LP RTX 3050 6GB, or LP RTX 4060 SFF. Can't do that with the SFF, as its slot is right next to the power supply so you need a 1-slot card (WHY, DELL, WHY?!?!?!? STUPID DESIGN!!!!)
I believe one other person mentioned this, and I never paid attention to it, but that is correct. I don't know why Dell did it that way, there are 2 PCIE slots in the SFF versions, and the X16 one is next to the power supply, all they would have had to do is not be a pill and switch the two around. Although I suppose for most businesses (the intended use cases for these machines,) that wouldn't really matter.
I like using these optiplex minitower machines. Pretty reliable, I had a 9020 mid tower with a 4th gen i7. Solid machine and it was pretty fast and was able to handle even windows 11 fine (though i prefer 10 ltsc for reasons). Gave it some upgrades like a 1050 ti, and it was a solid machine that could handle anything. I used that machine until I trash picked a better pc which had an amd ryzen 7 3700x (god knows why that was being thrown out, everything worked fine) but yeah, unsurprisingly it can handle windows 10 pretty well and can handle a lot of gaming with the gtx 970 i have in it. About the video, yeah it’s a pretty pointless form factor tbh. No wonder they got rid of it in the x020 series. I think HP still uses a similar form factor iirc. I mean, they did use the btx form factor in their “dt” form factor in the ivy bridge era. Also, i don’t really like how proprietary the optiplexes became even in the mid tower ones from 6th gen onwards (x040 or newer). They use proprietary psus and it sucks how you can’t just use a standard size psu.
Yep, I like the older machines (4th gen and before) much better. The towers were standard towers, and used mostly standard parts. The PSUs need an adapter, but a standard PSU would fit and work just fine with it. The small form factor machines from that era also just felt a lot more substantial than the cases in the newer ones. I am not really a fan of HP at all, I try to avoid buying them (although we always have some various prodesk models) and you are right, they do (or at least did until recently) use a DT size case, which I also find to be annoying to work on.
You obviously did not comprehend the information presented in or the point of this video. These machines all in all are very up-gradable for what they are. If you were planning on making a gaming PC, you would go with the tower version, and it would be fine. If you wanted something small and compact, you would go with the small form factor (which for an SFF machine is very up-gradable as well.)But the desktop form factor provides all of the negatives of the small form factor with none of the positives of the tower.
@@WalterKnox Ehhhhh, that case looks like an utter nightmare to build in man. That tends to be the huge reason is building in an actually good tower is very easy and has lots of options. Not in Dell’s case, though.
These older tower OptiPlexes are a standard micro ATX tower, and can be upgraded just fine (the most you may need is a power supply adapter.) The SFF machines are a bit more difficult, but are still very up gradable compared to today's crap. The CPU, RAM, GPU, HDD are all easily up-gradable and are standard parts. Of course you aren't going to build a whole new machine in these cases, with the tower you could, but either way if you are building a whole new machine, just get a cheap case. But in terms of pre-built office PCs, these are very up-gradable and serviceable.
You are looking at it from the wrong point of view. These are office PCs, you wouldn't just buy one for home use (not new at least.) Big companies, schools, and other environments are going to buy these by the bulk and run them for a decade, and they do a great job at that.
@@WalterKnox more like 3 years and then resell them, and then the next owner has the remainder of the decade (or more). I've had one for going on 5 years myself. Solid PCs. But yeah, challenging to upgrade. Best GPU I could slot and afford (wasn't trying to break the bank) is a GTX 1050 4GB. Yeah, 4GB, not 2GB. At least there's that. And it's twice the card it replaced (a GT 1030). But I ran that for a couple of years before I found a 1050 that would work. I believe the desktop power supply might be what's called an SFX power supply, like ATX (pin-compatible) but smaller. The x010 series seems to use a standard 24-pin power supply, something they changed for the x020 (intel 4th) generation (I have a 3020 SFF). I also don't recall desktop form factor being a thing with my PC's generation and later, so maybe the desktop form factor you are complaining about isn't actually "still" a thing. It's just that they made a lot of those and they're STILL on the used market.
Thanks for the free windows keys, could I have more since I see you have a whole household full of units? Also cool wall of psu’s I never seen so many stacked up like that 😂
That stack of PSUs is 2 deep (there are two layers before the wall.) It is also one of many walls of PSUs just like it. Quite scary as they teeter quite a bit and one good shake would knock all of them in the floor (and possibly onto someone if they are standing there.) As for the product keys, we scrap hundreds of computer cases each week which have perfectly valid keys on them. I have taken pictures and posted them here before. I may again in the future.
What OS keys do you need? I mainly have a ton of Windows 7 ones, which could be used for Windows 10 up until recently, but Micro$oft turned that feature off I believe.
Hey Walter, you are not going to believe this. On Thursday last week, I acquired 1/2 gallon of raw unpasteurized milk. The crazy part? It was all gone by Saturday! I really got to up it to 2 gallons a week, totaling to nearly $26 a week on Milk! RAw milk is full to the brim with beneficial bacteria for probiotics, it is also great for a bulk for the gym!
Unfortunately, it is not a bot, just someone with WAY too much time on their hands (although they probably use AI to write this crap, there is a person posting it and running the accounts.) I have had real interactions with this person, and they run multiple channels, several of which I have blocked. Sadly, it does no good and the next day they just come back with another account. This has been going on for the better part of 5 years now on mine and some other people in the same group's channels.
