What somone learned when he replaced a cheap Pi 5 PC with a no-name Amazon mini desktop
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/04/what-i-learned-when-i-replaced-my-cheap-pi-5-pc-with-a-no-name-amazon-mini-desktop/
All that said, I post this from a Pi4 8GB, it is sometimes really slow,
but I like and use the GPIO port.
On 03/04/2024 06:21, Jan Panteltje wrote:
What someone learned when he replaced a cheap Pi 5 PC with a no-name Amazon mini desktop
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/04/what-i-learned-when-i-replaced-my-cheap-pi-5-pc-with-a-no-name-amazon-mini-desktop/
All that said, I post this from a Pi4 8GB, it is sometimes really slow,
but I like and use the GPIO port.
I was quite surprised how sprightly my Pi 5 was. I opted for 8GB more >expensive entirely passive cooling so that it can be used as an
entertainment streaming system when not being used for other things.
(whole thing cost about £120 and is the size of a bar of soap)
In part I got it for the portability and free Mathematica license that
comes with it.
I haven't found the Debian environment too tiresome
despite being a Windows user with a smidgeon of Ubuntu and Android.
I reckon its performance single tasking isn't far off the venerable
i7-3770 from a decade or so back (and still pretty capable today).
I was tempted by an N100 based toy PC at Xmas but managed to resist.
What somone learned when he replaced a cheap Pi 5 PC with a no-name Amazon mini desktop
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/04/what-i-learned-when-i-replaced-my-cheap-pi-5-pc-with-a-no-name-amazon-mini-desktop/
All that said, I post this from a Pi4 8GB, it is sometimes really slow,
but I like and use the GPIO port.
What somone learned when he replaced a cheap Pi 5 PC with a no-name Amazon mini desktop
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/04/what-i-learned-when-i-replaced-my-cheap-pi-5-pc-with-a-no-name-amazon-mini-desktop/
All that said, I post this from a Pi4 8GB, it is sometimes really slow,
but I like and use the GPIO port.
On a sunny day (Wed, 3 Apr 2024 10:24:00 +0100) it happened Martin Brown <'''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk> wrote in <uuj77i$3r4ca$1@dont-email.me>:
In part I got it for the portability and free Mathematica license that
comes with it.
Yes, that was nice too.
Linux has Octave too for math, some more.
I reckon its performance single tasking isn't far off the venerable
i7-3770 from a decade or so back (and still pretty capable today).
My laptop now > 10 years old now runs Ubuntu.
At least everything works, put a Huawei 4 G stick in it and internet all over Europe.
This Raspberry has the Huawei 4 G stick in it now so I am online in a flash with one click
and offline after that with one click so no hacking and a dynamic IP address to make hacking even more problematic.
Did you have a P4 before the Pi5? If so what's the main difference in experience?
I was tempted by an N100 based toy PC at Xmas but managed to resist.
Yea, we will see were it goes...
My 20 year old PC upstairs still runs xfree and the old audio system (before Alsa), and works still perfectly with my satellite stuff.
Is an AMD 486.
On Wed, 03 Apr 2024 05:21:26 GMT, Jan Panteltje <alien@comet.invalid>
wrote:
What somone learned when he replaced a cheap Pi 5 PC with a no-name Amazon mini desktop
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/04/what-i-learned-when-i-replaced-my-cheap-pi-5-pc-with-a-no-name-amazon-mini-desktop/
All that said, I post this from a Pi4 8GB, it is sometimes really slow,
but I like and use the GPIO port.
Considering how important a computer is to our professional and
personal lives, why do people go to great effort to save a few
dollars?
If a cheap PC fails, it will take days of your time, or more likely
weeks, to recover.
If an expensive one fails, it takes just a much.
On 4/3/24 16:57, John Larkin wrote:
On Wed, 03 Apr 2024 05:21:26 GMT, Jan Panteltje <alien@comet.invalid>
wrote:
What somone learned when he replaced a cheap Pi 5 PC with a no-name Amazon mini desktop
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/04/what-i-learned-when-i-replaced-my-cheap-pi-5-pc-with-a-no-name-amazon-mini-desktop/
All that said, I post this from a Pi4 8GB, it is sometimes really slow,
but I like and use the GPIO port.
Considering how important a computer is to our professional and
personal lives, why do people go to great effort to save a few
dollars?
If a cheap PC fails, it will take days of your time, or more likely
weeks, to recover.
If an expensive one fails, it takes just a much.
Jeroen Belleman
On 03/04/2024 11:23, Jan Panteltje wrote:
On a sunny day (Wed, 3 Apr 2024 10:24:00 +0100) it happened Martin Brown
<'''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk> wrote in <uuj77i$3r4ca$1@dont-email.me>:
In part I got it for the portability and free Mathematica license that
comes with it.
