[ale] upgrading desktop

[Bob]

Hi David,

Has anyone told you that you write well?


On 2020-08-02 10:45 p.m., David Jackson wrote:
> 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?

My performance requirements are fairly low.  On the rare occasion that I 
wish to simulate a system for a long time, I just let the simulation run 
on the laptop.

A lot of added performance would be 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.

I agree with you:  I am not aware of how much better a new system would 
perform.

> 
> 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'm not interested in getting the "last ounce of performance out of a 
potato."  For example, I generally drive a car until it must be 
replaced.  OTOH, if I think that there's something that would be a big 
improvement over what I currently have, then I'm willing to spend some 
money for the better item.  For replacing my desktop, I think it's more 
a case of not knowing what I'm missing.

> 
> 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.

Is there a reason why you suggested the msi B540 mobo (along with the 
same cpu) instead of the asus b450 mobo + same cpu bundle at 
microcenter.  The bundle seems a little $60 cheaper.

> 
> I would imagine your existing system might fetch $100 on ebay, possibly?
> 
> Hope this helps.

This helps a lot.  Thank you!

--Bob


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