@@WalterKnox Walter, please, have consideration. Using AI is not my favorite, but I will say you can take at least some of my comments into gptzero and see. I HAVE to tell you the thrill of raw milk, because it is so delicious. However I have yet to try raw cheese from rawfarmusa. I bet it is good though, and better be for $14 at sprouts. Just improve the THRILL!
Okay, but that does not provide any useful commentary. There would still be no point in buying the desktop form factor machines. They provide no functional advantages over the small form factor machines. And yes, most companies do eventually open up their machines, they use the machines for way too long, and the IT people are constantly having to play with them. Most of the ones I have seen (and I have worked with hundreds maybe thousands of these machines) have been upgraded from their original configuration at a later date
Yeah, there certainly are uses for PCI cards, but personally, I rarely see these with the PCI slots occupied (the fact that it is a half height limits it even more.) I just don't see any reason to go out and order one of these if you were getting it new, either go for SFF or all the way to MT.
@@WalterKnox I put a 2-port SATA card in the 1x slot in my 3020 SFF because it only has 2 SATA ports, so that I could use an SSD, a hard drive, and still keep the optical drive. I still have a free port, which is about to get an SSD attached to it. But I'd have to figure out how to cram it in the case... anyway, I guess there isn't a point to more than 3 ports but they don't bother making 1-port cards. I'll probably put both SSDs where the hard drive was (I have a dual drive mount) and evict the hard drive from the case. But I'm not a huge fan of external 3.5" hard drives because with my luck that's where data goes to die...
Interesting, I have not really paid much attention to them, but I believe the 9020 SFF models may have 3 SATA ports (I am probably wrong on that one.) I don't see many older 3 series machines for some reason. Yeah, I prefer to keep my drives in the case.
Probably been said but these are from 2011-2013. These were riiiiight when companies were transitioning out of CRTs to all LCD. They by and large aren' t really a thing anymore.
Yeah, the Desktop form factor continued up to the 9020, which I believe was discontinued in 2014/15. Although, I have a couple of the small form factor versions of these machines in service with large 19" Trinitron monitors ontop of them, so they will fit just fine. From everything I gathered from what I heard here and my own speculation, these simply existed as long as they did due to large companies resisting change "we have ordered desktop form factor machines for years, so that is what we want." I am glad they don't make them anymore because they are a pain, but IMO they stuck around way longer than they really should have.
@@WalterKnox So glad micros are now the go-to for business/enterprise. Until you go to a DR's office and they put the LCD sitting on top of the micro/tiny laying on it's side being crushed and bent in.
I don't think they sell those "SFF with full desktop board" units anymore. I do the ordering for my org's PC fleet, and they're not on Dell's website AFAICT.
They are called desktop form factor units. And no, it does not appear that Dell still sells them, but they did up until not too long ago. They stuck around way longer than they had a place in the world.
They stopped after the x020 machines, so 4th gen. Which really isn't that old. While I am glad they don't make them anymore, because they are a pain to work on, I still believe that they stuck around way longer than they had a real place in the market.
Hey whatever your name is (not DJ Walt), I check in here every so often, for years (you might recognize my channel despite 15 name changes). So you're working as a computer parts pro. Did you ever go to school as you mentioned a couple years ago? Probably don't even need it at this point. Did you see the aurora in NC? It was intense here in Maine.
Hey, nice to hear from you again. I am far from a pro, but I know what I am talking about pretty well most of the time. This is a small business my friend owns and runs out of his basement, it does pretty well though for what it is and pays all of his bills with quite a bit left over. Basically we just buy large lots of retired PCs from government surplus auctions, tear them down and sell what we can, and then take the cases to the metal scrap yard (we commonly get more for the empty cases in scrap metal than we paid for the whole machines.) I did indeed go to a 2 year program for electrical systems technology at a local community college, and actually just finished it 2 weeks ago. While I could either continue working with my friend here more, or start my own business of the same type, it is sadly not a sustainable venture as computers are becoming less and less serviceable with everything on a single board. My guess is in the next 10 years, this type of business will be very few and far between.
@@WalterKnox Wow did you get an associate's degree? If so you could write your own ticket as a tech anywhere. (For some reason my reply wasn't showing up & now I see it is...more YT fun.)
Your reply was not showing up because I hadn't approved it yet. Because of all of the nonsense that goes on, I changed all of the comments to "hold for approval," so I have to manually approve them before they are visible.
At this point, I am still not a licensed electrician. In NC, you have to have completed a program such as the one that I did, and then have so many hours (comes out to around a year) of work in the field under another licensed electrician.
They are retired machines purchased in bulk from government surplus auctions which are in the process of getting torn down for parts which will be sold online.
Somebody has a friggin hoarding issue. Unless you have all that junk there to get the gold out of it, there is no excuse for that mountain of useless garbage. Even child factories in India use better stuff than that.
This video is filmed at work, where we work on computers and sell parts (I have already mentioned this in another comment.) It does very well and pays all of the bills, so I think I am good. But thanks for the engagement, even dumb comments help the algorithm.
They are retired machines purchased in bulk from government surplus auctions which are in the process of getting torn down for parts which will be sold online.
2 місяці тому
I can get these for free when we sort them out. hehe.
