Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: What Hardware Is In Your Primary Computer?
An anonymous reader writes: Here's something we haven't done in a while: list the specs of your main system (best one) so we can see what kinds of computers Slashdot geeks use. Context would be interesting, too — if you're up for it, explain how and why you set it up as you did, as well as the computer's primary purpose(s). Things you can list include (but are not limited to): CPU, motherboard, video card, memory, storage (SSD/HDD), exotic Controllers (RAID or caching), optical drives, displays, peripherals, etc. We can compare and contrast, see what specs are suitable for what purposes, and perhaps learn a trick or two.
AMD 8350 (best value per crunch at CPUbenchmark.net)
32G ECC RAM (because single bit errors suck, and lots of VMs are nice)
Nvidia Geforce 210 (fanless, because video card fans are the cheapest most common failure points)
(and because 2D XFCE doesn't need a Titan-X to be wicked fast)
Patriot 240G SSD (for small data sets and zippy desktop responsiveness)
Asus M5A99X EVO R2.0 (runs well out of the box with Centos/RH 6.6 and Fedora 21)
2 x 23" 1080p IPS monitors (best value in screen real estate)
Everything on this system runs in RAM after the first read. I took the 4 magnetic drives out for the sake of quiet. Since there are cores to spare and 4.0 Ghz clock I have 3 desktops open with a dozen Firefox/Chrome windows each (with many tabs in each) and lots of PDFs and there is still RAM to spare. In my youth I put more money into "the fastest processor" and "the best possible video card" only to find most of my annoyances were from storage latencies and noise.
At a fundamental level, everything in my computer seems to be filled with this magic blue smoke.
Mac Pro
2.7GHz 12 Core CPU
1TB Storage
64GB Ram
Dual AMD FirePro D700 GPUs with 6GB of GDDR5 VRAM each
Mine is an Iphone 5s. Provides all the functionality of what I need. As a note, I am not a power user. Mainly web access.
CPU -- AMD FX8320E Eight core
Motherboard -- ASUS M5A99X EVO R 2.0
Video -- some cheap Gigbyte card
RAM -- 16GB
HDs -- 2x 1TB (C and D), 2x 2TB for my stuff (second 2TB is mostly for backups)
2x1080p monitors (23" and 22")
Windows 8.1 made to look like a "Classic" Windows desktop with Classic Shell
Don't need super performing video, run lots of stuff in VMs just to play with it. (currently running Ubuntu and two different versions of FreeBSD in VirtualBox)
Memory should be bloat proof for the next bunch of years, and the 8 CPUs should keep up.
Nothing last longer than a machine with what sounds like too much CPU and RAM, even if the CPU isn't the fastest on the planet.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Mine is a 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display (scaled to 1920x1200).
* 2.5GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 (Turbo Boost up to 3.7GHz)
* 16GB 1600MHz memory
* 512GB PCIe-based flash storage
* Intel Iris Pro Graphics + AMD Radeon R9 M370X with 2GB GDDR5 memory
I have a Clevo P650SE laptop (rebranded as the Eurocom M5 Pro, also available as the Sager NP8651 though the Sager variant has no TPM). 15.6" 1920x1080 IPS panel (opted for standard HD instead of 3k/4k due to problems with mixing high/low DPI displays, and I plug in an external 1920x1200 display sometimes), 2.6GHz quad-core i7, nVidia GTX 970M, 512GB SSD for OS/applications, 500GB spinning disk for media (though I'd like to unify those into a single large SSD in the future, moving parts are no fun) and I've boosted it to 32GB of RAM because RAM is cheap and I run multiple VMs sometimes. It's fairly light and portable, extremely powerful, and even under full load the fans don't get terribly loud. Only downside is that it was bloody expensive. I expect to run it for 5 years though.
