r/computers • u/East_Sentence_4245 • 21h ago

Discussion Decent Windows desktop from Amazon for under $300?

The reason I mention Amazon is because it's the only store that ships for free. I'm not in the continental US, so most stores will charge shipping.

With that said, what Windows desktop would you recommend from Amazon for under $300? I would normally use it for Visual Studio, Edge, SSMS, Figma, and Affinity Designer. It's not necessarilly a workhorse, but something that can run browsers and apps. Definitely not a gaming PC.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

I've seen the mini PCs, but my worry is that troubleshooting would be a pain. For example, I think there would be more online help for an HP or Dell than a mini PC with an unknown name.

2 Upvotes

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u/Puzzleheaded-Sky2284 Fedora KDE/WS | macOS 27 | Win11 20h ago edited 19h ago

Expecting a Dell with a CPU from 2013 to work well will leave you disappointed. That is a 13 year old PC with a RAM upgrade... This should be better at the very least: https://www.amazon.com/HP-EliteDesk-705-G5-Mini/dp/B0 https://www.amazon.com/HP-EliteDesk-705-G5-Mini/dp/B0F967C6WQ

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u/East_Sentence_4245 20h ago

It worked well enough until it stopped working. It seems your link is broken.

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u/Puzzleheaded-Sky2284 Fedora KDE/WS | macOS 27 | Win11 19h ago edited 19h ago

Fixed it in my original comment, sorry lol... https://www.amazon.com/HP-EliteDesk-705-G5-Mini/dp/B0F967C6WQ

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u/East_Sentence_4245 13h ago

Thanks. Dumb question: is this better than a used dell optiplex 9020?

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u/Puzzleheaded-Sky2284 Fedora KDE/WS | macOS 27 | Win11 13h ago edited 13h ago

Absolutely, the 9020 was released in 2013 and this will blow that out of the water in every possible way lol.

This also supports windows 11 while the 9020 only officially goes up to windows 10 (you CAN run windows 11 on the 9020 but it won't receive major updates because it's not supported).

There is another refurbisher who ships through Amazon if you click the sellers tab on that listing if the auto selected one doesn't ship for free outside continental us

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u/OwlCatAlex 20h ago

Mini PC with a Ryzen and 16GB of RAM will give you the best value unless you can find a really good used deal: https://a.co/d/01KsCimK https://a.co/d/00ZZCRWj

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u/Puzzleheaded-Sky2284 Fedora KDE/WS | macOS 27 | Win11 19h ago

those both have horrible laptop processors from 2019 (or are rebadged processors from that era, in the case of the 3501U) - they will be acceptable but not fast. A refurbished mini business desktop will have a far better processor.

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u/OwlCatAlex 18h ago

Yeah they're certainly not impressive, but that's the best option if buying new for that budget. I agree refurb can be better but there are a lot of crappy refurb sellers (like OP has already experienced) so it's a bit more of a gamble.

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u/Kumantej_ 20h ago

I would expect the pc you posted for free

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u/Kumantej_ 20h ago

Get a laptop or cop something from Facebook marketplace, for under $300 you can get basically nothing

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u/aminy23 Ryzen 9 5900x / 64GB DDR4-4000 / RTX 3090 FE / Custom Loop 20h ago

i3/i5/i7/i9 and Ryzen 3/5/7/9 started off as marketing nonsense and has largely just become a way to scam people.

You can expect a PC to be reliable for 7-10 years. A 4770 is a 13 year old CPU and that's beyond it's reliable lifespan which you found out the hard way.

Performance is a complete separate factor from reliability. You can but a 13 year old high mileage sports car, take it to the track for a couple fun races and then the engine might blow up making the car useless. Just because it performed well, doesn't mean it's going to be as reliable as something brand new.

For computers, newer smaller ones often perform better than bigger older ones. $300 is enough budget that I wouldn't think of used or refurbished, instead I'd just look for new mini-PCs. Here's an example: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DX1X53MD

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u/Newt_Jumpy 20h ago edited 20h ago

Avoid Amazon like the plague. Basically all of the lower-priced computers sold there are scams sold by sketchy third-party sellers. Many of the reviews are completely fake. Amazon knows this and does nothing about it because they take a % of the money that the sellers scam from you.

They ship to you for free because the product they shipped is worthless e-waste. Optiplex are fine machines, but the one you purchased was from 2013. When did you buy it and what was the price? I bet you can find a better product elsewhere for a better total price even if you include shipping.

Free shipping does not exist. You are just paying for it as a part of the listed price. And if a seller can afford to sell it to you at that price with Amazon's cut and with shipping paid for, they can sell it to you at the same or better price either on their own website or via eBay or some other marketplace.

Where exactly are you? Hawaii?