Octopus Overlords

Comp is good, i did get some deals in steam sale but played only briefly (Far Cry3, Aow 3, Max pain 3 , Metro last light). Everything seem to run really fast and really good.

No complaints, i mean my old comp started to get really weired bugs toward the life end, hence i had to get rid of it one way or another. This was a good way to do it.

Now i just need to find time to play. I am trying to lunch start up, and that tends to take away a lot of time from everything else.

Matrix wrote:Comp is good, i did get some deals in steam sale but played only briefly (Far Cry3, Aow 3, Max pain 3 , Metro last light). Everything seem to run really fast and really good.

No complaints, i mean my old comp started to get really weired bugs toward the life end, hence i had to get rid of it one way or another. This was a good way to do it.

Now i just need to find time to play. I am trying to lunch start up, and that tends to take away a lot of time from everything else.

If you mean LAUNCH a start up, then good luck

If you mean starting to eat your lunch then bon appetite

a little bit of both, i was feeling hungry!

Its been about 3 month now , and new comp is great. Boots up super quick, works fast, very quiet, all games that i tried run great on it.

I had some annoying problems in months 5-7. It seemed there were some kind of motherboard issue (MSI) but a little defragging and a small program to check the MB and the problem went away. No issues at all for the past 5 months. It still starts up superfast and is still super quiet. One thing the computer can't take is being left on over night. If I do that and try to game the next day, there is always a ton of memory issues. So every night the computer goes off.

My only regret was I wish I would have forked over some more dough for a bigger SSI drive. The 128 is way to dinky and I have to monitor it all the time (it at about 75% capacity) . Steam defaults to the SSI drive and I have to make sure to change the settings when I download a game.

D.A.Lewis wrote:One thing the computer can't take is being left on over night. If I do that and try to game the next day, there is always a ton of memory issues.

...that's kind of a big problem.

hitbyambulance wrote:

D.A.Lewis wrote:One thing the computer can't take is being left on over night. If I do that and try to game the next day, there is always a ton of memory issues.

...that's kind of a big problem.

I would think something like that has more to do with the installed software than the hardware. Something running in the background, consuming memory - some program that has a "built-in" memory leak?

It could be almost anything. I have a 2 month old Acer on my desk that *hate* going to sleep. There's a good chance it won't wake up, or when it wakes up, it's groggy and the apps won't respond, nor would explorer, necessitating a full power off to reset. I don't have too much loaded on it, and I keep the boot relatively clean with Soluto. So far haven't found any patterns.

Wheww, time to resurrect this baby.

My comp has been stellar all this time, but i am starting to have some crushes. I dont play nearly as much anymore, but lately been facing some strange crushes in some games. Irony is, my comp from 5 years ago handles pretty much everything just fine. Infact, if my games didnt start crushing randomly i have literally zero complains of the comp. Its fast, it great for work and gaming, and its been over 5 years so it certainly has worked its due. In-fact, i don't event want to change it yet, but maybe sometime next year.
So what has changes in 5 1/2 years? Any huge changes? My budget will be same as before about 1k. (and got to say, that 1 k went a long way)
Will be buying from Cyberpower again (if they still around) as they did a great job.

The system I bought from eCollegePC a year or so ago is the best PC I've ever owned. By itself, that's not remarkable; anytime you jump ahead 5+ years you're going to be happy with your upgrade. But this is the first machine I can remember that didn't have some irritating flaw, like being too loud or overheating on hot days or bad dust filtering or something. Their salesperson found me a compact case to fit my space, which I hadn't been able to find on my own (their website is not real friendly), and recommended dropping an extra case fan that I didn't need. I haven't needed support, so nothing to say about that, but the sales process was good. My previous machine was a Cyberpower, and this one is much better-built. (I think I paid around $1400.)

If you like Cyberpower, you may as well go with them again.