I rebuilt my PC about 1.5 years ago when I was working on my Master's and taking a digital forensics class where EnCase brought my old PC to its knees. I reused the case which is a grey Antec, also reused the blu-ray drive/dvd burner, I also kept the 2TB SSHD which is my application/data drive. Everything else was replaced and here is what I have right now. Intel i7-4770 Noctua NH-U14S HSF ASRock Z87 Extreme3 motherboard G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 32GB kit (4x8) Seasonic SS-660XP2 PS XFX Double D R9 2GB gpu Samsung 840 EVO 1TB SSD (OS / frequently used apps) Seagate 4TB SSHD I really don't have a need for overclocking these days so the i7-4770 was perfect for me.
-- Slashdot, making the Left look conservative since 1997.
$2,000 worth of dicking around, in a nutshell. Everything from gaming, to programming/coding/web design, professional document creation, photo/video editing, web browsing, netflix watching, etc. 2x 1440p Monitors + 55" Samsung LED i5 3570K @ 4.4GHz on a Corsair H100 Gigabyte GTX 970 WFx3 16GB of Patriot DDR3 RAM 2x 128GB SSDs 4TB RAID0
Macbook Pro, 15", Mid 2012 (I buy them refurbished from Apple for best price/specs). Whatever they come with (except for the Samsung 1Tb SSD, 840 EVO with all the recent fun that it implies).
In fact, this is not only my primary, but the only computer. I find that software is more important, and having just one computer makes it easier to keep track of things, back up etc. I do have several VMWare virtual machines with several version Windows, Linux and FreeBSD, all within this one, used for their respective development purposes. I'd hate to deal with that many physical boxes, though.
A big box. The sort that holds the MB horizontally with the drives underneath.
A sabertooth motherboard. The sort with the plastic housing the direct the air around the chips and muffle the noise. Why doesn't everyone do that?
A 4 core top end Ivy Bridge i7, 64GB dram.
Dual 500Gig SSD mirrored. In hotplug housing.
Dual 1TB rotating mirrored, for local backup. In hotplug housing.
Some expensive Nvidia card.
Why?
#1 The CPU is the first model with my logic in it. So it's personal. Also employee discount.
#2 I wanted to play 3D games after a hiatus of a few years.
#3 Hotplug housing is awesome. You can pull em out and put em back in again.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
Things you can list include (but are not limited to):
CPU: YES
motherboard: YES
video card: YES
memory: YES
storage: YES
controllers: YES
optical drives: YES
displays: YES
peripherals: YES
There's a reason we haven't done this in a while is that twenty-odd years ago specs were important but today computers are basically appliances with roughly the same capabilities. Unless you have a fairly esoteric system designed for a particular, unusual need, specs don't even matter any more.
Core i7 920 D0 @ 4.3ghz air 12GB RAM P6X58D Premium motherboard 2x nVidia GTX 770SC in SLI 1x 256GB Samsung 840 Evo SSD 1x 1tb Samsung Spinpoint HDD 1000 watt be quiet 80+gold PSU Scored in the top 90% of systems on 3dmark firestrike this month.
That's why I like filling databases with garbage. The joke's on the people who actually pay money for such corrupt data. Oh well, caveat emptor.
Anyway my specs might be:
Intel Core i7-4470K, Gigabyte GA-Z97X-SLI, 64GB RAM, 3TB storage on SSD's and a couple high end graphics cards, or maybe I just copy pasted most of this stuff from some gamer website.
Ahh, to include the data or not to include?
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
2.6 GHz Intel Core i7
16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M 1024 MB
LED Cinema 27" (connected 92.3% of the time)
Yosemite / VMware Fusion
Linux Sysadmin/Network management, Ruby/C++ development
Shuttle XS35 GT. 2GB ram and 500G hard drive. Ubuntu 14.04LTS
About $400 in this 4-5 years ago. The less I spend on computers the more money I have to enjoy the finer things in life. Like Thai food. In Thailand.
I remember not to long ago to play the latest PC games you needed to upgrade your CPU which meant upgrading your motherboard and memory about every 18 months. I think I have been rocking the same Core i5-2500K cpu for almost four years now, and it still sits at the top tier of the Tom's Hardware gaming CPU chart.
I realize this has occurred because games have become much more GPU dependant, but it is still a big money saver for me.
