Computers + Managing the Fleet

[Tom Klaber]

I am the worst kind of computer buyer - a specs snob without enough techincal knowledge to justify it.

Is a 2080 worth the 200 dollar upcharge from a 2070? 

 

A recent computer death has me looking at the bigger picture. 

I am not sure if it makes more sense to buy cheaper machines and update every 30-36 months, or spend more money for a better machine and stretch the life to 44-50 months.  Does the cheaper and replace more often leave me and my staff consitantly underpowered?  Or does the more expensive longer life plan give me 1 year of good preformance that is counter acted by 1 year of crappy preformance on the back end when all the components are half a decade old?

 

What do people recomend?  Any good insites on good laptops + desktops to consider for my replacement machine?

 

 

[zoomer]

13 minutes ago, Tom Klaber said:

Is a 2080 worth the 200 dollar upcharge from a 2070?

 

I think only if you want to use more than one GPU

As RTX 2080 and upwards required for SLI connection.

(I am happy with my RTX 2070 so far)

[Tom Klaber]

@zoomer  I did not know that.  I certianly do not want dual since VW can't use 2.   Thanks!

 

 

[zoomer]

Do you remeber the sweet spots for HDDs.

Like when 1 TB was cheaper than 2x 500 GB,

While 2 TB were more expensive than 2x 1 TB.

 

The RTX 2070 fits my personal sweet spot.

(Although Nvidea is working hard on increasing our sweet spots)

It has all new RTX bells and whistles

(Although still useless)

and doesn't need that much power and therefore is silent.

 

 

BTW,

did anyone notice any advantages or speed increases for 3D Pro Apps

with Content Creators vs Gaming Drivers ?

 

 

Edited May 3, 2019 by zoomer

[Guest Paulo Ferrari]

@Tom Klaber I Recommend invest in good CPU and GPU. Follow parts that it's gave you a great performance.

 

CPU (https://www.cpu-monkey.com/en/cpu_benchmark-cinebench_r15_multi_core-8 )

Intel - Intel Core i9-7980XE

AMD - Ryzen Threadripper 2990WX (It's the Best)

 

GPU

Nvidia - GeForce RTX 2080 Ti 11GB (It's the Best)

AMD - Radeon VII 16GB

 

Memory

64GB or 128GB DDR4-3600

 

Regards

Paulo Renan Ferrari

Edited May 3, 2019 by Paulo Ferrari

[Tom Klaber]

@Paulo Ferrari Thank you!! Sounds top of the line and likely too rich for our blood - but if you have any good suppliers that sell machines with those specs - I would love to take a look!

[Guest Paulo Ferrari]

@Tom Klaber  Rs yeah Tom, it's a Dream Machine rs. But you have a good CPU (Core i7-8700K), if you can upgrade the Graphics Card to GeForce RTX 2080 Ti 11GB and the Memory to 64GB. It's a good acquisition

 

Here Jim explain more about parts upgrading.

 

Regards
Paulo Renan Ferrari

[Guest Paulo Ferrari]

@Tom Klaber I don't know about good suppliers that sell machines, I live in Brazil. But I think Dell is the best company to buy computers.

If you want a Desktop: https://www.dell.com/en-us/gaming/alienware-desktops?~ck=mn

If you want a Workstation: https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/desktop-and-all-in-one-pcs/precision-7820-tower/spd/precision-7820-workstation/xctopt7820us_3

 

Regards
Paulo Renan Ferrari

[Ross Harris]

I've been building my machines since I bought my first machine from a shop in 1999 for writing and recording music... when my friend (and my band's bass player) ripped the side off it it was completely de-mystified.. this big case had hardly anything in it...

I few years back I worked for a small structural engineering firm (the PC's were built by an IT company) who wanted to roll out Revit; my machine crashed every 1-2 hours (they blamed the software (cos it ran AutoCAD OK). I'd had a guts full of this after a week and informed the boss I was looking inside (he freaked out) - as I expected all budget parts, but the company assured him it was up to spec. To his credit he let me build a machine for Revit and it never crashed again... so I ended up building a few more and we never had any major PC problem while I was there (the network and appalling server install is another story... 😲)

I guess my point is if you can find a company that will build a machine to your spec so that you know exactly whats in them will enable upgrading with better CPU's (socket/chipset allowing), more RAM, new video cards etc - it'll absolutely cushion the massive cost in doing a full system upgrades if they have upgrade tweaks. I've used nothing but Corsair (PSU, Ram), ASUS & Gigabyte (mainboard), either ASUS, EVGA or Sapphire (graphics) & Dell monitors for around 10 years now and the builds have been rock solid. With more stuff directly on the mainboard (wifi and bluetooth etc) driver issues are virtually non existent now and I can pack it into smaller cases. This is where vendors like Dell etc will change things based on profit margins - they might sell a grunty machine, but it might have a budget motherboard chipset bottlenecking the GPU... these specs are really hard to get out of these companies and why I'd totally avoid them.

 

Apologies for the spiel - hopefully there's something useful in it 😁

Edited May 3, 2019 by Aspect_Design

[digitalcarbon]

The post by @dcEcho shows how improvements were made by increasing her memory to 64gb and a new computer. Which she specs out...

 

 

The business plan that I have started is not to have an office but to only work out of homes with remote workers...hence I do not have the overhead of keeping an office going ...this way we have the cash to keep everyone in a "State of the art" hardware & software state.

 

Standard set up is a desktop computer, 64gb ram, (3) 24" monitors, 3d Connexion, headset for Skype.

 

you can find the prices easy...plan to upgrade computer ever ~2-3 years  

 

 

 

Edited May 5, 2019 by digitalcarbon