I bought an IBuyPower machine off Amazon. Came with RTX2070 and bunch of other stuff (SSD+HD, 16 GB RAM, i7-9700K CPU, waterblock for CPU, etc.) and it runs everything I wanted it to. I have tons of stuff added to it like dual monitor arm and stuff, but I hadn't had to open the case yet. The video card (ASUS Dual RTX2070) so far is stellar except for one RMA. Runs EVERYTHING at 1080p without complaint, even dual monitor. I paid like 1400+ almost a year ago. Prices should have dropped on it to near 1000, or you can trim off a bit here and there to make it fit.

Matrix why are you saying crushing instead of crashing?

Daehawk wrote: ↑Thu Nov 14, 2019 10:59 am Matrix why are you saying crushing instead of crashing?

I was thinking auto-correct, but it could be a stroke I guess.

I just assumed it was a mistake since English is not his first language.

It doesn't matter. We all knew exactly what he meant. No need to correct him.

English ain't my first language either.

I wondered if English was a first language . I mean I type for shit. But it was just the one word over and over. The rest is perfect. I thought maybe he was making a funny. But I had to know. No ill intentions were meant.

Besides if it is a English isn't first mistake then better to correct than continue it right? Again meant no harm.

Kraken wrote: ↑Wed Nov 13, 2019 12:37 am The system I bought from eCollegePC a year or so ago is the best PC I've ever owned. By itself, that's not remarkable; anytime you jump ahead 5+ years you're going to be happy with your upgrade. But this is the first machine I can remember that didn't have some irritating flaw, like being too loud or overheating on hot days or bad dust filtering or something. Their salesperson found me a compact case to fit my space, which I hadn't been able to find on my own (their website is not real friendly), and recommended dropping an extra case fan that I didn't need. I haven't needed support, so nothing to say about that, but the sales process was good. My previous machine was a Cyberpower, and this one is much better-built. (I think I paid around $1400.)

I had never heard of eCollege PC before but this is the second recommendation I have read in as many days. I am definitely considering them along with Cyberpower and Microcenter for my next one. If I don't decide to build one which is very tempting as I keep finding parts on the super cheap.

I liked my Cyberman, and it lasted 7+ years. I like my Collegeboy better and hope it lasts at least as long.

Kraken wrote: ↑Fri Nov 15, 2019 2:23 pm I liked my Cyberman, and it lasted 7+ years. I like my Collegeboy better and hope it lasts at least as long.

I had a Cyberpc about 10 years ago that did me just fine. Prebuilt one from Newegg. I've also had 2 Microcenter brand PowerPc since than and both were solid, average, budgety systems. I plan to go all out this go round as I figure with the onset of my hand arthritis I got maybe 4-5 years left of good action gaming left in me it will hurt to much. I've never spent more than $1,000 on a system but am trying to convince the wife I'm going to double that for my next one. Wish me luck!

I priced out what I wanted last night and get it for about $1,900 if I bought it right then for building one. Not really worth it unless I am patient and wait on sales I can shave a few hundred of that. However, doing that leaves me extra $$ for a new 1440 144hz monitor, which I'll need as an upgrade from 1080p

I've never spent more than $1,000 on a system but am trying to convince the wife I'm going to double that for my next one. Wish me luck!

Famous last words of the husband.

What do you want on your tombstone?...Sausage and pepperoni?

My turn!!

Okay, so I've tried to do as much research as I can. These are the things I've learned, please correct me if I'm wrong. This is my final check before I click go to cart.

