• Desktop Recommendation

    From Jeff Gaines@21:1/5 to All on Mon Mar 28 10:59:09 2022
    I am thinking of having a machine shuffle and using my current desktop(HP
    Z620, dual Xeons) as a server which is what is what designed for. It's a
    bit hesitant now and then something I noticed on my last dual processor
    box which ran dual AMD CPUs and a mainboard which I think had "Tiger" in
    the name.

    I don't do anything heavy like video editing but I do program using MSFT
    Visual Studio and I do want a machine that is responsive as I tend to have several things running together.

    Any recommendation for a new desktop? I haven't run an AMD for a while so
    happy to consider, if it's Intel then I am inclined to go for an i7 as at
    my age I tend to work on the basis anything I buy could be my last!

    Barebones might be a good option as I have spare cases, PSUs, mice &
    keyboards, SSDs and even an NVM M.2 thingy to boot from. Barebones where
    some other bigger puts the CPU in might be an even better option in view
    of my past history!

    --
    Jeff Gaines Dorset UK
    If it's not broken, mess around with it until it is

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  • From Theo@21:1/5 to Jeff Gaines on Mon Mar 28 12:17:55 2022
    Jeff Gaines <jgaines_newsid@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
    I don't do anything heavy like video editing but I do program using MSFT Visual Studio and I do want a machine that is responsive as I tend to have several things running together.

    Any recommendation for a new desktop? I haven't run an AMD for a while so happy to consider, if it's Intel then I am inclined to go for an i7 as at
    my age I tend to work on the basis anything I buy could be my last!

    Budget?

    The AMD Ryzens are pretty good. The main annoyance is that the ones with
    the most cores don't have integrated GPUs, so you need a basic discrete GPU
    for desktop display. The lower end ones do have integrated GPUs, but the
    specs aren't as good. The Zen 3 (Ryzen 5000) are a lot better than the previous gen parts.

    We use Ryzen 5950X as servers and the performance is very good, even
    compared to 'proper' server platforms.

    Intel's Alder Lake is somewhat more competitive with AMD than previous generations, but I'd probably start looking at AMD first.

    Barebones might be a good option as I have spare cases, PSUs, mice & keyboards, SSDs and even an NVM M.2 thingy to boot from. Barebones where
    some other bigger puts the CPU in might be an even better option in view
    of my past history!

    Are you looking for a regular ATX/mATX desktop form factor, or something
    else?

    Do you have any DDR4 RAM in 'stock'?

    Have a play with https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/ and see if you can come up
    with a build that's roughly to your price point.

    Theo

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  • From Vir Campestris@21:1/5 to Jeff Gaines on Mon Mar 28 21:50:49 2022
    On 28/03/2022 11:59, Jeff Gaines wrote:

    I am thinking of having a machine shuffle and using my current
    desktop(HP Z620, dual Xeons) as a server which is what is what designed
    for. It's a bit hesitant now and then something I noticed on my last
    dual processor box which ran dual AMD CPUs and a mainboard which I think
    had "Tiger" in the name.

    I don't do anything heavy like video editing but I do program using MSFT Visual Studio and I do want a machine that is responsive as I tend to
    have several things running together.

    Any recommendation for a new desktop? I haven't run an AMD for a while
    so happy to consider, if it's Intel then I am inclined to go for an i7
    as at my age I tend to work on the basis anything I buy could be my last!

    Barebones might be a good option as I have spare cases, PSUs, mice & keyboards, SSDs and even an NVM M.2 thingy to boot from. Barebones where
    some other bigger puts the CPU in might be an even better option in view
    of my past history!

    I bought an AMD last year - the top one that had an integrated GPU.

    But my machine isn't spec'd for pure speed. My aim was to have one nice
    and quiet and not too hot.

    It's RAM that makes them responsive though.

    Andy

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  • From Chris@21:1/5 to Jeff Gaines on Mon Mar 28 21:59:28 2022
    Jeff Gaines <jgaines_newsid@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

    I am thinking of having a machine shuffle and using my current desktop(HP Z620, dual Xeons) as a server which is what is what designed for. It's a
    bit hesitant now and then something I noticed on my last dual processor
    box which ran dual AMD CPUs and a mainboard which I think had "Tiger" in
    the name.

    I don't do anything heavy like video editing but I do program using MSFT Visual Studio and I do want a machine that is responsive as I tend to have several things running together.

    Any recommendation for a new desktop? I haven't run an AMD for a while so happy to consider, if it's Intel then I am inclined to go for an i7 as at
    my age I tend to work on the basis anything I buy could be my last!

    Barebones might be a good option as I have spare cases, PSUs, mice & keyboards, SSDs and even an NVM M.2 thingy to boot from. Barebones where
    some other bigger puts the CPU in might be an even better option in view
    of my past history!

    Nowadays it's pretty simple especially if you don't do any gaming. There's
    some decent options from the bigger boys (Dell, Lenovo, et al) or go with a system builder like overclockers or scan.

    Most CPUs will chew through your demands pretty easily so focus on RAM
    (16GB min), get as much SSD as you can afford and pick a cpu with
    integrated graphics that keeps you within budget.

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  • From Jeff Gaines@21:1/5 to Gaines on Tue Mar 29 15:05:37 2022
    On 28/03/2022 in message <xn0nfwlep80cpk600u@news.individual.net> Jeff
    Gaines wrote:

    Barebones might be a good option as I have spare cases, PSUs, mice & >keyboards, SSDs and even an NVM M.2 thingy to boot from. Barebones where
    some other bigger puts the CPU in might be an even better option in view
    of my past history!

    Just so say thanks for the replies :-)

    I have decided to dust off my Z170K machine, in fact this is coming from
    it. I took a dislike to it when I managed to bend all the pins on the CPU socket, in fact is was so bad I bought a second one. It's got an i7 3.4
    GHz and 32 GB RAM as well as an NVME to boot from and a second one in a
    PCI card for data. I just have to come to terms with the fact that
    actually it works well and I was clumsy :-(

    --
    Jeff Gaines Dorset UK
    There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.
    (Ken Olson, president Digital Equipment, 1977)

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  • From Abandoned_Trolley@21:1/5 to All on Wed Mar 30 13:40:11 2022

    Most CPUs will chew through your demands pretty easily so focus on RAM
    (16GB min), get as much SSD as you can afford and pick a cpu with
    integrated graphics that keeps you within budget.



    I am some way from being convinced of the necessity for 16GB of RAM -
    let alone regarding it as a minimum.

    My main desktop machine has "only" 16GB of RAM, but seems to be able to
    cope with running a virtual machine under Virtualbox, a reasonably large
    Cubase project, a web browser and MS Word all at the same time - using
    the supposedly memory hungry Windows 10

    It rarely goes over 8GB of memory use - assuming that the perfomance
    monitor in the Task Manager is even vaguely accurate

    Subjectively it seems to me that upgrading to SSDs may have reduced
    memory requirements.

    So .. right at the moment I would need a good reason to fill up those
    other memory slots.

    --
    random signature text inserted here

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