Has anyone built a near-silent desktop computer with off-the-shelf components? I'm interested in getting the details. And to answer the original question, I assembled my desktop in 2010 using parts from Newegg (this is boring): Athlon II X4 640, ASUS M4A88TD-V EVO/USB3, ZALMAN CNPS20LQ liquid CPU cooler, 8 GB Kingston ECC memory, Antec EarthWatts EA-500D, Antec Three Hundred Illusion Black Steel ATX mid tower case, with various hard drives (Seagate rotating, OCZ SSD). Runs Debian Wheezy. It's not quiet enough.
Pentium Overdrive 83mhz, 64mb edo simm, rage video card, sound blaster 16, 20gb hdd through pci card IDE controller. Plays MP3's as long as I don't move the mouse.
Mac Pro (Late 2013) w/ 3.5GHz 6-core Xeon E5, 64GB RAM, 1 TB of Flash disk space.
Bought the extra RAM configuration so I could crunch OpenStreetMap data quickly. Turns out more RAM is better than more CPU horsepower, though the 3.5GHz E5 isn't really that shabby.
Yes, my aging P4 3.8 GHz with 800MHz DDR2 memory is "slow", but when I think back on "the old days" when we only did builds over the weekends in the age of 1MHz processors, it's pretty darned snappy.
Plus when I tune code, I get to see an improvement. :D
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Still using my Octane2 - Dual 600 R14K, VPro V12 Graphics with DCD, 8GB, 2x72 GB HDD.
Just don't try browsing with Javascript enabled. :(
I just love this machine and I love IRIX. If it was stolen today, I'd probably buy another one before tomorrow.
Still has really modern GNU toolchain and losts of 3rd party activity. Oh, and it's super-snappy compared to even my Dell i7 with Mint.
AMD FX-6300
Gigabyte GA-990xa-ud3
16GB Crucial Ballistic Sport RAM
NVidia GTX 560 Ti
128GB Samsung SSD
320GB WD Blue HDD
2 x 500GB WD external HDDs
1 x 24" IPS monitor
Just today I received my mini-ITX system with an AMD A8-7600. It is an upgrade for a 7 year old AMD Athlon 64.
I wanted something with relative low power, small form factor and silent. I don't want a noisy midi-tower in my livingroom anymore.
I use it for development work, but also for watching HD Video and browsing in my own time.
Ofcourse there is just a new generation of AMD apu's announced, where the rumors first claimed it would only be a 100Mhz increase, but the marketing speak claims many more improvements.
I do hope it is a good improvement over the 7 year old system, and I hope I can even get more years out of this one.
There is the SSD and normal sata disk, together with a NAS.
Well, don't worry about that. We can get you back before you leave. (Dr. Who)
Old, slow, crappy, but reliable. I have two other workstations, one is a Zotac Zbox or something like that, an Atom-based "net-top" with a hard-drive, but flash-based backup, and the other workstation is a Raspberry Pi.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
I use an Abacus Pro, the overclocked version. It has bearing grease on the metal rods.
I use a 6-year-old Mac Mini.
It's slow.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
I built my current rig in 2009, investing heavily in forward-compatibility for upgrades. The investment payed out more than I could ever have imagined.
In 2009, the PC was:
Intel Core i7-920 (2.97GHz)
6GB RAM (six DIMM slots, three used)
32GB SSD (for the OS)
512GB HD (files and stuff)
Current-gen video card @ ~$250 price point
Now, in 2015, all I've done is:
1. Add two larger SSDs
2. Upgrade the video card - currently a GTX770
3. Double the RAM (hell yeah six DIMMs)
The rig is perfectly capable of editing 4k video, playing most games just fine, rendering, and doing basically everything I need. Only now, probably at the end of the year, will I even consider a new rig. The motherboard's lack of USB3.0, the memory speed, the old PCIx standards, etc..., are finally reaching their limits.
I plan in 2015 to build a computer that I will use at least until 2022.
GeekNights!
Late Night Radio for Geeks!
Earth Mark II
I bet you didn't even notice the failover, did you?
