[ale] upgrading desktop

Sun Aug 2 22:45:14 EDT 2020

I tend to build a lot of systems, so my perspective is influenced by this
bias.  But I'm unclear about your priorities.

If you were doing something demanding (say rendering videos or doing heavy
computation or competitive gaming or whatever), you would be well beyond a
3rd gen i5 cpu.  Since 3rd gen Intel level of tech seems to suit you fine,
it seems to me your performance requirements are rather low.  Another thing
I'm curious about is how much change are you willing to tolerate.  Would a
lot of added performance be a bad thing or a good thing?

I think you might be missing how easy it would be to get a *massive*
performance upgrade with a relatively slight effort or cost by upgrading
all your whole architecture.  A LOT has changed since 3rd gen Intel was
current.  For about the cost in difficulty and dollars in upgrading your
3rd gen architecture, you could probably find a more current Ryzen system
that would give this massive upgrade.   What has changed a lot very
recently is that AMD Ryzen normally beats Intel in terms of performance per
dollar (bang for the buck) nowadays.  (I'm trying to keep it simple here.)
And the surrounding architecture has massively improved as well.  Current
gen platforms are much more efficient and performant overall than a 3rd gen
i5 was.

If you really prefer to "tough it out" on your current architecture, I
would have to infer that your priority has more to do with "optimizing the
last electron out of a potato" as I call it.  There's a certain level of
pride geeks sometimes get over "doing the most with the least" technology.
If that's you, then nevermind.  But it would help to know that "getting the
last ounce of performance out of your potato" is in fact a priority.  If
that's true, there are other layers of complexity that might be of
interest, such as over clocking and water cooling, but cost and complexity
quickly become factors here.  But if that seemed attractive to you, my
guess is your questions would have been very different.

I tend to think the most "bang for the buck" system today (in my mind)
would be a B450 motherboard with a Ryzen 5 3600, 16G RAM at about 3200 or
faster, and I would go for an NVMe M.2 SSD at around 500G.  You can use a
cheap video card (about $35) and the case and power supply as your budget
and preference dictates.  Power supplies and cases are a bit more expensive
these days, thanks to COVID-challenged supplies, but memory, ssd's and CPUs
are relatively cheap.  This system would cost you about $550-600 or so,
depending on your choices.  One example:
https://pcpartpicker.com/user/deepbsd/saved/#view=6tqG3C
I wager this system would make you grin each time you sit down at your PC.
I'd also wager that the "grin factor" would quickly offset the dollar
damage.

I would imagine your existing system might fetch $100 on ebay, possibly?

Hope this helps.

On Tue, Jul 28, 2020 at 12:16 PM Bob via Ale <ale at ale.org> wrote:

>
>
> Charles has me thinking about upgrading my 8 year old lenovo desktop.
> I'm thinking of increasing memory and installing an ssd.
>
> I don't know much about hardware, so I'm hoping some of you might give
> me some advice and maybe keep me from doing something stupid.  I'm not a
> gamer, so that might make things simpler.
>
> 1)  Memory.  Currently, there are  two 4 GB ddr3 1600 memory modules in
> the two memory slots.  There is no graphics card in my desktop and the
> integrated graphics uses some of the memory.  I can upgrade to two 8 gb
> ddr3l 1600.  According to crucial.com, the crucial 16gb kit (2 x 8GB)
> ddr3l-1600 udimm are compatible.
>
> I believe my motherboard can use either ddr3 or ddr3l.  Is there an
> advantage of one over the other?
>
> (The power supply unit has been fine, but it's only 280 watts.  I don't
> know if that would affect the above choice or not.)
>
> Microcenter has a variety of brands:  Neo Forza, G. skills ripjaw,
> crucial, ....  Are there brands to avoid?  Are there brands that you'd
> recommend?
>
>
> 2)  ssd.  This seems more complicated.
>
> There are 4 empty pci express slots---one is x16 and the others x1.  I
> do not believe that the motherboard supports pcie ssd.  The motherboard
> does not have mSATA or m.2 slots.  So pcie ssd seems to be impossible.
> (I don't know what I'd ever use these slots for.)
>
> The chipset on the motherboard only supports SATA at 3.0 gb/s.  There
> are 3 SATA ports and one e-SATA port.  (There has been no update to the
> bios/uefi firmware.)
>
> One SATA port is connected to the optical drive, and the other two SATA
> ports are connected to the two 1TB HDDs Both drives have plenty of free
> space.
>
> I don't know why I get slightly different info for the following.  When
> I execute "sudo hdparm -I /dev/sda | grep SATA", the result is:
>
>         Transport:          Serial, SATA Rev 3.0
>
> but on /dev/sdb, the result is:
>
> Transport:          Serial, SATA 1.0a, SATA II Extensions, SATA Rev 2.5,
> SATA Rev 2.6, SATA Rev 3.0
>
> The e-SATA port is connected to a usm hot-swappable bay where I'm
> supposed to be able to plug in a portable SATA drive.  The connector is
> supposed to be a standard SATA connector.  I have never used this bay so
> far.
>
> It seems like I could either purchase an external SATA ssd and plug it
> into the bay.  I don't know if I would have troubles booting from that
> drive.
>
> OTOH, I could remove one of the HDDs and put the SSD into either
> /dev/sda or /dev/sdb.  Presumably, I could put the HDD that was removed
> into an enclosure allowing it to be placed into the swappable bay on the
> rare occasions that it was needed.
>
> 1)  Does it seem better to remove an HDD and put the ssd into that space
> vs. putting the ssd into the swappable bay?  Does it make a difference
> if the ssd is put into the drive where /dev/sda is or /dev/sdb?
>
> 2)  Any suggestions on how large the ssd should be?
>
> 3)  Are there brands to avoid or brands that you would recommend?
>
> --Bob
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