What I do/ need/ want: modest cad( single story building size, modest engineered objects), basic video editing ( educational demonstrations, student level features, minimal to no vfx), office docs ( modest databases/ sharing/ spreadsheets), Zoom. Minimal gaming ( I'm more likely to play half life, total annihilation, or ssi pools of radiance for the umpteenth time than buy a game newer than 2017). Keri would probably be doing logistics, spreadsheets, and route mapping ( I think; her office work is magic to me)

What I've learned:

DIY is better.
DIY is several hundred dollars more expensive for equivalent processor/ memory.
Prebuilt is likely to have budget components
Prebuilt renewed is ~200 dollars cheaper than new
Workstations are different from basic computers are different from gaming computers.
Each type has an infinite number of variations
SSD is a must, even more so than cpu
i5's and their AMD equivalent aren't bad, but aren't as good as i7's and equivalent, i9's are just out of my budget.
AMD is just as good, maybe better than Intel
The differences between modest graphics cards are greek to me, and expensive ones are right out.
For things like cad, graphics and processing are quite important.
HP sucks.

What I've landed on/ am making a final comparison between

Dell precision with a modest build

Dell Precision T5810 Tower Business Desktop PC High-End Build Your Own Computer, Intel Xeon up to 3.7GHz Processor, Windows 10 Pro Optional
(Renewed)
Processor : E5-2650 V3 2.3GHz 10-Core
Additional Hard Drives : 1x 1TB 7.2K 6Gbps HDD
Memory : 32GB 2133MHz RAM (4 x 8GB)
Graphics Card : NVIDIA Quadro K4200


Dell Precision T7610 Tower Business Desktop PC High-End Build Your Own Computer, Intel Xeon up to 3.5GHz Processor, 800GB SSD, Windows 10 Pro Optional (Renewed)
In Stock
Shipped from: MET Servers
Customizations:
Processors : 1x E5-2643 V1 3.3GHz 4-Core
Additional Hard Drives : 1x 1TB 7.2K 6Gbps SATA HDD
Memory : 16GB DDR3 Memory (4 x 4GB)
Graphics Card : NVIDIA Quadro K2200
Operating System : Windows 10 Professional 64-Bit

vs.

Dell Optiplex 9010 Desktop Computer- Intel Core i7 3.4GHz, 16GB DDR3, New 1TB SSD, Windows 10 Pro 64-Bit, WiFi, DVDRW (Renewed)

or a Similar lenovo.

Thank you if you read this. What say you overlords? Am I an ignoramus making mistakes, should I be looking elsewhere? Why does is say 800gb ssd but 1 TB hdd. Sigh every layer I peel back reveals another ten layers of details and options.

Those don’t look like what you’d be looking for (IMO). Nothing about your usage indicated that you’d be looking for a 10-Core XEON or a Quadro video card. Maybe I’m missing something?

Edit to add: didn’t see the Optiplex there, that’s more what I’d be expecting.

As someone who runs a shop with Dells and Lenovos, I would Lenovo makes the generically better bang for your buck and durable equivalent machine.

However, if you are getting a mobile both Dell and Lenovo current generation of docking station (USB 3) suck ass and Lenovo's suck the worst ass, most especially as related to Display Port based video output (Which I also am convinced is not yet a perfected technology)

RM you'e not missing anything, I want to spend under 800 for the tower, but I'm clueless about not buying something underpowered. I know I don't need a ferrari, but every computer I've ever bought required me to turn the settings down. I want to turn them up, but it's not like I'm twitch streaming 4k (I only vaguely know what that even means.)

Also not buying mobile. we have a surface, and school has several older laptops. I want a good mid grade workstation for home work.

I'm sick of my CAD models rotating jerkily, or particularly once they're textured.

RunningMn9 wrote: ↑Thu Jul 16, 2020 5:52 pm Those don’t look like what you’d be looking for (IMO). Nothing about your usage indicated that you’d be looking for a 10-Core XEON or a Quadro video card. Maybe I’m missing something?

Edit to add: didn’t see the Optiplex there, that’s more what I’d be expecting.

Is it that they are too much or the specs just won't help with what I would use the computer for? That's the part that gets me. I can't learn fast enough the kind of computing cad and vfx need in the right combination of cpu, meory, ram and graphics card processor, memory, and such. not to mention cores vs threads vs generations, vs models within a generation.