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
My setup is a few years old, but still does everything from gaming to coding to a couple VMs CPU: AMD Phenom II (the hex one) RAM: 16GB GPU(s): 2 Radeon 6950s in crossfire HDD/SSD: 128GB SSD for OS and core applications, 2TB for software/VMs, 4TB for General File Storage Oh and I I'm watercooling the GPUs and CPU. I don't OC as much as I used to - but it was a fun project to play around with. And I've had a great life around it. I think I built this around 2010/2011 and I've yet to have any issues with it. My only regret is going with a mid size case sense I was going back and forth to University. I would definitely move to a full size case for my next build... or maybe just go straight for a rack.
The last major hardware upgrade (CPU/memory/motherboard) took place in 2007 to switch over from Windows XP to Windows Vista. Since then I've ran Windows 7 for several years, updated to Windows 8 last year and Windows 8.1 this year. Planning to replace CPU/memory/motherboard before upgrading to Windows 10.
I have the upgraded version: Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock
No good deed goes unpunished.
It's been a while since we've done that, too.
I am not your blowing wind, I am the lightning.
Yes, I know that I'm a sellout for not making my own system (which I know how to do). However, sometimes it's just nice to have someone else supply the parts when things go wrong :-)
3930K Overclocked to 3.8 Ghz-
16 Gb of RAM -
2TB 7.2K drive -
2 x 1TB 7.2k drives for backup -
1 x 680 GTX Lightening 2GB -
Triple Monitors 1080P -
Accessories:
Cougar HOTAS (For flight sims) -
Thrustmaster Pedals (For flight sims) -
Track IR 5 (Great for DayZ) -
i7 4770K, 16 gb ram, gtx 670, 3x ssd, 3x spinning rust platters, DVD-RW drive, 24" dell screen (very old model but excellent).
It's for games and programming.
2 of the ssds are for windows only games and the last is for arch linux where i spend most of the time.
The rust platters are hardly in use anymore as most of my stuff is on a synology box.
Motherboard: ASUS F2A85-V PRO
Processor: AMD A10-5800K Trinity 3.8GHz FM2 Quad
Memory (part number): G.SKILL Ripjaws Z Series 4 x 8GB DDR3 1866
Display Chip: AMD A85X (Hudson D4) [Integrated graphics, not a gamer)
Display LCD: Monoprice 30" IPS CCFL Backlit LCD Panel
Hard Drive (System): SAMSUNG 840 Pro Series MZ-7PD256BW 2.5" 256GB SATA
Hard Drive (Storage): Hitachi HDS724040ALE640 (0S03355) 4TB
CPU Cooler: COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 CPU Fan
Case: Antec-300 PC Case
Power Supply: Rosewill FORTRESS-450w 80 Plus Platinum
UPS: CyberPower CP1500AVRLCD 1500VA
OS: Windows 7 (64-bit) Professional
Inspiron 7746
Core i7-5500U
16 GB DDR3 1600MHz RAM
1TB Seagate 5400RPM hybrid HDD
DVD-RW (replaced it with a BD-RW drive)
17.3" 1920x1080 touchscreen
nVidia GeForce GT 845M graphics with 2 GB video RAM
Wiped the drive on arrival and reinstalled Windows 8.1, Office 365, etc.
The only part of it I don't like is the illuminated keyboard: lit or not, it's almost impossible to see the markings on the keys.
Banana Junior 6000
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Intel 4970s
Gigabyte motherboard w/ thunderbolt
32GB RAM
2 GTX970s
2 ~1TB SSDs
4TB HD
2560x1440 monitor
Used for gaming and music production. I thought 32GB was a lot of RAM when I first put the system together, but it runs out quick when loading up a bunch of sample libraries in the Cubase (the music program.) Definitely would have gone to 64GB if I was doing it again.
The SLI video card setup is cool when it works, but a few games don't use both cards, or there are glitches.
Thunderbolt doesn't work too well. I don't know if that's a Windows problem or the drivers for the specific hardware.
... also, I can kill you with my brain.
