to Tom: what was in that computer?

Tom · March 08, 2015, 07:23:01 PM

I have a couple "spare" PSUs, that i was going to use, but ended up changing my mind on things.. They aren't give-aways though. One is a Seasonic X-850, and the other is a Seasonic X-1250. Both Gold rated. they are really good power supplies. but probably overkill for your needs

Thorin · March 08, 2015, 10:41:56 PM

I tried with other PSUs and the motherboard doesn't post. Too bad, that's a cool looking LED-enhanced motherboard. Two of the four sticks of RAM got yoinked for my son's machine, which is cobbled together from Tom's old stuff. He's quite happy with it so far, even though it's all old gear. AMD Phenom 9550 quad core, 6GB of DDR2 RAM (8500 and 10666, so it's running at 8500), SSD for teh speedz, 470GTX. Now to convince him to stop playing and go to bed. Oh, and he doesn't have internet on it because there's no internet cable in the basement. So he'll be buying a wireless adapter, I'm sure. Or I might come home to a hole drilled in the floor...

Before:
chip: Core 2 Duo 6550, memory: 2GB DDR2 (5300), video: 8400 GS, drive: 250GB HDD (7200RPM), psu: 300w
chip: Core 2 Duo 6550, memory: 2GB DDR2 (5300), video: 8400 GS, drive: 1TB HDD (7200RPM), psu: 750w
drobo: 2TB storage (1TB HDD (7200RPM) x4)

After:
chip: Core 2 Duo 6550, memory: 4GB DDR2 (5300), video: 9800 GT, drive: 240GB SSD, psu: 750w
chip: i5 4460, memory: 8GB DDR3 (?), video: onboard, drive: 240GB SSD, psu: 620w
chip: Phenom 9550, memory: 6GB DDR2 (8500), video: 470 GTX, drive: 240GB SSD, psu: 500w
drobo: 3TB storage (1TB HDD (7200RPM) x5)

Parts Left Over
chip: Core 2 Duo 6550, core 2 Duo 6700
memory: 1GB DDR2 (10666) x2, 2GB DDR3 (?) x2, 4GB DDR3 (?)
video: 8400 GS x2, 8800 GTS, HD 5830
drive: 1TB HDD (7200RPM)
psu: 300w
mobo: Dell Foxconn (yeah, not good for much)
case: Dell case (only fits Dell mobos unless I dremel it)

I could buy another mobo and chip and case, and replace that last Core 2 Duo E6550 as well. But first I want to see how it does running with 4GB ram instead of 2GB, and with an SSD. Hopefully it does better than the old configuration.

I could also actually cobble together another Core 2 Duo based machine with low ram but decent video.

THANKS TOM AND MR. ANALOG FOR PARTS DONATIONS

Mr. Analog · March 09, 2015, 06:30:45 AM

Eh anytime pal!

Stewie521 · March 11, 2015, 08:52:38 PM

Quote from: Thorin on March 08, 2015, 10:41:56 PM
Now to convince him to stop playing and go to bed. Oh, and he doesn't have internet on it because there's no internet cable in the basement. So he'll be buying a wireless adapter, I'm sure. Or I might come home to a hole drilled in the floor...

Jokes on you I have internet down here now muhaha

Damn I have too many Skyrim mods, waiting for them to download is pretty boring T_T

Thorin · March 27, 2015, 05:53:21 PM

I am pleasantly surprised at how much of a difference it made to my eight year old computer to add 2GB of RAM (now 4GB total), add an SSD, and install Win8. It's quite usable these days. And it turns off when not in use, but starts back up about three seconds after you wiggle the mouse. Which is good, because its video card is loud when running (compared to a fanless card, anyway).

Mr. Analog · March 27, 2015, 05:57:02 PM

Nice! I'm glad that stuff is all working out for ya

Tom · March 27, 2015, 08:06:25 PM

It's really amazing how much faster a computer feels when you add more ram (and you were memory constrained before). Especially when you have a mechanical hdd

The SSD helps, but I'm not sure it helps as much in your case, at least for day to day stuff (presuming you leave everything running..). Oh and I think win8 has enhanced its file/disk cache to be much more like linux's so files stay cached in ram if you're not using all your ram, which speeds things up significantly (even if you have an ssd).

Lazybones · March 27, 2015, 10:10:29 PM

Moving from spinning rust to SSD is always noticeable.

Tom · March 27, 2015, 11:35:01 PM

Quote from: Lazybones on March 27, 2015, 10:10:29 PM
Moving from spinning rust to SSD is always noticeable.

Sure. Though not as noticeable as going from 2GB to 4GB ram in windows 7/8. Chrome likes to sit at 1GB on launch, open a few tabs and its up over 2GB and climbs rapidly from there. Now add a bunch of other apps, and you're swapping pretty badly.

Lazybones · March 28, 2015, 01:46:17 AM

Quote from: Tom on March 27, 2015, 11:35:01 PM
Quote from: Lazybones on March 27, 2015, 10:10:29 PM
Moving from spinning rust to SSD is always noticeable.
Sure. Though not as noticeable as going from 2GB to 4GB ram in windows 7/8. Chrome likes to sit at 1GB on launch, open a few tabs and its up over 2GB and climbs rapidly from there. Now add a bunch of other apps, and you're swapping pretty badly.

Yes, well you should not have less than 4GB of ram for a win7/8 x64 desktop that is for sure.

Thorin · March 28, 2015, 12:41:21 PM

Well my computers were winxp before, and 2GB of ram on winxp eight years ago worked okay.

I agree with both of you, both the ssd (instead of "spinning rust", nice way to put it) and the increase in ram helped. I'm just surprised with how much it helped, I thought my CPUs were ancient and not capable enough. Turns out they weren't the bottleneck.

Lazybones · March 28, 2015, 12:46:09 PM

I almost never run out of CPU on my server VM cluster. Always low on ram and have disk IO issues.

Been talking to all flash enterprise storage vendors lately there seems to be clear signs that disk will be replaced by flash in high and probably medium enterprise storage. I think disk will remain for archiving and super large storage demands for a little longer.

Tom · March 28, 2015, 01:12:31 PM

IM (Intel/Micron) Flash is claiming they'll have up to 10TB 2.5" SSDs by next year. They started producing 32-48GB per /die/ chips (imagine when they start layering multiple dies as well). Pretty insane. At that point I'm betting price will start dropping quite a bit, and I won't need to bother with rust anymore.

Thorin · March 28, 2015, 01:14:47 PM

"spinning rust" will become the new magnetic tape

I thought my CPUs were a bottleneck simply because of how old they were. The E6550 was released in Q3 2007, although Dell must've gotten them early because I got the computers at the end of Q2 2007.

An' yeah, Tom, hopefully the price comes way down.

Tom · March 28, 2015, 09:22:26 PM

Quote from: Thorin on March 28, 2015, 01:14:47 PM
"spinning rust" will become the new magnetic tape I thought my CPUs were a bottleneck simply because of how old they were. The E6550 was released in Q3 2007, although Dell must've gotten them early because I got the computers at the end of Q2 2007.

The only thing that makes those older cpu's feel older is the weight of the OS and software. They really aren't that crappy.