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expiredBigFatCat posted Mar 16, 2023 07:58 PM
expiredBigFatCat posted Mar 16, 2023 07:58 PM

Dell OptiPlex 5050 SFF Desktop (Refurb, B Grade): i5-6500, 8GB RAM, 500GB HDD

& More + Free S&H

$90

$179

49% off
Dell Refurbished
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Deal Details
Dell Refurbished has Dell OptiPlex 5050 SFF Desktop (Refurbished, B Grade) for $179 - 50% w/ promo code 5050DELL4U = $89.50. Shipping is free.

Also available, Dell Refurbished has Dell OptiPlex 5050 SFF Desktop (Refurbished, A Grade) for $199 - 50% w/ promo code 5050DELL4U = $99.50. Shipping is free.

Thanks to community member BigFatCat for finding this deal.

Specs
  • Intel Core i5-6500 Processor (4-Core, 3.20 GHz)
  • 8GB (2x4GB) RAM
  • 500GB Hard Drive
  • Integrated Graphics
  • Windows 10 Professional

Editor's Notes

Written by johnny_miller | Staff
  • About this deal:

Original Post

Written by BigFatCat
Community Notes
About the Poster
Deal Details
Community Notes
About the Poster
Dell Refurbished has Dell OptiPlex 5050 SFF Desktop (Refurbished, B Grade) for $179 - 50% w/ promo code 5050DELL4U = $89.50. Shipping is free.

Also available, Dell Refurbished has Dell OptiPlex 5050 SFF Desktop (Refurbished, A Grade) for $199 - 50% w/ promo code 5050DELL4U = $99.50. Shipping is free.

Thanks to community member BigFatCat for finding this deal.

Specs
  • Intel Core i5-6500 Processor (4-Core, 3.20 GHz)
  • 8GB (2x4GB) RAM
  • 500GB Hard Drive
  • Integrated Graphics
  • Windows 10 Professional

Editor's Notes

Written by johnny_miller | Staff
  • About this deal:

Original Post

Written by BigFatCat

Community Voting

Deal Score
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Top Comments

HY-SD
5470 Posts
722 Reputation
it would use less power. also there were improvement in other areas like memory bandwidth etc.

however, yes intel was very lazy during that time, and ryzen just leapfrogged them.
hjliii
42 Posts
28 Reputation
A word of warning to those considering this deal. I tested two of these and both suffered from the same problem. The Gmail web client was unusable. I have no explanation for why this is the case, but it was bad enough that I had to return both machines. I tried everything to make it workable (i.e. multiple browsers (Firefox, Chrome, Edge), html version of Gmail, etc.). Nothing worked. I even reinstalled the OS from scratch. Using the exact same internet connection, performance was at least an order of magnitude faster on machines running intel CPU's that were two generations older. Benchmarks indicated the machines were running as expected. I would love to know if anyone has an explanation for this bottleneck. With the exception of the Gmail issue, I didn't see any other problems. I didn't see performance issue with any other workflows. Other content heavy web sites loaded quickly without issues. I really wanted to keep these machines as they are a great value, but could not work around the Gmail web client issue.
LordDrol
1510 Posts
210 Reputation
It was during a period of historic stagnation with Intel releasing smaller and smaller quad-cores with minor changes, and reserving 6-10 cores for its "Extreme" desktop lineup. One problem was the delay of 10nm by years due to technical issues, effectively ending Intel's "Tick-Tock" model [wikipedia.org].

But AMD is partly to blame for its awful Bulldozer microarchitecture that made it nearly irrelevant in desktops until Zen/Ryzen came out. Core counts were effectively fake, leading to a class-action lawsuit, clock speeds and power use were pushed high to little effect, and they didn't bother releasing high-end FX CPUs based on Steamroller and Excavator.

Without effective competition, greed takes over.

112 Comments

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Mar 17, 2023 06:01 PM
135 Posts
Joined Nov 2010
cnixMar 17, 2023 06:01 PM
135 Posts
Quote from AtTheLeftThere :
This is by far the weirdest deal I've seen people actually purchase. You are buying a used 7 year old computer.
I have an older one in the living room with wireless keyboard mouse so I can browse on the couch. Its like getting a roku with windows on it Peace having something like this beats out using the browser on smart tvs by a mile