Only luddites use hardware. You can run apps on other apps by apping apps!
Apps!
Chassis: Fractal Design Node 804. Motherboard: Asus z97m-plus Ram: 16gb Mushkin silverline CPU: i5 4690k (currently oc'd to 4.6ghz) GPU: Vanilla pny gtx 780 3gb Storage: 1TB seagate cuda sata 3 (misc storage), 128GB intel 530 series SSD (windir), and a pny (forgot what series) 240GB ssd (games) Daily driver, with decent horsepower. Does what I need her to do.
I have a 2010 Macbook Pro 15" w/ 8GB RAM & Dual drives (256GB SSD + 500GB HDD).
BUT IT RARELY GETS USED....due to my newer (Mac) work machines, my iPad, iPhone, AppleTV, FireTV, Xbox360, Nintendo Wii U, and Synology NAS.
Anyone else find they use their primary machine less than a couple of hours a week?
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
quad-core AMD FX-4170
Asrock 990FX mobo
32 GB RAM
128 GB Ocz (crap but was on shelf) SSD - Primary
1TB RAID 5 - Storage and weekly system images.
AMD R7 260 GPU
1x 23" display, 2x 22" displays
Old Cooler Master Cosmos case
Home:
AMD FX-6300 Vishera 6-Core 3.5GHz
Asrock 990FX
16 GB RAM
256 GB Samsun 850 Evo - Primary
1TB and 750GB - Storage drives and media server. (backups on separate NAS)
AMD R9 270X GPU
1x 24" and 1x 20" displays
Cheapo gaming case
Tertiary rig - old poweredge 2950.
32 GB Ram 2x dual-core xeons
6TB storage.
Boatloads of VMS for testing
Silence is a state of mime.
Name of the PC: Bernie-Mac (I name every PC I own after a deceased celebrity) CPU: AMD Phenom II X6 1090t (Watercooled with Corsair H70) Motherboard: MSI FXA890-GD70 Video cards: 2x MSI Radeon HD 6870 in CrossFire Memory: 16Gb of Corsair Dominator @ 1333MHz Storage: [SSD: Corsair Force 60Gb] [HDD: WD Black, 1TB] Optical drives: LG DVD-RAM drive Displays: 3x 22 Inch Samsung monitors Peripherals: SteelSeries Rival Mouse, SteelSeries Apex Keyboard, RetroUSB modified SNES controller Explain how and why you set it up as you did: I built this PC in November 2010. Reason I went, at that time, with the highest possible specs was to be sure It would last 5 years without upgrading the internal hardware (so far, only changed the keyboard and mouse, purely for comfort reasons). It's a multi-tasking workhorse that is going so well, I'm still running it on it's first Windows 7 installation. The computer's primary purpose(s): Gaming, Entertainment, Work, RDP sessions on my server, everything really...
MSI G45 MB
Core i7-4770 CPU, non-overclocked
16GB RAM
ATI R9 270 video card
512GB Crucial SSD
750GB WD Black drive
1TB WD Black drive
LG Blu-Ray Burner
Generic mid-size Antec case
Cheapo Asus 27" LED monitor
APC UPS
Microsoft Sidewinder mouse
i-Rocks buckling-spring keyboard
Works well for games and a few virtualized development environments. Need to replace the (2) WD spinning disk drives with a single 4TB or similar. They were both the primary system drives from previous machines. Now the 1TB is for VMs and the 750GB is backup/cold storage.
The more interesting box is an Intel NUC with a 1TB spinning disk, 256MB SSD, and 16GB of RAM that runs ESXi and and entire sharepoint development stack (SQL Server, Domain Controller, App Server)
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
CPU 2.5 GHz quad-core Krait 400
3 GB RAM
32 GB SD
I have gentoo prefix installed, which lets me install gentoo software under the stock Android distribution. I also haave XServer XSDL, an Android app that is an X Server, but I haven't used this very much so far.
I use it for web browsing, watching videos and development of Android and Free Pascal software. I have a Bluetooth keyboard to help with that.
