HP Fastest HP Desktop Black 2019

A $190 refurbished office PC that's genuinely good at boring work. Just ignore the 'Fastest' label and don't expect it to do anything fun.

The i5-4570 is a 45th percentile CPU in our database, which means it's solidly average for this category. But here's the thing: for office work, email, and web browsing, it's still surprisingly snappy. The 16GB of DDR3 RAM helps a lot, even if it's older tech. The real surprise is the storage setup. A 120GB SSD for the OS plus a 2TB HDD for everything else is a smart combo at this price. Boot times are quick, apps launch fast, and you've got room to hoard files. Just don't ask it to game. The integrated Radeon graphics score an 18.6 out of 100 for gaming, which is a polite way of saying 'Solitaire is fine, anything else is a slideshow.'

The Dell Optiplex 7070 is the most direct competitor, and it's a better machine in almost every way: newer CPU, faster RAM, better port selection. But it costs more, often significantly more. The Minisforum DeskMini UM880 Plus and wo-we Mini PC Ryzen 5 7640HS are tiny modern powerhouses that make this HP look ancient, but they're also in a completely different price bracket. If you're comparing this to a Mac Studio M2 Max, you're in the wrong aisle entirely. For the money, the HP's real competition is other refurbished office towers, and it holds its own there.

At $190, this is a steal if you need a basic office PC and you're not picky about ports or future-proofing. The 1-year warranty and certified refurbished status take some of the risk out of buying a decade-old machine. But if you can stretch to $300, you're into mini PC territory with modern CPUs that will run circles around this thing.

This is a $190 refurbished office workhorse that punches way above its price tag for basic productivity. The headline here isn't raw power, it's value. You're getting a 4th-gen Intel i5, 16GB of RAM, and a genuinely useful 2TB of storage for less than a fancy dinner for two. But don't let the 'Fastest HP Desktop' name fool you. This is a 2013-era CPU wearing Windows 11 clothes, and it shows in anything beyond spreadsheets and browser tabs.

If you're looking for a gaming PC, a media center, or anything that needs modern ports like HDMI or USB-C, this isn't it. Go get a Minisforum DeskMini or a used Dell Optiplex 7070 instead. And if you need reliable WiFi, look elsewhere, because the wireless on this thing is a coin flip.

Buy this if you need a cheap, reliable desktop for email, documents, and web browsing, and you don't care about gaming or modern connectivity. It's a solid refurb with a real warranty and enough RAM to feel responsive. But if you want something that will still feel fast in three years, save up a bit more and get a modern mini PC instead.