Why is CL speaking with a Scottish accent in my imagination?

Daehawk wrote: ↑Thu Jul 16, 2020 6:20 pm Why is CL speaking with a Scottish accent in my imagination?

It comes through from mah Haggis farts laddie.

also, This is fascinating but holy crap could be a whole class.

Combustible Lemur wrote: ↑Thu Jul 16, 2020 6:14 pm

RunningMn9 wrote: ↑Thu Jul 16, 2020 5:52 pm Those don’t look like what you’d be looking for (IMO). Nothing about your usage indicated that you’d be looking for a 10-Core XEON or a Quadro video card. Maybe I’m missing something?

Edit to add: didn’t see the Optiplex there, that’s more what I’d be expecting.

Is it that they are too much or the specs just won't help with what I would use the computer for? That's the part that gets me. I can't learn fast enough the kind of computing cad and vfx need in the right combination of cpu, meory, ram and graphics card processor, memory, and such. not to mention cores vs threads vs generations, vs models within a generation.

The Dell Precision models that you listed are using CPU and GPU that are from 2012-2014. You want something that's at least a bit closer to this decade. I don't know what the real distinction is anymore for a "workstation", but the used business desktops that you are researching will not run CAD well, the CPU is nowhere good enough.

Combustible Lemur wrote: ↑Thu Jul 16, 2020 5:30 pm Why does is say 800gb ssd but 1 TB hdd.

They come with 2 hard drives. The smaller SSD (where Windows is installed), plus a 1TB platter drive.

gilraen wrote:

Combustible Lemur wrote: ↑Thu Jul 16, 2020 6:14 pm

RunningMn9 wrote: ↑Thu Jul 16, 2020 5:52 pm Those don’t look like what you’d be looking for (IMO). Nothing about your usage indicated that you’d be looking for a 10-Core XEON or a Quadro video card. Maybe I’m missing something?

Edit to add: didn’t see the Optiplex there, that’s more what I’d be expecting.

Is it that they are too much or the specs just won't help with what I would use the computer for? That's the part that gets me. I can't learn fast enough the kind of computing cad and vfx need in the right combination of cpu, meory, ram and graphics card processor, memory, and such. not to mention cores vs threads vs generations, vs models within a generation.

The Dell Precision models that you listed are using CPU and GPU that are from 2012-2014. You want something that's at least a bit closer to this decade. I don't know what the real distinction is anymore for a "workstation", but the used business desktops that you are researching will not run CAD well, the CPU is nowhere good enough.

Combustible Lemur wrote: ↑Thu Jul 16, 2020 5:30 pm Why does is say 800gb ssd but 1 TB hdd.

They come with 2 hard drives. The smaller SSD (where Windows is installed), plus a 1TB platter drive.

Gah! How can you tell?? I was under the impression i7's were relatively new, and they're more expensive than the optiplex's that are supposedly lower end.

Edit: The dual haed drive thing makes sense thankyou.
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I missed CAD modeling before. You want a sub $800 desktop that does a good job of modeling CAD. My response is

For an $800 tower, I'd get:

16 Gig Ram
500 Gig SSD
A cheap non integrated video card
The Best I5 equivalent processor I could find to keep to slide in under $800

It won't be a work hours. It's be an adequate spread sheet machine. It will struggle with modern gaming. It will laugh if you try to do CAD work.

A Precision is probably the right make for cheap CAD workstation. I just don't think you can get an adequate model under $800. the Opti will get you a better spreadsheet computer for $800

to the Internet!