I also have a MiniMac connected to the big screen TV at home that is my web server and hosts MythTV. It's also used for web browsing and flash games, mostly by my daughter.
Intel Xeon E3 1225 v2 (3.2GHz) on MSI Z77A-G41 (Because it was cheaper than the same i7 and better value than the latest gen at the time)
20 GB RAM
Radeon R7 270 ?
Samsung 256 GB SSD
2 & 4 TB hard disks.
Wildly incorrect samples are known as outliers, and statisticians should know well how to recognize and ignore them.
If you want to just announce your frustration (and possibly get it noticed), that method will work fine. If you want to actually corrupt the data, you need to be more subtle.
Probably more of a slow news day (or is it a week, or a month - not sure)
Intel i5-2500K, ASUS P8P67, 4GB DDR3-1600, Seagate Barracude 1TB drive, Nvidia GTX-480, Fractal Design R3 Gamer Edition. This is basically the 2011 Ars Technica Hot Rod, but with the Nvidia swapped for the recommended Radeon; at the time, Nvidia support for Linux was much better. Also, I couldn't find the R3 "standard" case, but Fry's had the "gamer" version, which was probably a very good idea; it's chunky and slightly noisier, and it has a lot of deep blue LEDs in it, but I have never seen this thing get much above 110F even under incredibly heavy gaming or transcoding loads. I really should throw more RAM into it.
AMD Phenom 3.5 (I think that's what's in it right at this moment)
8GB RAM
Radeon 7730
A bunch of Samsung 850 Pros
Win 8.1
AMD Athlon II X4 640, Asus M4A87TD/EVO, 2x4GB G.Skill Ripjaws DDR3, Sapphire Radeon HD6850 1GB, Seagate Barracuda 2TB, WD Caviar Green 1.5TB, Samsung SH-B123L, Corsair VX550W all housed in AOpen HQ-08. Also Benq G2222HDL, Toshiba L20-T1, Steelseries Apex [RAW], Steelseries Sensei [RAW] and Sony MDR-RF855R. Hope to upgrade to R7 360 or 370 someday.
Desktop
CPU: AMD Phenom II X6
GPU: AMD Radeon 6970
SSD: Crucial 256 GB M4
HDD: 2 TB Seagate
RAM: 16 GB Mushkin
Optical: BD-ROM / HD-DVD Combo and BD-RW
Display: 2x 1920x1200 28" LCD's
Works well for gaming and OpenGL development.
I also have an Alienware M17 laptop; works well for same reasons but not great at multitasking
CPU Intel Extreme 2 core
RAM: 16GB
SSD: 256 GB SSD
HDD: 1 TB
As well as a HTPC
CPU: AMD 1090T
GPU: AMD Radeon 5450
RAM: 8GB
HDD: 120GB
And a File Server
CPU: AMD Phenom X4
GPU: don't remember, doesn't really output ever
RAM: 32 GB
HDD: 8x Seagate 4TB, 8x WD 3TB
RAID: 4x SAS 8086 card
Setup: FreeNAS with 20TB RAID-Z2 and 15TB RAID-Z2
-SaNo
Windows 10 Professional (x64) (build 10130)
2.87 gigahertz Intel Core i7 860
8192 kilobyte Ram
2239.99 Gigabytes Usable Hard Drive Capacity
766.80 Gigabytes Hard Drive Free Space
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 [Display adapter]
24" Monitor
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The processor these days is quite old, but I haven't found a compelling reason to upgrade in many years. It is primarily for gaming and yet, the processor matters so little. Some day I might upgrade purely for the benefit of newer memory, which will require a new board and processor.
Why would I need anything more?
You connect to a bunch of remote systems, you browse, you read e-mail....
listing these specs makes me realize it is time to upgrade.
phenom ii 965
990fx motherboard
8GB ddr3
7870
128GB 840 pro OS
256GB 850 evo games
500GB HDD data
lose != loose
Proteins, water, DNA, RNA, synapse interconnects ...
