TSB
Computers and Software => Computers and Software - General => Topic started by: vicb on December 13, 2012, 10:54:21 AM
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Looking for a new PC and just looking for feedback. I usually have one custom built
every few years and just wanted to see what everyone else is using.
Intel or AMD and which type, quad core or 8 core, amount of ram, graphics card and so on.
I run 2 hd's, one with OS and programs and the for data and an external for backup using
norton ghost. Let me know what's under your pc hood!
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Used Lenovo thinkstation. They can be had for under $1K and they are flippin' quick. The video cards in them are high end, alone they run about $400-$500 new. Add the ECC RAM and Xeon processor and you have a system that is top notch.
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Brad (mk162) is a convert since getting his 1st Thinkstation few years back. I've been using them for graphic work and would not go to a regular system any more.
Some here will disagree with us and prefer to build white boxes.
My suggestion would be to get one and see what you think, it can't be worse than what you would normally get and it could potentially be a lot better.
If you go that route, Xeon 3.0Ghz or about for the CPU speed and nVidia Quadro video card are the minimums you are looking for. E series is pretty cheap, S is the way to go if choosing the refurb route. E's are about $1K for new, $550 for refurb/open box (if you can find them) and refurb S is about $650. In some cases refurbs will come with a license but no OS installed. All will need another $75 or so worth of RAM.
pierre
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If you are going to get a Thinkstation make sure its not one of the super out dated ones that are often posted here. There are good ones, there are ones that hae processors in them that are several years old and are slower than many budget chips are today.
But I would certainly do that over a Dell or HP or something like that.
Or build one. A monkey can put together a computer, there is no skill involved IMO.
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I just bought an S20, 3.2ghz Xeon, 4GB RAM, Quadro 2000, Windows 7 x64 installed....for $842. Not awesome on price, but good. The video card alone is $399 and the processor on Newegg is $316. So $715 alone for just those 2 components.
Building one is fine, but I think it's easier to go with one of these..pre-done and cheaper.
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Brad or Pierre need to post the link(s) for these gems
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all of the above are with Quad core Xeon CPUs. While usable to a much larger extent than anticipated, I would follow Brandt's advice and stick with newer CPUs.
The absolutely biggest advantage workstation class offers is the extent of testing done to limit any possibility of crashing or similar issues. This is where I disagree with Brand. He has a lot of experience building the systems and is picking top of the line components that he knows are working together well. Monkey could put the components together, but the reliability offered and in depth testing will not be there. Yes, this might be a difference of one crash a month, but if there are a couple of components not playing well together, it could turn ugly quickly. To further emphasize the advantages of going away from a white box, Lenovo has a support page with fixes to any known issues (usually not many). If there are problems with new drivers or OS patches, you'll find out before getting in trouble and the solution will be posted.
pierre
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Brad or Pierre need to post the link(s) for these gems
other than ebay, I have two more sources I'd prefer to keep to ourselves (TSB) rather than advertise to the world. Anybody interested, PM me and I'll send the links.
pierre
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My regular company I deal with gave me a quote with an AMD 8 core processor and 16 gigs of ram, graphics card, hd and all the other basics for around $1100.00 I priced the same parts out at new egg
for around $850 so $250 didn't seem too much to put it together. How does the AMD processors stack up against the Intel's?
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all of the above are with Quad core Xeon CPUs. While usable to a much larger extent than anticipated, I would follow Brandt's advice and stick with newer CPUs.
The absolutely biggest advantage workstation class offers is the extent of testing done to limit any possibility of crashing or similar issues. This is where I disagree with Brand. He has a lot of experience building the systems and is picking top of the line components that he knows are working together well. Monkey could put the components together, but the reliability offered and in depth testing will not be there. Yes, this might be a difference of one crash a month, but if there are a couple of components not playing well together, it could turn ugly quickly. To further emphasize the advantages of going away from a white box, Lenovo has a support page with fixes to any known issues (usually not many). If there are problems with new drivers or OS patches, you'll find out before getting in trouble and the solution will be posted.
pierre
My problem in many of the previous posts is that a lot of these systems you were posting in the past most of them that are "cheap" had VERY old processors, and I mean REALLY old in the tech world.