but yea like others have said, knock another 10 bux off and the deal is slick.. this is average.
Mar 17, 2023 06:04 PM
347 Posts
Joined Jun 2015
dima13Mar 17, 2023 06:04 PM
347 Posts
Looking to run Kodi on this as my main setup for the living room projector. Anyone have experience with this??
Mar 17, 2023 06:12 PM
2,241 Posts
Joined Mar 2012
RUBYSTEVENSMar 17, 2023 06:12 PM
2,241 Posts
Quote from hjliii :
Yes, I'm talking about using Gmail in the browser, not a stand alone client (is there even one?). With regard to time frames, I tested the first one, along with another machine immediately after. In all practical terms, at the same time. Returned the first and had a second delivered. Repeated the the testing and saw the exact same results. Both machines were fully updated. There were tested against a fourth generation i5, which just ran circles around it when using Gmail in a web browser. I'm fairly confident it wasn't a difference in the web cache. I saw the exact same results with two different google accounts.
I'd buy the machine again in second if it didn't have this problem. But I've already spent enough time trying to diagnose this that I'm not willing to roll the dice again. Regardless, I appreciate your interest.
Boot the thing from a Linux usb stick and see what happens.
Mar 17, 2023 07:48 PM
35 Posts
Joined Oct 2018
Sbk4898Mar 17, 2023 07:48 PM
35 Posts
Quote from jbrownski :
You can obtain better value than this on eBay for a better specced but similar generation Dell/HP/Lenovo SFF
Can you share some links. And search terms ?
Mar 17, 2023 08:20 PM
176 Posts
Joined Dec 2017
ddrantMar 17, 2023 08:20 PM
176 Posts
Quote from cgigate :
Gen 5 CPU virtual useless nowadays
Useless for what?

I use a i5-2500 CPU everyday in my primary Win10 PC. Only real upgrade is a cheap PNY SSD.

1
Mar 17, 2023 11:51 PM
739 Posts
Joined Dec 2022
FairTeam939Mar 17, 2023 11:51 PM
739 Posts
Quote :
Quote from rmeilix :
I do not know first hand but online consensus seems to be that the 5050 support nvme after bios update. Any ssd, even sata will make a huge difference
rmeilixI do not know first hand but online consensus seems to be that the 5050 support nvme after bios update. Any ssd, even sata will make a huge difference

bios update, changing the type of drive capability? even more interesting. i did a bios update with both of my Dell Latitude laptops. the 6th gen i5 accommodated a SATA M.2 and the 8th generation accommodated a M.2 NVME drive. one way i know this to be true on these Laptops is that the OEM M.2 drives were replaced with the same drives i found inside of them. don't know that i could put a NVMe drive into a SATA M.2 slot; some computers allow that, but i didn't want to chance it. the speed difference would probably have been negligible on the SATA M.2 anyway.

that being the case, my 2 Dell refurbs are running fine with updates by matching the Dell OEM drives which were found in them.

the 5050 is a different Dell pc so it may be possible to put a NVMe drive in there; some of these computers have slots for 2 different kinds of M.2 drives, which would be ideal. also it may be possible to upgrade the drives with pci-e card with M.2 drive bays on them. eventually i would like to pick up one of these desktops in at least an 8th generation i5, there seem to be excellent reviews on these refurbished Dells.
Last edited by FairTeam939 March 17, 2023 at 04:54 PM.
QA
Mar 18, 2023 03:51 AM
1,775 Posts
Joined Dec 2014
BeAuMaN
QA
Mar 18, 2023 03:51 AM
1,775 Posts
Quote from FairTeam939 :
bios update, changing the type of drive capability?
afaik the 5050 supports nvme out of the box; however if you want to boot from nvme you need a BIOS update... at least from what I've read from various support threads doing research on the machine.

You should probably update your BIOS when buying a refurb machine anyway.

Here's a link to the user manual (pointed at storage specs):
https://www.dell.com/support/manuals/en-us/optiplex-5050-desktop/optiplex-5050-desktop-sff-om/storag... [dell.com]
PDF version:
https://dl.dell.com/topicspdf/opt..._en-us.pdf
​
I dropped some info in the wiki. I went and grabbed a 1TB nvme SSD and 32GB of RAM. Should make a nice media/plex server.
Last edited by BeAuMaN March 17, 2023 at 08:57 PM.

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Mar 18, 2023 05:35 AM
1,110 Posts
Joined Aug 2021
tropicalbMar 18, 2023 05:35 AM
1,110 Posts
Quote from rmeilix :
Bug fixes in BIOS, driver updates
At some point, it's likely Dell (any company, really) will stop providing BIOS and driver updates for their older hardware. Sure, older hardware can be purchased for a good deal, but part of that deal means there's no guarantee how long those updates will be produced.

