An 11-year-old PC: €150 for a used i5 or an €11 Q9400

Reviving an 11-year-old PC for 11 euros instead of paying 150

Squeeze what you already have before buying anything new. That is the argument behind the most penny-pinching stance in this debate, and its thesis is blunt: before shelling out 150 euros for a second-hand tower, it is worth checking whether an 11-euro processor bought from a Chinese store could give the old machine several more years of life. The body of the discussion, as almost always, tempers the bravado.

The starting point is a desktop that is nearly eleven years old. An eMachines EL1850 with an Intel E5800 at 3.2 GHz and only 4 GB of RAM, because the motherboard cannot handle more. It has been fitted with an SSD, had its thermal paste replaced and been stretched to the limit. It is used for browsing, looking things up and, above all, as a library manager in Calibre, with two internal drives, several external ones and an HDD dock. The alternative on the table was an Asus M32CD with a fifth-generation i5, 4 GB of RAM and a 500 GB HDD, for 150 euros at a second-hand store with a two-year warranty.

The first question is whether that is expensive or cheap. The second, far more important: where does that computer actually die?

Is the processor or the RAM the bigger bottleneck?

The consensus falls apart right away. Some argue that the processor is what digests the applications and that, with a decent chip, 4 GB of RAM is enough for basic use... as long as the software is not badly optimised. And that is where the other camp comes in: memory gets swallowed whole, Windows starts closing processes as it approaches the limit and, with the page file enabled — which is the default — the drive works overtime.

Whether that matters answers itself. With an SSD you don't need a page file, one side says. The reply comes back sharp: paging always hurts, SSD or not, because they are unnecessary disk operations that eat into the drive's lifespan. Far from settling the matter, the controversy turns into an accidental manual on why four gigabytes run out much sooner than the specifications promise.

An 11-euro Core 2 Quad: the LGA 775 route

The star proposal is almost offensively frugal. The old machine has an LGA 775 socket and, according to those pushing this route, it can take quad-core processors that offer a notable jump over the E5800, though a BIOS update might be needed. The Q8300 goes for around 10 euros, the Q9500 for 15 and a Q9400 can be found for 10.8 according to the links shared, performance comparisons included. Premium penny-pinching, they call it.

Against that, the alternatives are measured in the same currency. A Raspberry Pi 400 for 79 euros. An i5-3470 for 20-25 euros on a second-hand app. And then there is the option of paying the 150 for the new tower. The heart of the matter is how much life each euro buys. Not much, say the most sceptical: an old clunker is still an old clunker, and optimising it is throwing money away when the real limit lies in the motherboard and its memory ceiling.

The fine print: how much RAM an old board can take

Generations get mixed up here and not everything fits. According to one participant, socket 775 boards with two DDR2 slots only reach 4 GB (2x2), and with four slots you can hit 8 GB, but with 2 GB modules. 8 GB registered ECC DDR2 sticks do exist, yes, but, he adds, they are for servers and will not boot in a desktop PC. Another post disputed these figures, though ended up qualifying them.

When a Celeron G465 turns up in a cupboard, the socket changes. According to the thread, it is a socket 1155 that supports more memory, even if the chip is weak. And that is the path that will ultimately turn the whole thing around.

The free bundle and the hell of Dell connectors

An acquaintance who works at a family business was refreshing the company's computers and gave away what was left in the storeroom. In come two i5s (one 4th-generation and one 7th), two motherboards, power supplies (Dell and HP), two coolers with fans and assorted cabling. Real cost: 20 euros and change. The plan gets reshuffled: build the 7th-generation i5, hand out machines among the family and give the rest away.

And that is where the suffering begins. Building a Dell board is not like building a normal one. On boot, errors cascade: I/O cable not detected — solved with a jumper between two pins —, power button failure — fixed by adapting the case wiring. Then the stab: the power connector to the hard drives is not standard. The plastic of a common connector is trimmed to make it fit; no power. A botch job that could have ended in a short circuit. The solution ends up being ordering the cable from AliExpress and waiting.

What to expect

Given that outlook, the reasonable forecast — with reservations — is that the 7th-generation i5 on the HP board with 8 GB of DDR4 will end up serving for years, while the rest of the hardware finds second lives among family and friends. Provided the cable arrives and fits.

Nobody is arguing any more about whether four gigabytes are enough. The conversation has moved to different, more honest ground: how much hidden work, how many proprietary connectors and how much waiting second-hand hardware conceals when the goal is to spend as little as possible.