Reddit mentions of Acer Aspire Desktop, 7th Gen Intel Core i3-7100, 8GB DDR4, 1TB HDD, Windows 10 Home, TC-780-ACKi3

At that budget getting something like this is your best option
https://www.amazon.com/Acer-Desktop-i3-7100-Windows-TC-780-ACKi3/dp/B071DM6TWM/ref=sr_1_1?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1521933934&sr=1-1&keywords=desktop

and then put a gtx 1050 or 1050ti in it
https://pcpartpicker.com/products/video-card/#c=379,380&sort=price

If you have any old computers, I would recommend trying Plex out on that first since it should run fine as long as the CPU has a Passmark Score above 2000.

But if you really want new, plug and play hardware then Amazon has a basic PC for about $350 USD. It has enough USB ports to plug in all your external drives, though I would recommend consolidating to just one external drive for simplicity. Comes with an Intel i3 which has a Passmark score of 5847 which means it should be able to handle 1 transcode stream just fine. Also has an ethernet port so you can plug it directly into your router.

Really good price for a PC you can upgrade in the future with a couple internal drives and an SSD if you wanted.

What are you trying to do on this laptop? If the load times kill you, a simple SSD upgrade could be your cup of tea, but this depends on how much storage you need.

The TL;DR here is that a HDD is slow but cheap. You can get a 1 TB HDD for $45 (Note that a 3.5 inch drive is for desktops, and a 2.5 inch drive is for laptops.) But because of the price difference of SSDs, you get about half the storage at twice the price. So if you're storing word documents, and maybe even excel documents, then you can get a small SSD and be done with it. But if you're storing videos or pictures en mass, you most likely can't afford to sacrifice the storage space / price, which means you have to deal with the slower HDD.

Edit: To answer your other question - Buying a used desktop shouldn't be a problem, especially if you're on a very tight budget. But if you can afford it, this seems to be a good computer for the price. You could remove the optical drive (cd / dvd drive) to install a SSD if you want, and have a very small & cheap SSD for boot and programs, and a large SSD for storage. Of course realize that this purchase does not include peripherals, so you'd need to budget for a separate monitor, keyboard, and mouse at minimum. Maybe a PCI-e wifi card or something similar if you need wireless access.

Would this work?
Buy this pre built -https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071DM6TWMref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_63ZKAbM1WYDP7

Then stick a gtx 1050 in it?

Is it a stupid plan to buy a prebuilt i3-7100, 8gb, 1tb, windows 10 pc for $350 and put a gtx 1050 ti in it?

The prebuilt comes with a 300watt psu, which is the minimum for the gtx 1050 ti... should I stick with the stock PSU or will it suck to be at the minimum.


With this build I can get a i3-7100, 8gb, 1tb, 1050ti setup for $500 INCLUDING a copy of windows 10, where the logical increments build for the same specs is $540 with no windows, but a better psu and case.

Thanks for any help!

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B071DM6TWM/ref=mp_s_a_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1517875430&sr=8-8&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=acer+aspire

Both Dell monitors have 1 DP and 1 VGA port.

The Acer Aspire has 1 HDMI port and 1 VGA port.

Therefore, you can use the VGA port for one of the monitors and get an HDMI->DP converter for the other monitor. The adapter will change the HDMI signal from your PC to a DP signal.

https://www.amazon.com/Dell-E2416HM-G0RH1-24-0-Monitor/dp/B01LY59FT7

"Connectivity : DP and VGA"

https://www.amazon.com/Acer-Desktop-i3-7100-Windows-TC-780-ACKi3/dp/B071DM6TWM?th=1

"1 - HDMI Port, 1 - VGA Port"

These three are solid deals and newer generation Intel processors.
https://www.amazon.com/Acer-Desktop-i3-7100-Windows-TC-780-ACKi3/dp/B071DM6TWM/ref=sr_1_1?m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1520361433&sr=1-1&refinements=p_6%3AATVPDKIKX0DER%2Cp_36%3A2421880011

https://www.amazon.com/Acer-Desktop-i5-7400-Windows-TC-780-ACKI5/dp/B073YHNPC6/ref=sr_1_2?m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1520361433&sr=1-2&refinements=p_6%3AATVPDKIKX0DER%2Cp_36%3A2421880011

https://www.amazon.com/HP-Pavilion-Desktop-Computer-570-p010/dp/B06XGMLQPY/ref=sr_1_3?m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1520361433&sr=1-3&refinements=p_6%3AATVPDKIKX0DER%2Cp_36%3A2421880011

Better than the archaic AMD ones at the same price. I don't know why none of AMD's new ryzen lines are showing up anywhere though. A tower with the new ryzen 2200g/2400g would be a great all around desktop even doing mild gaming.