Yeah, if you are getting them cheap used or free, they are fine. I am just saying if you were ordering them new, I don't really see a reason to get desktop form factor. I am mostly a tower guy myself unless I really don't have the space to use the tower, and then I will use the SFF. I just don't like the desktop form factor.
What is the reasoning though? They are annoying to work on when compared to both the tower and the small form factor, and they seemingly provide most of the downsides of the small form factor with none of the upsides of the tower.
@@WalterKnox small form factor desktops suck dont get me wrong But larger ones are easier to upgrade, usually you gotta tear a laptop to pieces just to replace one thing. On a desktop its just a door and you’re in
Yes, I believe you are. Like I showed in the video, there is the tower, the desktop form factor, and the small form factor. The tower is a tower, and the small form factor is a small form factor. I like both of these form factors. The desktop form factor is between the two form factors, and provides most of the disadvantages as the small form factor, but none of the benefits of the tower. And the desktop form factor is more annoying to work on than the tower or the small form factor machines.
TBH as someone in the industry, both SFF and "sff desktops" are absolutely retarded in any way you look at it, for basic office work one of those micro sff pcs is just fine, heck, in the enterprise world notebooks are absolutely killing those types of machines, HOWEVER, workstations which come in the "tower" form, usually an standard ATX or similar case, are absolutely going nowhere, you try fitting 2 A4000s inside anything except an tower, with all that it would entail, that just won't do and notebooks are no-fricking-where even dreaming of coming near this performance class, you just can't fit a 350W Xeon with your standard Quadro for your typical CAD/3D/rendering workstation within an notebook, it's just not happening. We have around 20 ZBooks, with the top spec deployed in engineering, they are just absolutely demolished by the workstations.
I never said anything about towers going anywhere, because they aren't. SFF machines have their place, and when the machines I was showing in this video were made, the "micro" machines weren't a thing, they did have slightly smaller SFF machines (USSF I believe) which were nice because they had built in power supplies.
@@WalterKnoxno worries, I just personally despise both SFF and SFF desktops because of their "proprietary and limited" nature, in my view neither should've existed, even when the "micro sff" was not around, now sure USFF has it's uses but SFF in of itself is very useless, kind of always has been. At least with the Micro SFF you get something so small that it might as well be screwed into the back of the monitor, that does not suffers from the AIO syndrome of everything being permanently soldered to the mainboard.
The new ones are, but all new computers are junk. These older OptiPlex machines are quite solid and for a business environment they have proven very solid. I find them quite easy to work on (even the small form factor machines.)
The Pentium/Core era machines are pure proprietary junk, with esoteric everything. The very new stuff like the Alienwares are also proprietary junk but with the power to turn top end silicon into mid range silicon. Optiplexs are fine by comparison
OptiPlexes are good enterprise machines which are bought for an enterprise setting. If anyone thinks that most businesses are going to build their own computers, or spend a ton of money on high end gaming machines for office work, they are crazy. I deal with hundreds of these machines on a weekly basis, and very rarely see a dead one. They are very reliable solid office PCs, and that is their intended use case.
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I literally bought about 30 of these compact Dell desktops back in maybe 2011 or 12. The reason I went with the desktops as they could be placed under the monitors, in a lab setting where horizontal space is very limited - and unlike AIOs, parts could easily be changed out or upgraded as needed. These were replaced with AIOs, and eventually replaced those with Lenovo Tiny systems. I used one of these Dells after it was pulled from service as my primary machine for about two years, and at the end of the day, none of them ever gave me an ounce of trouble.
I am not arguing that they are solid machines, I just don't see a reason to chose the desktop over the SFF if you were buying them new aside from the small chance you need a half height PCI slot. I have a Dell OptiPlex 980 (which is the same size as the machines shown here) SFF which has a large 19" CRT monitor which fits ontop of it perfectly fine.
I don't know, the SFF versions of the machines seem to be just as reliable and up-gradable as the Desktop form factor machines would be. Honestly, I find the SFF machines to be more easily serviced, the desktop form factor machines have the power supply cables routed under the disk drive, under metal clip things and all the way around the side, when you are removing over 100 of them in one day, the SFF machines are much more friendly.
how'd you get so many of these office boxes? I'd say 10 is pushing it but hundreds is a lot!
Well, I have over 100 computers in my personal collection, but they are all older ones.
These though are bought at surplus auctions, taken apart, and the parts sold online. Sales for parts from decade old office PCs is actually a lot more successful that most would expect.
@@WalterKnox donate one to me, that i can turn into an editing rig
I love getting comments like this because it illustrates that the commenter has no idea how money works. If it were simply giving away a machine, that would be easily and would cost me nothing other than the cost of the machine (which when you account for the profit from all of them, would be negligible.) However, nothing is every that simple. I would have to ship the machine. I would have to pack it using materials which cost money, and take time to pack it which is money, and then spend money on shipping the machine. Suddenly, I have more money into giving the machine away for free than it is even worth.
Well these types of PCs can be found on eBay for dirt cheap. I've seen some, albeit with dogshit specs, for less than 30 bucks sometimes. Been thinking of snagging a few for myself to convert into various purposes. Prob gonna build a few budget gaming rigs to sell my friends for cheap and turn another into a home media server. My dad's work upgraded recently and he brought back one of the old ones for me but it's one of those stupid slim ones so I'm not all too sure what I can do with it yet but I have some ideas.
Based on what Walter said, I may even have some success buying the really cheap ones being sold off in mass on eBay to take apart and flip the parts online for more than the system was worth.