All the other computers I use are controlled by this one.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
HP Pavillion DV6700
Core2 Duo T5850 @ 2.16GHz
GeForce 8400 GS 256MB
4GB RAM
512GB SSD - Samsung Evo
Dell UltraSharp U2412M 24"W Monitor
Ergotron monitor arm
StandDesk adjustable desk
Microsoft Natural Wireless 7000 Keyboard & Mouse
Fast enough not to upgrade. Used it on the road doing software consulting but for most of the last 7 years it has functioned as my desktop. I keep thinking of upgrading, but haven't found a compelling reason to yet.
http://www.masturbateforpeace.com/
My desktop at home (running CentOS 7):
:-)
Intel DQ77MQ motherboard
Core i5-3570k processor (not overclocked, oddly--I only bought it for the slightly better graphics it provides, since I don't game or anything, and didn't want to buy a separate graphics card)
32 GB RAM
1x Intel 330 Series 120 GB SSD
1x Samsung 850 EVO 250 GB SSD
1x Seagate 1 TB 7200 RPM spinning disk (that miraculously hasn't died... yet)
2x Dell U2412M 24" 1920x1200 displays (none of that 16:9 stuff)
I guess it's around 2.5 years old now? I have little incentive to upgrade, as it's more than fast enough for anything I want to do (playing with new distros, etc. in VMs). I also have a 13" rMBP that I find myself using more and more, on account of just not wanting to be at a desk when I get home...
I use a cutom box from Red Barn Computers in Binghamton, NY. It has dual Xeon E5-2690 @ 2.9 GHz (32 threads), 51 TB configured raid 6 data disk using 16 WD 4001 4 TB RE SAS hot-swap 6Bg/s disks, 256 GB DDR3 ECC ram, two 600 GB WD6000 OS disks in a raid 0 config, one 256 GB SSD as swap space, hot-swap dual power, 10 Gb/s networking, and runs CentOS 6. Current uptime is 901 days (since Hurricane Sandy). I use it as my "desktop" over vnc from work or home. It is a mostly lightly-used node in an SGE cluster of 8 others like it, plus 16 more of slightly lower spec. I designed the cluster for massive single-node-based computation (avoiding network traffic and external fileservers), but all the boxes can work together if needed too. The application is mainly DNA analysis for scientific research purposes.
AMD FX(tm)-4100 Quad-Core Processor 3.6GHz
16 gigs ram
ATI Radeon 3000 Graphics on mobo
1TB HD internal
1TB USB3.0 external
1.5TB USB3.0 external
120GB Sandisk SSD
28in 1920x1200 monitor
When I was 25: I knew every spec, every component, research and purchased them individually, hand-assembled the hardware, and optimized for performance so I could play Half Life.
When I was 35: I had xoticpc build me a spec'd PC in the high end so I could play Skyrim.
Now: I bought a macbook off the shelf. I honestly don't even know how much RAM I have.
"You cannot find out which view is the right one by science in the ordinary sense." - C.S. Lewis on Intelligent Design
I work at LRZ (www.lrz.de) and my main machine is one of login nodes of SuperMUC Phase2.
Haswell Xeon E5-2697 v3, 2.6 GHz, 28 cores, 256 GB RAM, NAS (max 5 PByte for scratch files).
Network: Infiniband FDR14
SUSE Linux Enterprise Edition 11SP3
connected to a MacBookPro 17 inch from 2010.
Still runs fine (although recent OSX releases have been shite).
Why upgrade?
My next computer will probably be a Chromebook but I'm in no hurry... target date of 2020.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
I prefer laptops (of the 17in "desktop replacement" monstrosity type) because I enjoy the portability and flexibility, and am happy to pay more for that convenience, both in cost and in upgradeability. However, because of that, I tend not to upgrade very often - generally not until my primary laptop has completely bitten the dust in a way where replacing it is more financially smart than trying to repair it. My primary personal computer wasn't quite top of the line 4 1/2 years ago, but wasn't too shabby, either - at the time, it could do *almost* anything any of my friends could do on a desktop.