What is this crashing you speak of? Haven't seen a crash in years other than when a hard drive died. Which could happen in any system, at any time, new or refurbished.
My monkey comment was in the context of that there are enough smart computer people here we could all suggest components to anyone here and they could assemble and assuming they can follow simple windows prompts they can in fact build and set up a computer from nothing but piles of parts. It's very easy.
I don't care what any one builds or buys really, but I think its important not to just point someone at a site full of refurbs and suggest the world will be right with any choice. A lot of them on that site you posted before were not impressive. There were a few good values that were not already dead tech in the computer world though. But those were not 400 buck computers either. ;)
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My regular company I deal with gave me a quote with an AMD 8 core processor and 16 gigs of ram, graphics card, hd and all the other basics for around $1100.00 I priced the same parts out at new egg
for around $850 so $250 didn't seem too much to put it together. How does the AMD processors stack up against the Intel's?
I used to be a AMD freak, but once I went Intel I just can't bring myself to go back even to save the money. Now that said, they are plenty fast enough. In most of the type of work you will do with a computer a processor WONT be your bottle neck. It will be disk read/write and memory size/speed. So go with a ton of fast ram and a Sata III SSD and you will be in great shape. Processor just so it is decently fast you will be good.
For $250 IMO you can do it yourself and save some coin if you are at all mechanically inclined.
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I just bought an AMD 8 core for $169
New Asus MB for for $139
16 gigs of DDR3 for just over $100
All at Tiger
I already have an extra large case, graphics card and PSU and HD's
I am building it for home, my kids actually got me hooked into playing Minecraft/Tekkit so now I will have a PC just so we can all enjoy playing that and some other odds and ends.
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I pass by Tiger on the way to my parents house...I need to stop in there sometime...they have free coffee.
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A useful site in seeing just how your CPU, Video Card, Hard Drive, Or Ram stacks up to others below, so don't take any ones word for it, look at the hard data.
http://www.videocardbenchmark.net (http://www.videocardbenchmark.net)
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It's been my understanding that the video card has little to do with what we do, IE Illustrator
and Photoshop type stuff.
AMD (only bad chip I ever got was an Intel), SSD's, and as much memory as you can afford.
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It's been my understanding that the video card has little to do with what we do, IE Illustrator
and Photoshop type stuff.
AMD (only bad chip I ever got was an Intel), SSD's, and as much memory as you can afford.
You will see far more performance increases from lots of ram and fast hard drives.
If you were doing 3D Rendering, high end video editing, Auto Cad, Solid works and so on I would suggest the video card was important as the other items.
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It's been my understanding that the video card has little to do with what we do, IE Illustrator
and Photoshop type stuff.
AMD (only bad chip I ever got was an Intel), SSD's, and as much memory as you can afford.
You will see far more performance increases from lots of ram and fast hard drives.
If you were doing 3D Rendering, high end video editing, Auto Cad, Solid works and so on I would suggest the video card was important as the other items.
\Don't forget gaming!
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it will help with photoshop as well...especially running actions on large files.
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it will help with photoshop as well...especially running actions on large files.
Sure. But what would be the largest increase in time saved? Faster read/write and faster/more ram will be a bigger performance jump than the 2+ year old card will be that comes in most of those refurb Think Stations.
Have you looked at the benchmarks on the graphics cards that come in some of them? Its on par with $100-$200 cards today. Food for thought.
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I have been buying parts 1 or 2 at a time as I see them in the NewEgg daily deals.......This "monkey" built my 1st 2 systems without a hitch......And I am not a computer geek of any sort.....So I think anyone can do it....
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I have been buying parts 1 or 2 at a time as I see them in the NewEgg daily deals.......This "monkey" built my 1st 2 systems without a hitch......And I am not a computer geek of any sort.....So I think anyone can do it....
Its not hard at all, the area monkeys get in trouble is purchasing non compatible parts. See it and hear it all the time, why doesnt my AMD2 Processor fit in my AMD3+ mother board. You get the point.
