[ale] upgrading desktop

[DJ-Pfulio]

On 7/29/20 9:35 AM, Bob via Ale wrote:
> Hi Jim,
> 
> Both you and J.D. are suggesting that I not bother putting more 
> memory in my current system, so I'll scrap that idea.  Both of you 
> prefer an AMD cpu for the desktop.

AMD Ryzen has a huge cost advantage. Check the passmarks before doing any sorts of upgrades. Considering that for $140, you can get a 17K passmark CPU, perhaps spending $80 on upgrades really isn't a good idea? We each have different cutoffs for spending.  Your current system is a little over 4K passmarks, not bad for surfing. You certainly wouldn't be unhappy. For non-gamers, more threads is usually a good thing. For gamers, faster threads - which Intel CPUs provide - are a good thing.

I prefer Intel for laptops, but that could just be ignorance from always using Intel and getting fantastic battery life. AMD was bad on batteries for a very long time. If that isn't the situation anymore, then it probably doesn't matter provided the laptop battery life meets your needs.

Desktops don't have batteries. The change from a 125W to a 65W CPU made a huge difference in my monthly power bill. I leave them on 24/7.

> You're suggesting purchasing a 2 year old, off-lease machine with an
>  AMD cpu and DDR4 memory.  Your philosophy with computers sounds 
> similar to mine about cars.  I prefer to buy a car that's a couple of
> years old, and then drive it until

I like the 2 yr old, off-lease purchase, if you want a faster system and cannot upgrade due to physical case limitations. If the case is an ATX or miniATX, then I would get that MB+CPU deal from the link already posted. The Core i5 is an LGA1155. If you can find a faster CPU with the same socket for $20, that could be useful. A quick search didn't find any cheap enough to bother.  The way to a faster machine is either

a) New MB + new CPU + new RAM + new SSD - probably $270 all in for a system about 4x faster
   or
b) New SSD

Since you already have 8G of RAM, there really is little more to be done unless you turn down the "cheese" and GPU fancy stuff.  More RAM is unlikely to make things faster, but getting a handle on RAM abusing programs may.  I think you have way, way, way too much swap. For a desktop, 4.1G is the optimal amount of swap. The old 1990s idea that 2x RAM hasn't made sense in decades.

I'm do not like the super tiny, yet expensive, systems.  If you can live with a "boot box" sized system (about half of a mid-tower case), then you aren't limited nearly as much for upgrades in the future, as a NUC or microITX would limit. No need for external DVD drives, etc.  Plus, they aren't more expensive, unlike a NUC, which tends to be 2-3x more costly than the same performance from a midtower system.

A steel midtower case, used, should be next to free.  People throw those out for recycling.  I have back when I had too many around. I kept the specifically purchased midtower cases and trashed the proprietary "brand" cases because they were proprietary and would case issues with future upgrades. Most of my ATX cases are over 15 yrs old. I bought one in 1999, I'm positive.

> J.D. is suggesting replacing cpu and motherboard provided I have a 
> decent case.  If I don't have a decent case, I think he's suggesting
>  building a new desktop.  Building a desktop sounds intriguing since
>  I've never done that; however, I think I should wait on a project 
> like that until I have more free time.

Building a new desktop (case) wasn't suggested, but they aren't hard to do. Usually take just about 30 - 45 minutes with a screw driver. These days, all the connections are key'd so plugging things in wrong can't happen.  With the Ryzen 5s, the CPU fan comes with it and already has thermal paste. If you can do legos, you can assemble a PC.

> Both of you like having an ssd.   I'll look into that.  At least one
>  of you doesn't think it's that important to keep directories that 
> are frequently read from and written to off of the ssd, correct?

Read doesn't matter. It is all about writes.  On my video processing system, I specifically don't use the SSD for that work.  It has a normal HDD - spinning rust disk.

After attending SELF conference and listening to a few storage vendors talk, it seems that SSDs just don't fail often enough that RAID1 is necessary, unless it is absolutely business critical to prevent downtime and minimize data loss.  I don't use RAID for any of my SSDs.  Stuff that used to run on RAID1 with spinning disks were moved to an SSD without RAID.  I do have backup religion.  Daily, automatic, "pulled", versioned, backups. I'm willing to have a day of downtime if storage fails.


