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

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

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

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.

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)

>
> 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.

--
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