Store bought PC proprietary parts?

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cfortney

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Jan 13, 2016
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Hey All,

Wondering if anyone here knows which brands typically use proprietary motherboards and PSUs, and which do not? There are many deals on eBay/my local craigslist for desktops with i7's, Windows, lots of RAM, etc. I'd love to pick one up and either just drop a GPU in it, or remove everything and install it in a new case with a more robust PSU. I've seen that Dell often uses proprietary PSU cabling and that their motherboards are not consumer standard form factors. Is this true for all store bought brands?
 
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why_wolf
generally prebuilt stuff will cheap out on the PSU and the motherboard. You can always, always put in a bigger better PSU later, all the connectors are standardized (the wire lengths aren't, which is where prebuilts get you with wires to short to reach anything but their stuff) so that is not a problem with a standard size tower PC. The motherboard though, eh. You should have at least one PCIe port which is what you need to use a GPU.

If you want to go this route my rec would be do not buy anything with the words slim, small or compact in it. Those are the sizes that you will start to find non-standard PSU sizes which you may nor may not be able to find after market PSUs that can fit in them. Not to mention height clearance...
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why_wolf

why_wolf

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Aug 28, 2015
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generally prebuilt stuff will cheap out on the PSU and the motherboard. You can always, always put in a bigger better PSU later, all the connectors are standardized (the wire lengths aren't, which is where prebuilts get you with wires to short to reach anything but their stuff) so that is not a problem with a standard size tower PC. The motherboard though, eh. You should have at least one PCIe port which is what you need to use a GPU.

If you want to go this route my rec would be do not buy anything with the words slim, small or compact in it. Those are the sizes that you will start to find non-standard PSU sizes which you may nor may not be able to find after market PSUs that can fit in them. Not to mention height clearance problems with GPUs.

If you are buying the in US check out Woot.com as well. That's Amazon's firesale site, they have a computer section where they routinely sell off refurbished last gen PCs with quite a bit knocked off.
 
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lodders

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IMO No store bought PCs are a bargain. They can be OK value for money, but that is all.
Their only advantage is when you want a cheap low spec machine - you know you are getting cheap components, but at least it comes with a years guarantee.
 
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Geekwad

Geekwad

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Not all, but some. Most still follow the mATX standard for mounting, and most all have a x16 physical slot for a GPU. The ability to replace the PSU (does it follow the ATX standard) is more important, as it is what will dictate what GPU options you can upgrade to.....also what kind of clearance they leave for the GPU.

As long as you stay away from the smaller form factors, there are typically options. If it looks like a 'normal-ish' looking case (not too slim or small), you are probably OK. It would be helpful to have specific model numbers though.
 
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cfortney

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Do you have first hand experience with that? I've been building for years and haven't purchased store bought in a long time. But I'm finding lots of good looking PCs, for example there's a Lenovo with an i7-3770, 16GB RAM, 240GB SSD and Windows 7 for like $330 in my area. Seems like a solid deal to me, I'm not sure I could actually build one that cheap with the same components.
 
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lodders

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Yes, that is very good value for money. The CPU is 4 years old and 3 generations out of date, but still a very fast processor even by today's standards.
However........
if it doesn't come with a GPU, then the PSU probably won't be good enough to run one.
If they don't say how fast the memory is, then you can guess what they used......
Not sure what the maximum memory capacity of the motherboard is.....
some older ssds were really unreliable.
does it come with a proper windows disk, or just a recovery partition
etc
 
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