Yes, that was nice too.
Linux has Octave too for math, some more.
I generally use Maxima and most recently Julia for its arbitrary
precision mathematics, but there are few things that they can't do.
I reckon its performance single tasking isn't far off the venerable
i7-3770 from a decade or so back (and still pretty capable today).
My laptop now > 10 years old now runs Ubuntu.
At least everything works, put a Huawei 4 G stick in it and internet all over Europe.
This Raspberry has the Huawei 4 G stick in it now so I am online in a flash with one click
and offline after that with one click so no hacking and a dynamic IP address to make hacking even more problematic.
Did you have a P4 before the Pi5? If so what's the main difference in experience?
I had an original Raspberry Pi way back with composite video out but
never really found something it could do well enough to be interesting.
I found cheaper STM32 development boards more to my liking. YMMV
The Pi5 is quite a big step up from there! Even came with working GCC >compiler configured in the standard distribution which was nice.
I was tempted by an N100 based toy PC at Xmas but managed to resist.
Yea, we will see were it goes...
N100 looks quite capable. My only concern is the whiny fans on these
very small enclosures. Fan noise increases rapidly with rpm and tiny
fans don't move much air. SFF is as small as I like to go.
My 20 year old PC upstairs still runs xfree and the old audio system (before Alsa), and works still perfectly with my
satellite stuff.
Is an AMD 486.
I haven't got much left that is quite that old. One machine from 2003
that is kept mainly because it has a real parallel port needed for some >bitbanging programmers that I still very occasionally need to use.
My spellchequer today wants to turn you into Panatella must be all the
food over the Easter Holidays that's affecting it!
FWIW, my *nix Desktops consist of cheap, refurbished, small form PCs,
stuffed with SSDs.
The STM GPIO interface typically provides a digital interface to my electronic circuits. BSD RPis are used as intrinsic IDE hosts while
Blue and Black Pills are accessed via a STLink.
N100 looks quite capable. My only concern is the whiny fans on these very small
enclosures. Fan noise increases rapidly with rpm and tiny fans don't move much
air. SFF is as small as I like to go.
My 20 year old PC upstairs still runs xfree and the old audio system (before >> Alsa), and works still perfectly with my satellite stuff.
Is an AMD 486.
I haven't got much left that is quite that old. One machine from 2003 that is kept mainly because it has a real parallel port needed for some bitbanging programmers that I still very occasionally need to use.
My spellchequer today wants to turn you into Panatella must be all the food over the Easter Holidays that's affecting it!
What somone learned when he replaced a cheap Pi 5 PC with a no-name Amazon mini desktop
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/04/what-i-learned-when-i-replaced-my-cheap-pi-5-pc-with-a-no-name-amazon-mini-desktop/
All that said, I post this from a Pi4 8GB, it is sometimes really slow,
but I like and use the GPIO port.
On 03/04/2024 06:21, Jan Panteltje wrote:All that said, I post this from a Pi4 8GB, it is sometimes really slow,
What somone learned when he replaced a cheap Pi 5 PC with a no-name
Amazon mini desktop
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/04/what-i-learned-when-i-replaced-my-cheap-pi-5-pc-with-a-no-name-amazon-mini-desktop/
but I like and use the GPIO port.
I'm interested in putting the internet on a separate computer and
switching the monitor, keyboard and mouse with a switch box. How well
would it work for something like that? How well does it handle the
internet?
I'm interested in putting the internet on a separate computer and switching the monitor, keyboard and mouse with a switch box. How well would it work
for something like that? How well does it handle the internet?
On 03/04/2024 06:21, Jan Panteltje wrote:
What somone learned when he replaced a cheap Pi 5 PC with a no-name Amazon mini desktop
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/04/what-i-learned-when-i-replaced-my-cheap-pi-5-pc-with-a-no-name-amazon-mini-desktop/
All that said, I post this from a Pi4 8GB, it is sometimes really slow,
but I like and use the GPIO port.
I was quite surprised how sprightly my Pi 5 was. I opted for 8GB more >expensive entirely passive cooling so that it can be used as an
entertainment streaming system when not being used for other things.
(whole thing cost about £120 and is the size of a bar of soap)
In part I got it for the portability and free Mathematica license that
comes with it. I haven't found the Debian environment too tiresome
despite being a Windows user with a smidgeon of Ubuntu and Android.
I reckon its performance single tasking isn't far off the venerable
i7-3770 from a decade or so back (and still pretty capable today).
On 03/04/2024 06:21, Jan Panteltje wrote:
What somone learned when he replaced a cheap Pi 5 PC with a no-name Amazon mini desktop
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/04/what-i-learned-when-i-replaced-my-cheap-pi-5-pc-with-a-no-name-amazon-mini-desktop/
All that said, I post this from a Pi4 8GB, it is sometimes really slow,
but I like and use the GPIO port.