It depends on what the machine is as far as being able to make a profit on selling parts. With these old machines, it isn't too much. (we will use a 9010 as an example.) Most of the ones we get are i5s, and a 3rd gen i5 only goes for around $20. 4gb DDR3 only goes for around $10. Take into account for shipping, fees and so, it really isn't that much of a profit unless you really have a bunch of them and can sell in bulk like we commonly do.
Now if you get newer machines, it gets better. There are some cases on newer machines where we can get them for around $60 each, and then get $150 back for the CPU, so everything else is just a plus.
A good bit of the good bulk orders are out of the country. We had an order for over 100 (I forget the exact number) half height graphics cards which go for around $20 each which was going to Vietnam. PC parts are harder to come by in other countries, and I am assuming that the people who are buying large lots like that are going to resell them locally for an upsale.
There are certain things that sell better than others. RAM, CPUs and GPUs seem to be the best sellers. Other stuff which is more specialized like motherboards and power supplies do sell (a good bit of small form factor 990-9010 power supplies for some reason,) but not as quickly. Other stuff like the tons of hard drive caddys laying around really should just go to the landfill because it really isn't even worth the effort of keeping them around.
never thought id see a entire WALL of dell psus....you see new things every day i guess!
It is 2 deep.
What on earth is that wall of "stuff" in the background? It looks like somebody starting prototyping for skynet.
Those are power supplies. This video was filmed at work where we buy retired computers from government surplus and tear them down to sell the parts.
I got a Thinkstation P520 I'm going to build out. First desktop I've used in years, got it because I've been using a Thinkpad T430 up until now and figured I'd go with the same brand.
If I were buying PCs for a company these days I would just buy those tiny N100 mini-PCs for most office workers.
Honestly, for most office work that would be perfectly adequate. I also like the OptiPlex micro machines for slightly larger loads.
So, I started my "journey" with OptiPlexs as referbed office & gaming PCs. Low profile cards CAN be more expensive at times. Most "good" sff cards are dual slot (750ti, 1050. 1650, etc). The late model SFF optiplex OFTEN puts the x16 slot RIGHT up against the power supply. You'll be lucky to fit an old quadro or GT1030 in a single slot spacing. That "desktop" model can fit a dual slot GPU low profile AND a wifi card or a capture card rather easily. ALL of that being said? if you don't need the extra space? It's easier to deal with the "full" tower design which is still more like a micro ATX/ small atx size overall. The larger "workstation" / "server" desktop units that are Haswell and newer are VERY nice value for their age and you can often upgrade them and STILL have plenty of cores for modern tasks. E5 v3/v4 Xeons are cheap now.
Yeah, I was talking more about if you were a business buying them new, but that is a point I have never thought of. Although, I really do think just going for the tower would be a better option unless you specifically needed the space.
I mean....the DT form factor as you show is something I've not seen from Dell brand new since at newest the Core ix-4xxx series CPU's, sooo it looks like everyone agreed with you that it made no sense. However the nice thing about them in my mind is the standard 5.25" disk drive. The slimline drives like the ones that were/are sometimes still used in laptops tend to fail at a far higher rate, and being able to easily swap out your DVD drive (if it does fail) for a very readily-available 5.25" replacement is a big bonus. These days, and for some years now, if you have a 5.25" DVD drive fail, you can often just make a quick trip to a thrift store and find one for $5.
Correct, they don't make them anymore; but IMO they stuck around way longer than they had an actual specific place in the market and are really just a pain to deal with compared to the other 2 form factors in the lineup.
I believe I did mention the standard size disk drive, which is an upgrade over the small form factor. I just can't say it would have been enough of an upgrade over the small form factor for me to have ordered the desktop versions of the machines if I were buying them new. The good news is that out of the (literally) thousands of these machines that I have dealt with, I have only seen a handful of bad disk drives in the small form factor machines, so they are fairly reliable for what they are.
Im guessing the desktop form factor still exists because its older than the SFF.
So there is probably a none zero amount of companies that still request that specific form factor because that what they have always had. Its become ingrained in the SOP docmentation for selection during the upgrade cycle (to prevent expensive unecessary overspecing occuring) and no lowly percurment officer is going kick up the fuss to change it even if it makes sense to do so.
I mean, I guess that makes sense. I am as big on resisting change as anyone. Hell, I am still running Windows XP on a computer that is nearly 2 decades old. These desktop form factor machines are really annoying though, and I am glad that Dell finally stopped offering them.
For the pci slot, I have a pc that I use for storage and tools that the motherboard is an MSI z170 which comes with an old pci
I simply installed a Wi-Fi card to use it since the board didn’t come integrated with it, also let me use the remaining slots for graphics and raid add ons etc
I am not questioning that there are uses for PCI slots. However, in the hundreds of these machines I have dealt with, I can't really say that I have ever seen one of the desktop form factor machines with the half height PCI slot utilized. I am sure there are some rare cases where a machine like this would be needed, but those would be very few and far between. I have seen plenty of the towers with the PCI slots occupied with something though. It just seems like they are filling a gap that really doesn't exist with something that isn't solving a problem that doesn't really exist.
If you want to do upgrades, the tower form factor is the way to go! It's the only one that will fit a proper graphics card. Otherwise, you're stuck with something half-height.
Correct, so in reality, the tower and the small form factor both have good use cases, but the desktop form factor really doesn't.
