If the issue is the PSU a new case and PSU would be something I wouldn’t mind doing but at that point is the 730, the last eBay box similar to this, just better since it’s already quieter?
This would make a nice Linux box too hmm
Yeah, I think
@arglebargle @BLinux and I had that long discussion about the potentials of this SoC (RX427BB) on the HP t620/t730 threads. The t620 plus (GX420CA) is a great little box for pfsense if you want to set-it-and-forget-it, while the t730 is the more powerful, but more power consuming cousin that can be seen as a super-NUC, useful both for light homelab hypervisor duties (ESXi or Proxmox) and as an HTPC (yes, Linux will be superb on it. Both
@arglebargle and I ran Proxmox 5 on it, and it was a great little machine). The DFI could be a cheaper alternative to the t730, provided that you have spare RAM and SSD lying around, but you'll have to live with the noise and no IOMMU support in the BIOS (which excludes SRIOV and HSA architecture support - this is supported in the t730 as a feature). In all honesty, when you have to spend that much money to get similar results to a t730...might as well just buy a t730. The t730s will be sold with RAM (usually 8GB), a small SSD (32GB) and entitlements for Win10 embedded/IoT, and there are eBay sellers letting them go for 200 USD + shipping.
That being said, I wouldn't buy too many of them - HP is due for a refresh on their thin clients, and when it does, the prices on the t730 will come down even more. DFI also sell Ryzen based industrial PCs, which depending on where you are...could be a better value-prop. Let us not forget that $200 can also get you a refurb HP EliteDesk 800 G1 SFF, similar in specs but comes with an Intel Haswell CPU, 4 RAM slots, and a PCIe slot. In certain cases that would be a better deal.