I'm interested in putting the internet on a separate computer and switching the monitor, keyboard and mouse with a switch box.
How well would it work for something like that? How well does it handle the internet?
On Wed, 3 Apr 2024 10:24:00 +0100, Martin Brown
<'''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk> wrote:
On 03/04/2024 06:21, Jan Panteltje wrote:
What somone learned when he replaced a cheap Pi 5 PC with a no-name Amazon mini desktop
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/04/what-i-learned-when-i-replaced-my-cheap-pi-5-pc-with-a-no-name-amazon-mini-desktop/
All that said, I post this from a Pi4 8GB, it is sometimes really slow,
but I like and use the GPIO port.
I was quite surprised how sprightly my Pi 5 was. I opted for 8GB more
expensive entirely passive cooling so that it can be used as an
entertainment streaming system when not being used for other things.
(whole thing cost about £120 and is the size of a bar of soap)
In part I got it for the portability and free Mathematica license that
comes with it. I haven't found the Debian environment too tiresome
despite being a Windows user with a smidgeon of Ubuntu and Android.
I reckon its performance single tasking isn't far off the venerable
i7-3770 from a decade or so back (and still pretty capable today).
Can it run LT Spice? I spend too much time running Spice.
My new big-box Windows machines, monster CPU and lots of ram and SSDs,
are disappointing because they only run sims about 2x as fast as my
old Win7 machines.
On Wed, 3 Apr 2024 17:38:29 +0200, Jeroen Belleman
<jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 4/3/24 16:57, John Larkin wrote:
On Wed, 03 Apr 2024 05:21:26 GMT, Jan Panteltje <alien@comet.invalid>
wrote:
What somone learned when he replaced a cheap Pi 5 PC with a no-name Amazon mini desktop
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/04/what-i-learned-when-i-replaced-my-cheap-pi-5-pc-with-a-no-name-amazon-mini-desktop/
All that said, I post this from a Pi4 8GB, it is sometimes really slow, >>>> but I like and use the GPIO port.
Considering how important a computer is to our professional and
personal lives, why do people go to great effort to save a few
dollars?
If a cheap PC fails, it will take days of your time, or more likely
weeks, to recover.
If an expensive one fails, it takes just a much.
Jeroen Belleman
Presumably it fails less often. Cheap electrolytics, cheap fans,
under-cooled parts will fail.
I just bought four new identical tower PCs, for work, home, cabin, and
a spare. Once my main box was set up, we cloned the SS drives to the
other three. So if my work PC dies, I have three others available.
They have identical monitors too, so my desktop won't go crazy if the
video resolution changes. I hate when that happens.
I decided when I had to replace mine that an i5-12600 was about the peak of performance/price that was a significant improvement over the 3770. I don't like paying through the nose for the fastest possible CPUs.
We have sort of hit a point where CPU improvements especially for single threaded code have hit an insurmountable bottleneck. There is a sweet spot for
the amount of ram and fast disk.
If you put it onto a UPS and enable all go
faster options for the SSD cache write through (risking potential data loss if
power is ever lost) you may get some improvement. You would have to decide if the speed gain is worth it to you.
If you check LT Spice on various CPUs I think you will find it correlates closely with ram speed and single thread performance on CPU related benchmarks
(obviously with a bias towards floating point code).
If you are prepared to risk data loss then another option is using a RAID0 array of identical disks will get you another factor of 2 or 3 if the system is
mainly disk bandwidth limited (and it may be if extensive logging of data is occurring during a simulation).
Some of the best designed PCs are from the gaming community suppliers. If you remove the graphics card entirely the main CPU graphics system is more than good enough for all 2D design and some 3D rendering work.
They perform incredibly well and have huge slow fans so under ordinary heavy loads they remain very quiet. Ones intended for corporate office workers tend to have inadequate power supplies and small noisy fans reflecting their typical
workload and noisy environment.
Your choice but owning several machines of the same vintage leaves you exposed
to any glitches in the new machines or their OS's. MS has been known to brick portables on Win10/11 from time to time - not fun at all.
On 03/04/2024 18:37, john larkin wrote:
On Wed, 3 Apr 2024 10:24:00 +0100, Martin Brown
<'''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk> wrote:
On 03/04/2024 06:21, Jan Panteltje wrote:
What somone learned when he replaced a cheap Pi 5 PC with a no-name Amazon mini desktop
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/04/what-i-learned-when-i-replaced-my-cheap-pi-5-pc-with-a-no-name-amazon-mini-desktop/
All that said, I post this from a Pi4 8GB, it is sometimes really slow, >>>> but I like and use the GPIO port.