Totally true. You could just buy the small form factor version and put that underneath your monitor. Its even the same height (?).
Possibly they still make those for historical reasons. Large corporations often are resistant to change and buy the same thing because they always did it that way. Think government and universities.
I believe the small form factor is slightly shorter, but just a bit.
Someone has a hoarding problem...
This video was filmed at work. Where we work on computers, and sell parts in bulk.
But thanks for the engagement. Comments no matter how stupid help the algorithm.
I never understood the point of these either, but to be fair, are they still a thing? I was under the impression that Dell did away with the DT form factor after the 20 series.
You are correct. The 4th gen machines (3020,7020,9020) were the last ones to offer this form factor. I am glad they don't make them anymore because they are a pain, but I really believe they stuck around way longer than they should have.
If I had to make a guess, so many years ago this was a high selling form factor from Dell so now they just keep making them because a handful of companys/ schools would be upset that they can no longer buy a updated machine from Dell that fits in the specific under desk/ podium mount they got all those years ago. Enterprise customers can be weird like that. When I was in college, the school threw a huge fit because the projectors they upgraded to no longer fit in the ceiling mount caddys they used in their previous model.
I guess so, but anywhere that one of the desktop form factor machines would fit, a small form factor machine would fit even better.
@@WalterKnox Depending on the mount/ caddy, yeah. But id imagine theres some that are similar to those projector caddys that hold on to the top and bottom of the tower so that they can be securely mounted to a wall, or under a desk/ podium without worry of them slipping out
Or maybe they already produced a lot and have to do something with those PC cases. See Alienware for example. They pretty much always use ancient dell cases. Despite the horrible airflow.
Yeah, I am sure that was the case for the last few generations of these machines, still think they stuck around way longer than they had a real place in the market though.
@@DarkHors-rf9zz I can see that being the reason they used this specific case for so long, but they still make the Optiplex in a full size tower, just in a new look. So if that was the case id assume they wouldve just discontinued this size, but they didnt and gave it a new modern look
How do you get so many of these? Me and my kid find them and upgrade and sell them off for different use cases. I hate the stupid desktop SFF. I have a hp z200 that is in that size. Truly annoying. The purpose, is to sell you a SFF GPU that costs the price as the unit.
These are not my personal machines, they are at work. We buy retired PCs from government surplus auctions in bulk, tear them down, and sell the parts out of them. We occasionally fix them up and resell them as "refurbished" machines, but not as much as we used to.
My guess is the ATX desktop form factor has stuck around as the de-facto "image" of what a computer is, so thats what sells to the average business? Heat and simplicity could also be a factor since the smaller boxes run hotter and are more fiddly and time consuming to (dis)assemble.
I hate that everything is proprietary though, its caused an insane amount of e-waste to pile up in the world - no doubt to minmax cost to profit and make it a hassle for most people to upgrade components instead of just buying a new one.
These Desktop form factor machines are much more fiddly and time consuming to dissemble than the Small form factor machines or the tower machines are. I have taken apart hundreds of them, and the SFF machines are actually really easy to work on, so are the towers. The Desktop form factors though are annoying.
And at this point it isn't even like they are the old Desktop machines from the 90s which used standard power supplies and full height slots (normally turned sideways,) so there really isn't any reason to go with that option.
@@WalterKnox oh man i just realised you're talking about the horizontally orientated ones. Yeah the only thing i can think of is refusing to let go of a Legacy design. You used to put CRT monitors on top of this form factor which saved space, but thats no longer a thing. Makes sense that the SFF machines are easier to work on since they were designed from the ground up decades after these were a thing.
Yep. The towers make sense because you can use full height cards, and they are a standard size board and power supply. And the SFF machines make sense because they are compact. But the desktop machines (which are in-between the two) really don't make sense.
I also have 2 setups with SFF OptiPlex machines just like shown in the video with big 19" CRT monitors ontop of them, so even that isn't an issue with them.
Looking at Dell's site now, it seems that they no-longer offer a Desktop form factor machine. They offer Micro, small, and tower form factors which all have their places as well as AIOs which are a completely other subject.
Although the Desktop form factor definitely stuck around for way longer than it had a useful place in the world.
i love giving these things a new lease on life but I hate the proprietary BS bios, pins, and power supply
I agree, but you have to look at it from the point of view as their intended use case, which was enterprise settings. The most they are likely to do is upgrade the RAM and maybe storage.
The power supplies are quite reliable, just limited in terms of large upgrades like a half-way nice graphics card, and the BIOS is functional for what it is intended to do.
they're definitely great to convert to a new purpose like a budget gaming rig or a home media server.
My dad's work recently upgraded and he brought one back to give me when i told him I wanted to snag a cheap office PC to build a second system out of and I was disappointed to find out it's a slim one but I'll prob still figure out some way to use it. Prob could use a PCIe riser to fit a full size GPU and find a way to stuff it in there.
But that really just proves the point of my video. If you wanted to use full height cards, you are going to have to modify the machine. If it were the tower version, you would need a power supply adapter at most depending on the model, and that would be it.
So having the Desktop form factor over the small form factor really provides no functional benefit. The small form factor machines are just as up-gradable, serviceable and reliable.
I understand buying a small form factor because you want to use less space, and I understand getting the tower because you want to use full height cards and/or multiple drives. But the Desktop form factor has most of the dis-advantages of the small form factor machines with none of the advantages of the tower machines. It is simply a small form factor machine which uses up more space, and is more difficult to work on.