This looks like the cheapest CAD wannabe model I could find on a cursory search without having customer rep to give you a discount and even then 256 gig HD is come up against it the garbage space most CAD programs use while modeling. It is not uncommon for some of the FLEX LM licensed stuff, for instance, to generate multiple 10-50 gig files at a pop even simple models.

https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/al ... opt3630us3

1169
Processor
Intel Core i7-9700,(8 Core, 12MB Cache, 3.0Ghz, 4.7 Ghz Turbo w/UHD Graphics 630) [338-BTJO][412-AAOV] / GAKGBE5 1
Operating System
Windows 10 Pro 64bit English, French, Spanish [619-AHKN] / GF48XA1 1
Chassis Options
Precision 3630 Tower with 460W up to 90% efficient PSU (80Plus Gold) with SD card reader v2 [321-BESW] / G2BMZQH 1
Graphics Card
NVIDIA Quadro P620, 2GB, 4 mDP to DP adapter [490-BEOM] / G91I8Z2 1
Memoryi
16GB 2X8GB DDR4 2666MHz UDIMM Non-ECC Memory [370-AEFV] / GEKW1L4 1
Thermal Cooling
None
Storage Configuration
C2 2.5 inch Boot HD with optional 1-3 2.5 inch HD [449-BBMJ] / G2TGNFH 1
Hard Drive
2.5" 256GB SATA Class 20 Solid State Drive [400-AXXW] / GEIDLM3 1

Warrantyi
3 Years ProSupport with Next Business Day Onsite Service [989-3449][997-2808][997-2836][997-6782] / G579CFJ 1

Huh. I read that and thought, I bought a surface book like 4 yrs ago and it could do what you're talking about. There's no way a modern tower can't do that. I just looked up surface books, and the 2k ones (the level I bought then) have better specs than the desktops I'm looking at now.... Fuck.
...... Back to the drawing board.

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ok, so. where to start. firstly,



this chart is a generation behind, but anyone that tries to hard sell you on an Intel i7 can gtfo - AMD Ryzen is cheaper, and with more cores (which is better for CAD, video editing and... doing both at the same time. Intel tends to be better on single thread performance). with a budget restraint, this just makes sense anyways. i got an AMD Ryzen 5 3600 as it's the sweet spot for price/performance, and paired with what is now a somewhat old Geforce GTX 970 graphics card, is a fine machine for CAD work. the money you now save on the CPU can be applied to video card and RAM, which is where you're going to find even more benefit. you can maybe save more on going SSD over M.2 for storage, but that's up to you. get a decent power supply. motherboard really doesn't matter. use pcpartspicker.com to gauge any potential RAM incompatibilities.

if you have more questions on specifics, let me know.

Has anyone from the thread gotten a machine yet and could tell us about it or show some performance tests? Im just curious as to what folks went with .

hitbyambulance wrote:ok, so. where to start. firstly,



this chart is a generation behind, but anyone that tries to hard sell you on an Intel i7 can gtfo - AMD Ryzen is cheaper, and with more cores (which is better for CAD, video editing and... doing both at the same time. Intel tends to be better on single thread performance). with a budget restraint, this just makes sense anyways. i got an AMD Ryzen 5 3600 as it's the sweet spot for price/performance, and paired with what is now a somewhat old Geforce GTX 970 graphics card, is a fine machine for CAD work. the money you now save on the CPU can be applied to video card and RAM, which is where you're going to find even more benefit. you can maybe save more on going SSD over M.2 for storage, but that's up to you. get a decent power supply. motherboard really doesn't matter. use pcpartspicker.com to gauge any potential RAM incompatibilities.

if you have more questions on specifics, let me know.

Yeah, that all makes sense. Ryzens are harder to find in Prebuilds.

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This here has some good information about CAD compatible graphics cards.

https://graphicscardhub.com/best-workst ... ics-cards/ The NVIDIA K620 looks like a good cross between price and function for a machine under $1000


The NVIDIA Quadro P620 (from the Dell site) can probably do it, but you might want to know that card only has plugs for mini-display port. So it will need an adapter to connect to a "standard" sort of monitor.

When picking the RAM, I have found its best to go with larger sticks. Meaning 2x16 is better than 4x8. That way, if you want to upgrade in the future, its easy to get another 2x16 instead of having to replace all 4 sticks.