I was quite surprised how sprightly my Pi 5 was. I opted for 8GB more
expensive entirely passive cooling so that it can be used as an
entertainment streaming system when not being used for other things.
(whole thing cost about £120 and is the size of a bar of soap)
In part I got it for the portability and free Mathematica license that
comes with it. I haven't found the Debian environment too tiresome
despite being a Windows user with a smidgeon of Ubuntu and Android.
I reckon its performance single tasking isn't far off the venerable
i7-3770 from a decade or so back (and still pretty capable today).
Can it run LT Spice? I spend too much time running Spice.
I haven't tried it on LT Spice but it seems to be able to run any
floating point code that will compile on it so I don't see why not. It
can also drive full QD displays natively at MPEG playback video speeds.
The main weakness as default built is that if you are careless about how
you use it you can run out of wear cycles on the sD holding the OS and
swap file! I know someone who did just that...
My new big-box Windows machines, monster CPU and lots of ram and SSDs,
are disappointing because they only run sims about 2x as fast as my
old Win7 machines.
I decided when I had to replace mine that an i5-12600 was about the peak
of performance/price that was a significant improvement over the 3770. I >don't like paying through the nose for the fastest possible CPUs.
We have sort of hit a point where CPU improvements especially for single >threaded code have hit an insurmountable bottleneck. There is a sweet
spot for the amount of ram and fast disk. If you put it onto a UPS and >enable all go faster options for the SSD cache write through (risking >potential data loss if power is ever lost) you may get some improvement.
You would have to decide if the speed gain is worth it to you.
If you check LT Spice on various CPUs I think you will find it
correlates closely with ram speed and single thread performance on CPU >related benchmarks (obviously with a bias towards floating point code).
On 03/04/2024 16:54, John Larkin wrote:
On Wed, 3 Apr 2024 17:38:29 +0200, Jeroen Belleman
<jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 4/3/24 16:57, John Larkin wrote:
On Wed, 03 Apr 2024 05:21:26 GMT, Jan Panteltje <alien@comet.invalid>
wrote:
What somone learned when he replaced a cheap Pi 5 PC with a no-name Amazon mini desktop
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/04/what-i-learned-when-i-replaced-my-cheap-pi-5-pc-with-a-no-name-amazon-mini-desktop/
All that said, I post this from a Pi4 8GB, it is sometimes really slow, >>>>> but I like and use the GPIO port.
Considering how important a computer is to our professional and
personal lives, why do people go to great effort to save a few
dollars?
If a cheap PC fails, it will take days of your time, or more likely
weeks, to recover.
If an expensive one fails, it takes just a much.
It is sometimes worth paying a premium to have a machine that is fast
enough for your immediate project needs (even if cheaper ones are more
easily available). You pay quite a high premium for that last bit of >performance when it is still very new.
Jeroen Belleman
Presumably it fails less often. Cheap electrolytics, cheap fans,
under-cooled parts will fail.
Some of the best designed PCs are from the gaming community suppliers.
If you remove the graphics card entirely the main CPU graphics system is
more than good enough for all 2D design and some 3D rendering work.
They perform incredibly well and have huge slow fans so under ordinary
heavy loads they remain very quiet. Ones intended for corporate office >workers tend to have inadequate power supplies and small noisy fans >reflecting their typical workload and noisy environment.
I just bought four new identical tower PCs, for work, home, cabin, and
a spare. Once my main box was set up, we cloned the SS drives to the
other three. So if my work PC dies, I have three others available.
Your choice but owning several machines of the same vintage leaves you >exposed to any glitches in the new machines or their OS's. MS has been
known to brick portables on Win10/11 from time to time - not fun at all.
They have identical monitors too, so my desktop won't go crazy if the
video resolution changes. I hate when that happens.
That is a bit OCD.
On Thu, 4 Apr 2024 10:02:06 +0100, Martin Brown
<'''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk> wrote:
We have sort of hit a point where CPU improvements especially for single
threaded code have hit an insurmountable bottleneck. There is a sweet
spot for the amount of ram and fast disk. If you put it onto a UPS and
enable all go faster options for the SSD cache write through (risking
potential data loss if power is ever lost) you may get some improvement.
You would have to decide if the speed gain is worth it to you.
Most of us have way more compute power than we need. A pokey old
laptop will show a movie just fine. About the only compute-limited
things left are games and Spice.
Well, Spice is sort of a game too.
If you check LT Spice on various CPUs I think you will find it
correlates closely with ram speed and single thread performance on CPU
related benchmarks (obviously with a bias towards floating point code).
Enabling more cores doesn't help much. What does seriously help -
sometimes 20:1 - is relaxing some of the sim parameters. I do that
until something obviously breaks, then back off a little.
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