Now of course, if it is a situation like you are presenting where it is given to you or you get it used cheaply, that is fine. But if you were buying one brand new, I just don't see why anyone would order the desktop form factor instead of just getting the SFF unless they had the rare use for a half height PCI slot.
@@WalterKnox Yeah I do actually agree that some of the form factors of these and especially the ones without standard parts kinda suck ass. I do wanna try to snag some more of these for various purposes but I wanna make sure I find ones that are full sized with standard PSUs so I can actually cram a GPU in there or something.
I'm honestly not too experienced with these old desktop PCs and what to expect from them because so far I've only built dedicated gaming rigs from typical standard parts.
The Dell OptiPlex 9010 was the last one to use a standard 24 pin power supply connector. After that with the 9020, they moved to an 8? pin connector. They do make adapters and a regular power supply can be used though.
Anything newer than the 9020 uses a weird small power supply even in the "tower" versions, so those really aren't great for upgrading.
@@WalterKnox I GOT IT!!!!
I know the one thing you can do with the desktop... you can fit a 2-slot half height GPU, which opens up the (actually pretty good) options of the RTX A2000, LP RTX 3050 6GB, or LP RTX 4060 SFF. Can't do that with the SFF, as its slot is right next to the power supply so you need a 1-slot card (WHY, DELL, WHY?!?!?!? STUPID DESIGN!!!!)
I believe one other person mentioned this, and I never paid attention to it, but that is correct. I don't know why Dell did it that way, there are 2 PCIE slots in the SFF versions, and the X16 one is next to the power supply, all they would have had to do is not be a pill and switch the two around.
Although I suppose for most businesses (the intended use cases for these machines,) that wouldn't really matter.
I like using these optiplex minitower machines. Pretty reliable, I had a 9020 mid tower with a 4th gen i7. Solid machine and it was pretty fast and was able to handle even windows 11 fine (though i prefer 10 ltsc for reasons). Gave it some upgrades like a 1050 ti, and it was a solid machine that could handle anything. I used that machine until I trash picked a better pc which had an amd ryzen 7 3700x (god knows why that was being thrown out, everything worked fine) but yeah, unsurprisingly it can handle windows 10 pretty well and can handle a lot of gaming with the gtx 970 i have in it.
About the video, yeah it’s a pretty pointless form factor tbh. No wonder they got rid of it in the x020 series. I think HP still uses a similar form factor iirc. I mean, they did use the btx form factor in their “dt” form factor in the ivy bridge era. Also, i don’t really like how proprietary the optiplexes became even in the mid tower ones from 6th gen onwards (x040 or newer). They use proprietary psus and it sucks how you can’t just use a standard size psu.
Yep, I like the older machines (4th gen and before) much better. The towers were standard towers, and used mostly standard parts. The PSUs need an adapter, but a standard PSU would fit and work just fine with it. The small form factor machines from that era also just felt a lot more substantial than the cases in the newer ones.
I am not really a fan of HP at all, I try to avoid buying them (although we always have some various prodesk models) and you are right, they do (or at least did until recently) use a DT size case, which I also find to be annoying to work on.
Its by DESIGN. DELL does NOT want there users or second hand owners upgrading them or making them play PC games.
You obviously did not comprehend the information presented in or the point of this video. These machines all in all are very up-gradable for what they are. If you were planning on making a gaming PC, you would go with the tower version, and it would be fine. If you wanted something small and compact, you would go with the small form factor (which for an SFF machine is very up-gradable as well.)But the desktop form factor provides all of the negatives of the small form factor with none of the positives of the tower.
@@WalterKnox
Ehhhhh, that case looks like an utter nightmare to build in man. That tends to be the huge reason is building in an actually good tower is very easy and has lots of options. Not in Dell’s case, though.
These older tower OptiPlexes are a standard micro ATX tower, and can be upgraded just fine (the most you may need is a power supply adapter.) The SFF machines are a bit more difficult, but are still very up gradable compared to today's crap. The CPU, RAM, GPU, HDD are all easily up-gradable and are standard parts.
Of course you aren't going to build a whole new machine in these cases, with the tower you could, but either way if you are building a whole new machine, just get a cheap case. But in terms of pre-built office PCs, these are very up-gradable and serviceable.
You are looking at it from the wrong point of view. These are office PCs, you wouldn't just buy one for home use (not new at least.) Big companies, schools, and other environments are going to buy these by the bulk and run them for a decade, and they do a great job at that.
@@WalterKnox more like 3 years and then resell them, and then the next owner has the remainder of the decade (or more). I've had one for going on 5 years myself. Solid PCs. But yeah, challenging to upgrade. Best GPU I could slot and afford (wasn't trying to break the bank) is a GTX 1050 4GB. Yeah, 4GB, not 2GB. At least there's that. And it's twice the card it replaced (a GT 1030). But I ran that for a couple of years before I found a 1050 that would work.
I believe the desktop power supply might be what's called an SFX power supply, like ATX (pin-compatible) but smaller. The x010 series seems to use a standard 24-pin power supply, something they changed for the x020 (intel 4th) generation (I have a 3020 SFF). I also don't recall desktop form factor being a thing with my PC's generation and later, so maybe the desktop form factor you are complaining about isn't actually "still" a thing. It's just that they made a lot of those and they're STILL on the used market.