I have an ASUS motherboard that I really like, but it was released in December 2016 and the last BIOS update from ASUS was released October 2019 - so almost 3 years of support. I'm now wondering how much longer I should use this thing. No BIOS updates for 3+ years; could be some sort of vulnerability out there. Embarrassment
Mar 18, 2023 07:46 AM
5 Posts
Joined Jan 2023
SmilingMountain980Mar 18, 2023 07:46 AM
5 Posts
Quote from hjliii :
A word of warning to those considering this deal. I tested two of these and both suffered from the same problem. The Gmail web client was unusable. I have no explanation for why this is the case, but it was bad enough that I had to return both machines. I tried everything to make it workable (i.e. multiple browsers (Firefox, Chrome, Edge), html version of Gmail, etc.). Nothing worked. I even reinstalled the OS from scratch. Using the exact same internet connection, performance was at least an order of magnitude faster on machines running intel CPU's that were two generations older. Benchmarks indicated the machines were running as expected. I would love to know if anyone has an explanation for this bottleneck. With the exception of the Gmail issue, I didn't see any other problems. I didn't see performance issue with any other workflows. Other content heavy web sites loaded quickly without issues. I really wanted to keep these machines as they are a great value, but could not work around the Gmail web client issue.
CPU may cause this kind of issue due to some instruction sets missing. I am not the professional. I just like watch repairing videos and some of them showed that the weird problems were solved by changing a CPU. A possible reason is some websites use secure tech which needs encrypted computing. The correct results could not be evaluated if the instruction sets have errors.
Mar 18, 2023 01:00 PM
739 Posts
Joined Dec 2022
FairTeam939Mar 18, 2023 01:00 PM
739 Posts
Quote from tropicalb :
At some point, it's likely Dell (any company, really) will stop providing BIOS and driver updates for their older hardware. Sure, older hardware can be purchased for a good deal, but part of that deal means there's no guarantee how long those updates will be produced.

I have an ASUS motherboard that I really like, but it was released in December 2016 and the last BIOS update from ASUS was released October 2019 - so almost 3 years of support. I'm now wondering how much longer I should use this thing. No BIOS updates for 3+ years; could be some sort of vulnerability out there.
i am in the same boat, have an old pc and never did a bios update. used to be that this was not a worry and could be a problem if someone tries to do one. after getting my Dell Latitude, the Dell updater automatically did the update; i noted that Intel did quite a few updates because of security issues.

so what to do? my old pc is running AMD so may not be necessary? so far it seems fine, but maybe not. i asked AI advice about it for this answer....

The decision to update the BIOS on your PC depends on your specific situation. BIOS updates can potentially improve system stability, fix compatibility issues and security vulnerabilities, and add new features. However, they can also introduce new problems, and the process of updating the BIOS can be risky and time-consuming.

Unless you have a specific reason to update the BIOS, such as fixing a known issue or adding support for new hardware, it is generally not recommended to update it. If your system is running smoothly and you are not experiencing any issues, there is no urgent need to update the BIOS.

However, if you do decide to update the BIOS, it is important to carefully follow the instructions provided by your motherboard or computer manufacturer, as an incorrect BIOS update could cause your system to become unusable. Additionally, it is a good idea to backup your important data before performing any BIOS update.

In summary, it is not necessary to update the BIOS on a PC unless you have a specific issue that requires it. If you do decide to update, make sure to follow the instructions carefully and proceed with caution.
Last edited by FairTeam939 March 18, 2023 at 06:42 AM.
Mar 18, 2023 02:44 PM
1,110 Posts
Joined Aug 2021
tropicalbMar 18, 2023 02:44 PM
1,110 Posts
Quote from FairTeam939 :
i am in the same boat, have an old pc and never did a bios update. used to be that this was not a worry and could be a problem if someone tries to do one. after getting my Dell Latitude, the Dell updater automatically did the update; i noted that Intel did quite a few updates because of security issues.

so what to do? my old pc is running AMD so may not be necessary? so far it seems fine, but maybe not. i asked AI advice about it for this answer....

The decision to update the BIOS on your PC depends on your specific situation. BIOS updates can potentially improve system stability, fix compatibility issues and security vulnerabilities, and add new features. However, they can also introduce new problems, and the process of updating the BIOS can be risky and time-consuming.

Unless you have a specific reason to update the BIOS, such as fixing a known issue or adding support for new hardware, it is generally not recommended to update it. If your system is running smoothly and you are not experiencing any issues, there is no urgent need to update the BIOS.

However, if you do decide to update the BIOS, it is important to carefully follow the instructions provided by your motherboard or computer manufacturer, as an incorrect BIOS update could cause your system to become unusable. Additionally, it is a good idea to backup your important data before performing any BIOS update.

In summary, it is not necessary to update the BIOS on a PC unless you have a specific issue that requires it. If you do decide to update, make sure to follow the instructions carefully and proceed with caution.
Thanks for sharing that! Yeah I agree with the AI (that's so interesting that we can ask for its "opinion" now Big Grin), in that you usually don't need to worry about BIOS updates, unless there is an issue. An issue some years back (2018) was the Spectre/Meltdown vulnerability [techrepublic.com]. This required a BIOS update [howtogeek.com] to fix.