> On 2020-07-28 6:56 p.m., Jim Kinney via Ale wrote:
>> I have to keep kicking myself that when I spec a system, it's a 
>> node in an HPC stack that will run HARD 24x7 for the next 6-8 years
>> by several hundred people I'm convinced are trying to crash 
>> systems. Most normal people don't need 3GHz dual 32-core cpus with
>>  500GB RAM and 4TB of RAID1 NVME scratch space and 100G Infinniband
>>  to share data between dual P100 GPUs. (Buy 100+ of these systems 
>> and call me. I'll make house calls)
>> 
>> Keep this in mind: personal machine power efficiency has improved 
>> so much that buying an off lease cheap box (2 years old) will be an
>> big upgrade compared to a mid price system of 6-8 years ago. AMD is
>> always better performance per watt than Intel.
>> 
>> When I did the price point calculations, the "knee" in the price vs
>> performance curve was about 2 releases back from the most recent
>> for almost all technology components. Don't buy the fastest or
>> biggest. Buy the third or fourth fastest.
>> 
>> Getting DDR4 RAM is a good plan. Way, WAY cheaper per GB than prior
>> types.
>> 
>> I've had decent performance from RealTek 1G network chips. The 
>> Intel ones are way better but 4x the price. For desktop hitting 
>> interwebs for basic stuff, realtek won't be the slow point. For a 
>> home file server, it's a nightmare. Use Intel cpu for that as well.
>> Never dug into why, but Xeon is great for file servers. AMD is for
>> number crunching.
>> 
>> SSD tech is where I get fussy/crazy. I will buy cutting edge when 
>> all that matters is speed (and it's someone elses money). When I 
>> need a balance of performance and reliability, RAID1 SSD 2 gens 
>> back from leading edge (this is my standard for most things, home 
>> and work). When it's my money and longevity is paramount, a single
>>  SSD 3 gens from edge plus a spinning rust disk for local backup. 
>> It's not off site but if the house burns, I'll have bigger issues.
>> 
>> I futzed around with raid and mixed drives, ssd and rust. Under 
>> most home read conditions, raid1 worked fine. But during heavy 
>> writes with reads, it was a mess. Of course I was using Linux 
>> software raid. But getting behind larger than write behind buffer 
>> on hardware raid will generate a system wait to flush then it _all_
>> flushes. Not great doing a video convert.
>> 
>> My $0.02. worth about that much, too 👍
>> 
>> On July 28, 2020 4:06:11 PM EDT, DJ-Pfulio via Ale <ale at ale.org> 
>> wrote:
>>> What's your budget?  What's the goal?
>>> 
>>> Is the Lenovo using standard PSU and case? If it doesn't have a 
>>> standard case, most major "upgrades" are risky. Need all the 
>>> screws and clearances to be right.  OTOH, a $30 case for someone
>>>  who doesn't open it more than once a year to clean out the dust
>>>  is just fine.
>>> 
>>> The easy way to provide info about your current box, is to run: 
>>> inxi -Fz and post that.
>>> 
>>> $214 for MB+CPU combo: 
>>> https://www.microcenter.com/product/5003878/-amd-ryzen-5-3600-with-wraith-stealth-cooler,-asus-b450m-a-csm-prime,-cpu---motherboard-bundle
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> 
The only negative I see with this is a crappy Realtek NIC, so I'd need
>>> to spend $25 on a quality NIC.  The forums are full of people 
>>> with Realtek NIC issues. I have a G3258 with a flakey Realtek 
>>> NIC. Ended up disabling it and throwing in an old cheap Marvell.
>>> 
>>> I need to check a few other MB+CPU combos to see what's 
>>> available. Microcenter almost always has some
>>> 
>>> With a standard case, that MB+CPU combo just needs some DDR4 RAM
>>>  and a GPU.  That's almost 18K passmarks in 65W.  5 yrs ago, that
>>>  was Xeon server performance.  My Ryzen 2600 is just 13K 
>>> passmarks.  Reuse everything else you already have.
>>> 
>>> There's little purpose in doing a little upgrade to an 8 yr old 
>>> CPU unless it is only a CPU swap and the newer one is 2x faster -
>>> minimal. However, an SSD would make a difference for pretty much
>>> any system. I'm a fan of the Samsung 8xx and 9xx lines. Just be
>>> sure to check the warranty TBW numbers so you know what you are
>>> getting. I have a model: Samsung_SSD_860 size: 500.1GB in a 
>>> laptop. It is a SATA interface with a 2.5inch form factor 
>>> standard for laptops.  I've never seen a 3.5inch form in any 
>>> SATA.  I have seen m.2 for both SATA and NVMe, but you don't have
>>> any m.2 slots, so that won't work.  My rule for SSDs is pretty
>>> simple.  If they don't have a warranty based on TBW (endurance)
>>> or they refuse to publish that data, then I won't buy. Their are
>>> a number of SSD "brands" which do that.  I've had a few SSDs fail
>>> over the years. They were much cheaper than the Samsung. I also
>>> have a model: Micron_1100_MTFD size: 512.1GB. Micron is who I
>>> think WD and Crucial buy their SSDs from.  I would have preferred
>>> to get a Samsung, but needed the storage for a build and was
>>> already over the budget. The Samsung was $30 more at the time.
>>> 
>>> When I was researching SSD lifespans and linux information, so 
>>> things jumped out.  I'm a simple person and only recall when I 
>>> make a decision to avoid certain types, not the details. Those 
>>> decisions are based on my needs which probably don't meet anyone
>>>  else's needs.  Do your own research.  Plus, it has been 18+ 
>>> months since my last SSD purchase. The SSD world could have 
>>> changed in that time.
>>> 
>>> How big should an SSD be?  How can we say? For some systems, 16G
>>>  is too much. For others 2TB isn't enough.
>>> 
>>> Because you didn't say what CPU is currently used, we can't tell 
>>> whether any upgrade is worth it.
>>> 
>>> 280W is probably fine for anyone not dropping in a $130 GPU that
>>>  needs extra power, but it completely depends on the current CPU
>>>  draw and how much storage there is.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On 7/28/20 12:16 PM, Bob via Ale 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?