Hey hey frugal people! I can't believe my own luck :D
I hit a total jackpot on a PC.
So picture this: I hit the local flea market, and I see a PC for sale. 50€? Hmm, it's probably an old lower end model. Maybe even second gen Intel i-series or something... I guess I'll check the specs.
Fuck that: It's an Intel Core i5-9400. 16 gigs of DDR4. An Intel M2 SSD?! Complete in case, with a monitor, keyboard and mouse and even a goddamn printer included?!
Giddy with excitement, I began to think. Either the PC is toast, has some serious issues or, if I'm lucky, the seller simply doesn't know what they have and are just looking to get rid of it.
I talk with the seller, and they let me test the PC. Everything... works just as intented. It boots to Windows 11. Hmm.
I really don't need the keyboard that they provide (it's one of those awful flat keyboards...), don't need a wireless mouse, don't need a random generic inkjet printer and don't really have the spare space for a monitor, even though it was a 1680x1050 16:10 one, I was sure that it's a 60 Hz model or something. Don't really have the desk space for it anyway.
So I manage to haggle the price down to 40€ without the peripherals. 40 fucking euros, for such a PC.
It is a very small little boi. A mini case, without a GPU and not much room for anything. No RGB nonsense. To be honest, the case and the form factor has grew on me. It's cute :D
I get home, hook it up, get through the Windows 11 initial setup because it was wiped into a clean slate. I decided to keep Windows 11 in there for now, as an experiment. We'll see how it goes.
Yeah Windows is pretty bad for privacy but as with my other Windows 10 machines, I plan to keep it around as, what is for all intents and purposes, a glorified video game bootloader.
I mean yeah video rendering should be pretty sick on it too, but I mean... It's like I have to keep the thing hooked up to the internet that often anyway. All my private stuff I can do on the Linux Machine anyway...
So, with that said and done, and I confirm that the system is indeed working, I begin to wonder. What to do with the GPU situation? I really, really wouldn't want to have to buy another GPU to this PC as I just bought the RX 570. So, uh, I decide to do some tape measurements and... it theoretically should fit in there, if I remove the hard drive caddy. There's no drive in there anyway, and it's again this weird thingy where it's not just normal screws but these weird plastic holes?! Am I just a dinosaur and this is how they do things now, someone please tell me...
So, I remove it, and stick the RX 570 in there. Aaaaaandddd... it fits. It just fits.
Truly I have been blessed by the [insert deity/deities/quantum particles here]. Everything is just working out! It's awesome! xD
After holding my ground, sticking with what I've got until I get a good deal, I've managed to get a modern-ish gaming PC :D Hooray for me!
I've already installed Doom Eternal, Horizon Zero Dawn, Baldur's Gate 3 and WWE 2K22 in there. The 512 gb ssd is filled up, sheesh. Modern games are stupid large. Oh well, maybe it's better this way, so I don't have gazillion games installed at once and never finish any of them.
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