What I wonder is, if another vulnerability shows up, will ASUS bother providing a BIOS update to patch my motherboard from 2016? Not sure. But it's an older system that I don't use often, so perhaps it is not a huge concern. But it is something I think about once in a while.
Mar 18, 2023 03:39 PM
739 Posts
Joined Dec 2022
FairTeam939Mar 18, 2023 03:39 PM
739 Posts
Quote from tropicalb :
Thanks for sharing that! Yeah I agree with the AI (that's so interesting that we can ask for its "opinion" now ), in that you usually don't need to worry about BIOS updates, unless there is an issue. An issue some years back (2018) was the Spectre/Meltdown vulnerability [techrepublic.com]. This required a BIOS update [howtogeek.com] to fix.

What I wonder is, if another vulnerability shows up, will ASUS bother providing a BIOS update to patch my motherboard from 2016? Not sure. But it's an older system that I don't use often, so perhaps it is not a huge concern. But it is something I think about once in a while.
AI saves me a lot of search time and provides links to its opinion. various sites now run AI, so i may compare one AI with another for even more interesting results.

my old Acer Aspire from 2012 probably has a Bios update and probably should look into that. for critical stuff, it may be best to get a new Dell refurb. it seems that every Dell i have bought always has a lot of updates from the company and MS. the Acer was just updated with drivers from MS; i may have to talk to AI about this Acer Wink
Mar 18, 2023 04:43 PM
1,110 Posts
Joined Aug 2021
tropicalbMar 18, 2023 04:43 PM
1,110 Posts
Quote from FairTeam939 :
AI saves me a lot of search time and provides links to its opinion. various sites now run AI, so i may compare one AI with another for even more interesting results.

my old Acer Aspire from 2012 probably has a Bios update and probably should look into that. for critical stuff, it may be best to get a new Dell refurb. it seems that every Dell i have bought always has a lot of updates from the company and MS. the Acer was just updated with drivers from MS; i may have to talk to AI about this Acer
AI can provide helpful info, but I usually double-check with other sources for really important research.

Yeah something from 2012 may have a BIOS update or two! But as they say, only update if needed. But if it's from 2012 & the spectre/meltdown thing happened in 2018 or so, you may have a BIOS update to apply to protect against that. I have had good luck with Dell hardware; they support their computers/laptops quite well for years after they were released.
1
Mar 18, 2023 04:48 PM
31 Posts
Joined Nov 2019
rmeilixMar 18, 2023 04:48 PM
31 Posts
There can be bugs in the BIOS. Fixing them could be beneficial. Usually they are specific to certain situations or add on hardware. Many people will never be affected. In recent years BIOS updates have become much easier and can usually be done without leaving Windows. Occasionally new capabilities can be introduced like booting from NVME or use of newer or higher capacity memory types. Some BIOS never get updated after initial release. Just try to find support pages for some no name brands. Dell seems to provide about 5 years worth of updates for their professional lines (OptiPlex and Precision). The consumer lines seem to be more like 2-3 years despite using motherboards very similar to their professional lines.
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Mar 19, 2023 12:18 AM
739 Posts
Joined Dec 2022
FairTeam939Mar 19, 2023 12:18 AM
739 Posts
Quote from tropicalb :
AI can provide helpful info, but I usually double-check with other sources for really important research.

Yeah something from 2012 may have a BIOS update or two! But as they say, only update if needed. But if it's from 2012 & the spectre/meltdown thing happened in 2018 or so, you may have a BIOS update to apply to protect against that. I have had good luck with Dell hardware; they support their computers/laptops quite well for years after they were released.
haven't heard about that one. my Acer uses an AMD cpu so maybe this is a non issue?

On January 3rd Microsoft released a bunch of security updates around a hardware vulnerability found in the Intel chipset. Within hours of the patch coming out news outlets and more had exploded with information about the patch and the challenge was weeding through all of it to answer two important questions.

i checked with an AI bot to see what it thinks....

Yes, that's correct. The Spectre and Meltdown vulnerabilities were primarily associated with Intel CPUs, although some AMD and ARM processors were also affected to a lesser extent. However, it is always a good idea to check if there are any firmware or BIOS updates available for your AMD CPU or Acer computer to ensure the highest level of security and protection against any potential vulnerabilities. You can check with your Acer support website or the AMD website for any available security updates and patches.

Acer isn't much help for this old 2012 desktop Aspire; been thinking of getting a new refurb maybe from Dell.

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