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I have been buying parts 1 or 2 at a time as I see them in the NewEgg daily deals.......This "monkey" built my 1st 2 systems without a hitch......And I am not a computer geek of any sort.....So I think anyone can do it....
Its not hard at all, the area monkeys get in trouble is purchasing non compatible parts. See it and hear it all the time, why doesnt my AMD2 Processor fit in my AMD3+ mother board. You get the point.
Exactly. Nothing hard about it, just ask a few questions of people that know and then you will never have to ask again.
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We have Fry's out here. Basically like a Newegg or whatever, just skeezier.
The thought of even a casual conversation with the folks that work there is making my skin crawl.
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We have Fry's out here. Basically like a Newegg or whatever, just skeezier.
The thought of even a casual conversation with the folks that work there is making my skin crawl.
Fry's is pretty good though. Micro Center is pretty awesome as well. Both of those have some items cheaper than newegg at times.
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So AMD quad core or which intel? 3, 5, or 7 and would 16 gigs of ram or should I go 32?
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if I was building one, I would go i7 with an asus MB, and 16gb
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So AMD quad core or which intel? 3, 5, or 7 and would 16 gigs of ram or should I go 32?
i7, 32gb for the cost of ram there really isn't a reason to limit yourself these days.
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Yeah, Fry's a necessary evil. I have to brace myself before going in.
Pretty certain that their best clients get most of their nutrition from the
impulse buys at the checkout line, you know, Mt. Dew in 37 flavors plus
beef jerky. Ugh.
As for what box to build, it depends on what you are doing with it. If it's
your main rig, go for the best, even though tomorrow it won't be.
I've built several workstations for ~$400 each, but I don't need them to
do anything special.
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As for what box to build, it depends on what you are doing with it. If it's
your main rig, go for the best, even though tomorrow it won't be.
I've built several workstations for ~$400 each, but I don't need them to
do anything special.
I agree with this. We have a couple off the shelf computers just for basic stuff like vinyl machine or simple stuff. Then we have a few high dollar rigs that when they were built were high dollar that are used for design/seps/digitizing/etc
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Best we have in CT is a couple computer trade shows a year, tho you can get deals that blows New Egg or Tiger out of the water if you get their early enough. It was the best way to get parts back in the dinosaur ages when Best Buys or Office Max didnt exist. Actually Radio Shack was the go to at one time.
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Thanks for all the help! Definitely will be custom, not definite about AMD or Intel processor since I have had good luck with both in the past but definitely going with 32g of ram and a solid state hard drive for the os.
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It is just my opinion and we all know that everybody has one (something about a specific body part comes to mind), but in my opinion (which some here will agree with and some will not), workstations are the way to go. And more specifically, a prebuilt one by a major company.
Now why do I keep saying this and why do I think my opinion matters? How many here have computer background? I mean professional computer stuff, not just hobby or amateur building. . .
-I built my first computer in the80's,
-programmed in multiple languages including the machine code (the one that uses ones and zeros to talk to the CPU directly) and assembler
-built systems for living for many years,
-set up a tech support/repair departments for small computer stores (as consultant/subcontractor),
-went to one of the best computer engineering programs in US (Case Western Reserve University ranked 4th ahead of Stanford when I was there),
- owned a computer networking company,
-was an IBM business partner reselling their parts and systems with my next business (with 20+ employees).
So, yes, I think my opinion has some credence (at least when it comes to computers)! The sample size I am pulling my information from is more than one or two systems ppl built for themselves. Does this mean workstations are the right choice for everybody? No, it does not, but unless you are somebody like Brandt that has spend hundreds of hours building and researching, chances are you'd be better off with a workstation (and most likely a workstation might serve you better in that instance too!).
And with this, I am done explaining myself. Anybody wanting another opinion, feel free to PM or call, I'll gladly share my sources and insights.
pierre
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A monkey can put together a computer, there is no skill involved IMO.