Thanks for the free windows keys, could I have more since I see you have a whole household full of units? Also cool wall of psu’s I never seen so many stacked up like that 😂
That stack of PSUs is 2 deep (there are two layers before the wall.) It is also one of many walls of PSUs just like it. Quite scary as they teeter quite a bit and one good shake would knock all of them in the floor (and possibly onto someone if they are standing there.)
As for the product keys, we scrap hundreds of computer cases each week which have perfectly valid keys on them. I have taken pictures and posted them here before. I may again in the future.
@@WalterKnox lmk if you can I would love to have them so when I install windows simply insert the key during the process
What OS keys do you need? I mainly have a ton of Windows 7 ones, which could be used for Windows 10 up until recently, but Micro$oft turned that feature off I believe.
@@WalterKnox reading this while side eyeing my activate windows watermark lol
github.com/massgravel/Microsoft-Activation-Scripts
Hey Walter, you are not going to believe this. On Thursday last week, I acquired 1/2 gallon of raw unpasteurized milk. The crazy part? It was all gone by Saturday! I really got to up it to 2 gallons a week, totaling to nearly $26 a week on Milk! RAw milk is full to the brim with beneficial bacteria for probiotics, it is also great for a bulk for the gym!
Do Not Post Spam.
@@WalterKnox You might wanna just delete the comment and block the account considering it's obviously a bot
Unfortunately, it is not a bot, just someone with WAY too much time on their hands (although they probably use AI to write this crap, there is a person posting it and running the accounts.) I have had real interactions with this person, and they run multiple channels, several of which I have blocked. Sadly, it does no good and the next day they just come back with another account. This has been going on for the better part of 5 years now on mine and some other people in the same group's channels.
@@WalterKnox Walter, please, have consideration. Using AI is not my favorite, but I will say you can take at least some of my comments into gptzero and see. I HAVE to tell you the thrill of raw milk, because it is so delicious. However I have yet to try raw cheese from rawfarmusa. I bet it is good though, and better be for $14 at sprouts. Just improve the THRILL!
@@WalterKnox oh yep, I see the other comments by him
most companies just need a pc, and dgaf about ever opening them.
Okay, but that does not provide any useful commentary. There would still be no point in buying the desktop form factor machines. They provide no functional advantages over the small form factor machines.
And yes, most companies do eventually open up their machines, they use the machines for way too long, and the IT people are constantly having to play with them. Most of the ones I have seen (and I have worked with hundreds maybe thousands of these machines) have been upgraded from their original configuration at a later date
I use pci slot for a wifi card since I might as well.
Yeah, there certainly are uses for PCI cards, but personally, I rarely see these with the PCI slots occupied (the fact that it is a half height limits it even more.) I just don't see any reason to go out and order one of these if you were getting it new, either go for SFF or all the way to MT.
@@WalterKnox I put a 2-port SATA card in the 1x slot in my 3020 SFF because it only has 2 SATA ports, so that I could use an SSD, a hard drive, and still keep the optical drive. I still have a free port, which is about to get an SSD attached to it. But I'd have to figure out how to cram it in the case... anyway, I guess there isn't a point to more than 3 ports but they don't bother making 1-port cards. I'll probably put both SSDs where the hard drive was (I have a dual drive mount) and evict the hard drive from the case. But I'm not a huge fan of external 3.5" hard drives because with my luck that's where data goes to die...
Interesting, I have not really paid much attention to them, but I believe the 9020 SFF models may have 3 SATA ports (I am probably wrong on that one.) I don't see many older 3 series machines for some reason.
Yeah, I prefer to keep my drives in the case.
Probably been said but these are from 2011-2013. These were riiiiight when companies were transitioning out of CRTs to all LCD. They by and large aren' t really a thing anymore.
Yeah, the Desktop form factor continued up to the 9020, which I believe was discontinued in 2014/15. Although, I have a couple of the small form factor versions of these machines in service with large 19" Trinitron monitors ontop of them, so they will fit just fine.
From everything I gathered from what I heard here and my own speculation, these simply existed as long as they did due to large companies resisting change "we have ordered desktop form factor machines for years, so that is what we want." I am glad they don't make them anymore because they are a pain, but IMO they stuck around way longer than they really should have.
@@WalterKnox So glad micros are now the go-to for business/enterprise. Until you go to a DR's office and they put the LCD sitting on top of the micro/tiny laying on it's side being crushed and bent in.
I don't think they sell those "SFF with full desktop board" units anymore. I do the ordering for my org's PC fleet, and they're not on Dell's website AFAICT.
They are called desktop form factor units. And no, it does not appear that Dell still sells them, but they did up until not too long ago. They stuck around way longer than they had a place in the world.
@@WalterKnox I think they stopped after 3rd generation intel. It's just that they're STILL in the used channel, which is kind of mind-blowing.
They stopped after the x020 machines, so 4th gen. Which really isn't that old. While I am glad they don't make them anymore, because they are a pain to work on, I still believe that they stuck around way longer than they had a real place in the market.
Hey whatever your name is (not DJ Walt), I check in here every so often, for years (you might recognize my channel despite 15 name changes). So you're working as a computer parts pro. Did you ever go to school as you mentioned a couple years ago? Probably don't even need it at this point. Did you see the aurora in NC? It was intense here in Maine.