I built one just cause but be warned the older boards may not have the newer bios for AMD's new APU's
https://pcpartpicker.com/list/X3gkLJ

$500 is a little low if you want something that is more future proof as far as gaming goes. At that price, you're going to have lower end power supplies, entry level to mid range parts, or older parts.


That said, here are 2 that might work.


[ASUS Desktop Computer M32AD-US072S Intel Core i5 4th Gen 4460 (3.20 GHz) 8 GB DDR3 1 TB HDD NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 Windows 8.1 64-Bit] (https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883221401)


or


[Acer Aspire Desktop, 7th Gen Intel Core i3-7100, 8GB DDR4, 1TB HDD, Windows 10 Home, TC-780-ACKi3] (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071DM6TWM/ref=olp_product_details?_encoding=UTF8&me=) for this you might want to install a graphics card like a RX 460 or GTX 1050 for gaming.


similar to what Austin Evans did in this vid
[Should You Upgrade a Prebuilt Gaming PC?] (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J81h1dHNwDk)

the new case is a NZXT Source 210




here’s the PC from acer: https://www.amazon.com/Acer-Desktop-i3-7100-Windows-TC-780-ACKi3/dp/B071DM6TWM/ref=mp_s_a_1_13?keywords=acer+desktop+i3+8100&qid=1558474481&s=gateway&sr=8-13

In your opening post, it said that the laptop you were looking at was $500. For $400, you can get this basic PC.

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Then for another $129, you can slip this basic 1050 into it. (I'd recommend getting a 1050 ti if you can, but you'll be fine with the basic 1050 if your budget is that tight)

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So for just another $30 above what you were looking to spend, you can get a waaaaaaay more bang-for-your-buck AND you'll be able to upgrade components later if you so wish (maybe another stick of memory, the processor, the graphics card). If you go with a laptop you'll be getting way less performance for your dollar AND you'll be stuck with it as-is; no upgrades in your future unless you just replace the whole thing.

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Hope this helps.

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This one could work and last without being too expensive. There's an i5 version for about $100 more, I wouldn't consider it necessary for web browsing and such but that'd be up to you. It would be smart to eventually add an SSD and move Windows onto it to make everything run a lot smoother, you can get one for under $50.

If you go with something else, generally what you want to pay attention to is the CPU (i3, etc.) and RAM. For the RAM, you want DDR4. If it has DDR3 it's old hardware that won't last as long. For the CPU, i3 i5 and i7 are deceiving and don't mean all that much. If it says it has less than four cores pull the breaks, if they make it intentionally difficult to figure out what generation the CPU is pull the breaks. We are currently on the 8th generation (i3-8100 for example) with the 9th generation coming out soon. I came across a few listings that kept sneakily advertising the computer had an i5 with 3.20 GHz. Sounds powerful enough, right? Nope, it was an i5 650. 1st gen. Slow as molasses.

This or this? Id probably pick a lower end computer to reduce power consumption costs.

Thanks a ton!

How does that compare to something like this: https://www.amazon.com/Acer-Desktop-i3-7100-Windows-TC-780-ACKi3/dp/B071DM6TWM/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1510262001&sr=8-4&keywords=acer+aspire+desktop

The used idea is actually a good idea!

Really difficult to recommend building a computer over taking a pre-built presently. The inflated RAM and GPU prices are harsh enough, if your Windows license is non-transferable it's practically a no-brainer if you're on a budget.

https://www.amazon.com/Acer-Desktop-i3-7100-Windows-TC-780-ACKi3/dp/B071DM6TWM/

https://www.amazon.com/ZOTAC-DisplayPort-Dual-Link-Graphics-ZT-P10500A-10L/dp/B01M4MIU94/

As of this writing, you could buy the former and plug in the latter for a total of $505 or so. It should render most games comfortably playable on 1080p with good settings.

https://www.amazon.com/HP-Pavilion-580-023w-i5-7400-Graphics/dp/B077S27YLP/

If you're looking for something a fair amount stronger, there's the HP 580-023w rocking an i5-7400 and GTX 1060 for $680 (and no hunt for a decent price GPU necessary).

It's only really around the $900+ mark that building yourself should really become a consideration in my opinion.

Hi, I just bought a Prebuilt PC, the ACer Aspire https://www.amazon.com/Acer-Desktop-i3-7100-Windows-TC-780-ACKi3/dp/B071DM6TWM/ref=sr_1_5?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1519074342&sr=1-5&keywords=acer+aspire

I have put in a Graphics Card, and was wondering If I could slot in a M.2 (I think thats what its called) SSD, or if it is incompatible with Acer's software. There is a slot to insert it, but im not sure that it is compatible. Thanks.