What a dick. ;) :p
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To further emphasize the advantages of going away from a white box, Lenovo has a support page with fixes to any known issues (usually not many). If there are problems with new drivers or OS patches, you'll find out before getting in trouble and the solution will be posted.
pierre
Maybe we need to discuss this a little further.
My father-in-law bought a lenovo desktop some years back (before my wife and I started dating), she had to have the mother board replaced because it blue screened all the time.
Then not much later it started again. So we just built him a new machine at this point. He's a VERY happy camper, but that isn't my point at all.
Next, I looked at the computer and realized it was pretty decent specs and figured instead of going to waste I could use it for my general office computer... I can deal with some crashes from time to time.
Well, those crashes became daily, then hourly. Now I feel like it blue screens if you don't hold your breath the right way when you click on something. It's a joke.
I've swapped RAM, tested RAM, changed video cards... everything. Seems like it's come back down to the mother board again. I'm not changing that out again for another bad mother board.
So now it sits around as a kick around box for beating up and doing silly things with. Unfortunately we never know if it's crashing because of what we are trying to do or because it's just a fickle POS!
But if you think this thing can be fixed by just visiting some site, I'm super interested. I'll also admit I have not sought out such an "answer"... but maybe I'm just spoiled to systems that I've built that don't crash because the wind changed directions. ;)
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It is just my opinion and we all know that everybody has one (something about a specific body part comes to mind), but in my opinion (which some here will agree with and some will not), workstations are the way to go. And more specifically, a prebuilt one by a major company.
Now why do I keep saying this and why do I think my opinion matters? How many here have computer background? I mean professional computer stuff, not just hobby or amateur building. . .
-I built my first computer in the80's,
-programmed in multiple languages including the machine code (the one that uses ones and zeros to talk to the CPU directly) and assembler
-built systems for living for many years,
-set up a tech support/repair departments for small computer stores (as consultant/subcontractor),
-went to one of the best computer engineering programs in US (Case Western Reserve University ranked 4th ahead of Stanford when I was there),
- owned a computer networking company,
-was an IBM business partner reselling their parts and systems with my next business (with 20+ employees).
So, yes, I think my opinion has some credence (at least when it comes to computers)! The sample size I am pulling my information from is more than one or two systems ppl built for themselves. Does this mean workstations are the right choice for everybody? No, it does not, but unless you are somebody like Brandt that has spend hundreds of hours building and researching, chances are you'd be better off with a workstation (and most likely a workstation might serve you better in that instance too!).
And with this, I am done explaining myself. Anybody wanting another opinion, feel free to PM or call, I'll gladly share my sources and insights.
pierre
I assume this is basically directed at me.
I have never really said you do not know what you are talking about, you have some knowledge. You have also admitted a lot has changed. Even a year away from the tech world is almost a life time and you know it. What I am trying to get across is the deal link you used to post so much, was filled with a lot of outdated computers with only a few decent ones in there. But most if not all were refurbished. Many with a CPU at least 2-3 years old some much older. I mean like one guy is boasting here having bought one with a $399 video card, that's great but it is slower than a $150 video card from today. Does that mean it sucks? Nah not at all, but once again context is important.
In other words I think you are dishing out a lot of advice with out any context. People will take your advice and assume one thing that may be in fact another. SOME of those think stations were good value, in fact in one thread I even pointed out a couple. MANY of them were actually NOT a great value for a main rig. Might be good for a side task type machine (shipping/vinyl machine/etc).
When someone looks at a car today they wonder does it have remote start, and Bluetooth. When they go to Lexus and pick up that certified used car they probably quickly compare it's options with what a new car has today. When you are giving out computer advice it's probably important to qualify what they AREN'T getting with some of those machines, since a lot of these people don't know any better. I know at one point I didn't even see a single Sata III machine in the list. I haven't looked since this last chat about it but that's just one example. I remember the but they have great processors argument, like 2 computers in the list had great processors at one point. I mean how good is a processor that a desktop quad core from 5 years ago is still faster than it?
Context!!!!!!!!!
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My opinion is go with the used Thinkstation, but buy a decent one. This is only my opinion, but I am of course the world's leading expert on my opinion.