Hey, nice to hear from you again. I am far from a pro, but I know what I am talking about pretty well most of the time.
This is a small business my friend owns and runs out of his basement, it does pretty well though for what it is and pays all of his bills with quite a bit left over. Basically we just buy large lots of retired PCs from government surplus auctions, tear them down and sell what we can, and then take the cases to the metal scrap yard (we commonly get more for the empty cases in scrap metal than we paid for the whole machines.)
I did indeed go to a 2 year program for electrical systems technology at a local community college, and actually just finished it 2 weeks ago. While I could either continue working with my friend here more, or start my own business of the same type, it is sadly not a sustainable venture as computers are becoming less and less serviceable with everything on a single board. My guess is in the next 10 years, this type of business will be very few and far between.
@@WalterKnox Wow did you get an associate's degree? If so you could write your own ticket as a tech anywhere.
(For some reason my reply wasn't showing up & now I see it is...more YT fun.)
Your reply was not showing up because I hadn't approved it yet.
Because of all of the nonsense that goes on, I changed all of the comments to "hold for approval," so I have to manually approve them before they are visible.
At this point, I am still not a licensed electrician. In NC, you have to have completed a program such as the one that I did, and then have so many hours (comes out to around a year) of work in the field under another licensed electrician.
@@WalterKnox Smart move.
Were do you get all these do you sell them ??
They are retired machines purchased in bulk from government surplus auctions which are in the process of getting torn down for parts which will be sold online.
@@WalterKnox how can these parts be bought
is that a wall of power supplies?
Yes, and they are all for sale.
Somebody has a friggin hoarding issue. Unless you have all that junk there to get the gold out of it, there is no excuse for that mountain of useless garbage. Even child factories in India use better stuff than that.
This video is filmed at work, where we work on computers and sell parts (I have already mentioned this in another comment.) It does very well and pays all of the bills, so I think I am good.
But thanks for the engagement, even dumb comments help the algorithm.
Walter Knox, how did you acquire so many computers? Are you loaded with cash?
They are retired machines purchased in bulk from government surplus auctions which are in the process of getting torn down for parts which will be sold online.
I can get these for free when we sort them out. hehe.
Yeah, if you are getting them cheap used or free, they are fine. I am just saying if you were ordering them new, I don't really see a reason to get desktop form factor.
I am mostly a tower guy myself unless I really don't have the space to use the tower, and then I will use the SFF. I just don't like the desktop form factor.
well i... like desktops.
What is the reasoning though? They are annoying to work on when compared to both the tower and the small form factor, and they seemingly provide most of the downsides of the small form factor with none of the upsides of the tower.
@@WalterKnox small form factor desktops suck dont get me wrong
But larger ones are easier to upgrade, usually you gotta tear a laptop to pieces just to replace one thing. On a desktop its just a door and you’re in
@@WalterKnoxi think i may be confusing desktop for a tower pc.
Yes, I believe you are. Like I showed in the video, there is the tower, the desktop form factor, and the small form factor.
The tower is a tower, and the small form factor is a small form factor. I like both of these form factors.
The desktop form factor is between the two form factors, and provides most of the disadvantages as the small form factor, but none of the benefits of the tower. And the desktop form factor is more annoying to work on than the tower or the small form factor machines.
TBH as someone in the industry, both SFF and "sff desktops" are absolutely retarded in any way you look at it, for basic office work one of those micro sff pcs is just fine, heck, in the enterprise world notebooks are absolutely killing those types of machines, HOWEVER, workstations which come in the "tower" form, usually an standard ATX or similar case, are absolutely going nowhere, you try fitting 2 A4000s inside anything except an tower, with all that it would entail, that just won't do and notebooks are no-fricking-where even dreaming of coming near this performance class, you just can't fit a 350W Xeon with your standard Quadro for your typical CAD/3D/rendering workstation within an notebook, it's just not happening. We have around 20 ZBooks, with the top spec deployed in engineering, they are just absolutely demolished by the workstations.
I never said anything about towers going anywhere, because they aren't.
SFF machines have their place, and when the machines I was showing in this video were made, the "micro" machines weren't a thing, they did have slightly smaller SFF machines (USSF I believe) which were nice because they had built in power supplies.
@@WalterKnoxno worries, I just personally despise both SFF and SFF desktops because of their "proprietary and limited" nature, in my view neither should've existed, even when the "micro sff" was not around, now sure USFF has it's uses but SFF in of itself is very useless, kind of always has been. At least with the Micro SFF you get something so small that it might as well be screwed into the back of the monitor, that does not suffers from the AIO syndrome of everything being permanently soldered to the mainboard.
Dell is trash. I hated working on these. They over designed everything just to make it worse and less compatible with aftermarket parts.
The new ones are, but all new computers are junk. These older OptiPlex machines are quite solid and for a business environment they have proven very solid. I find them quite easy to work on (even the small form factor machines.)
The Pentium/Core era machines are pure proprietary junk, with esoteric everything. The very new stuff like the Alienwares are also proprietary junk but with the power to turn top end silicon into mid range silicon. Optiplexs are fine by comparison
OptiPlexes are good enterprise machines which are bought for an enterprise setting. If anyone thinks that most businesses are going to build their own computers, or spend a ton of money on high end gaming machines for office work, they are crazy.
I deal with hundreds of these machines on a weekly basis, and very rarely see a dead one. They are very reliable solid office PCs, and that is their intended use case.