Incidentally, this is actually the longest I've had a laptop last - I've only had to replace the keyboard once, which was thankfully a 10 dollar part and easy to swap in. My previous laptop, ~4 years in, the GPU ate it. Previous one, the AC, fan, and USB ports were all starting to get flaky about 3.5 years in.
So basically what I'm saying is: MSI is pretty solid, apparently! (This was my first purchase of an MSI machine.)
Specs:
i7-720QM, 1.60-2.80GHz
ATI Mobility Radeonâ HD5870 1024MB PCI-Express GDDR5
500GB 7200RPM (next laptop I buy is absolutely going to have one HDD and one SSD, now that that configuration is more affordable)
4GB RAM (I keep thinking of upgrading to 8GB, but it's getting to a point where I'm also thinking of upgrading to a new machine eventually)
17" 1680x1050 screen (this is the main reason I *haven't* upgraded yet, as I will *really* miss 16x10, even if I can get 1920x1080 as a "compromise".)
The answer is: Cortex, neo-cortex, neurotransmitters...
Pretending this is my office full of bitter coworkers..
Quad core i7 MacBook Pro 17" and Thunderbolt display with 16 GB of RAM, a 1TB HD and a 480 GB SSD running Mac OS 10.6.8
Why? I like the 17 inch screen and 1920 x 1200 resolution on the 17" screen and I HATE the UI of all the Mac OSes after 10.6.8.
Quad core i5 iMac 27" with 16 GB of RAM, internal 1TB HD and 16 TB external storage on Firewire 800
Why? I like the 27 inch screen and 2560 x 1440 resolution on the 27" screen and I HATE the UI of all the Mac OSes after 10.6.8.
I develop iOS applications professionally, and I can switch into a VM if needed or use my work laptop.
This minimalist & heavily animated OS approach thanks to Jony Ive needs to die in a fire.
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
I spend the most time on my Thinkpad X60.
CPU: Core Duo T2400 1.83 GHz
RAM: 2 GB (recently upgraded after scrounging dead stuff)
Hard Disk: 160 GB
I bought it for about $200 several years back, and it still does everything I need. I had to switch from kmail/KDE to Thunderbird/LXDE after the latest Debian release (stupid akonadi), but after that switch I have no speed complaints.
My desktop has a Core 2 Duo E5200 (or so), but I don't use it that much these days.
------- Mark
Oh don't be that way!
Let them have their occasional penis measuring contest.
I just deployed an Intel NUC5i5RYK with 16 GB of Corsair Vengeance DDR3L @ 1600MHz memory and a 500 GB Samsung SSD 850 EVO M.2 running CentOS 7 as my new living room PC. The on-board Intel HD Graphics 6000 adapter is supported by Xorg's latest driver and the on-board WiFi chip is recognized. I initially tried installed FreeBSD 11.0-CURRENT, but the WiFi chip wasn't supported.
Normal usage consists of web browsing with Chrome. Spotify and Netflix's web players both work 100%. I use VLC for watching saved content as well as streams from my SiliconDust HDHomeRun Plus OTA/cable box and my Foscam IP cameras. Even with multiple VLC windows open, I'm typically running about 60% idle and the SSD is always less than 1% busy. I've only been able to get the SSD up to 10% busy while copying files to an external drive over USB 3.0. The RAM is also overkill, but the Intel graphics adapter will take advantage of some of it if it sees 16 GB installed.
I was going to list some more specs, but the following article does a better job. I've been very happy with the new machine so far.
http://www.tomsguide.com/us/intel-broadwell-nuc-mini-pc,review-2688.html
1) MacBook Air. 256GB SSD, 8GB RAM -- pretty ludicrous. Nice and zippy, doesn't crash much. I'm not a huge fan of OS X, but I keep that on here, in part because this (Craigslist find) machine has some of the MS Office suite that you'd think big companies would be smart enough not to base too much of their operations on, and yet ... Yeah, right :)
Being a MBA, no optical drive.
Current / recent OS X seems perfectly adequate and generally pleasant to me, but I do have a lot of minor gripes; what's new? All modern OSes are pretty highly evolved -- not to say *finished,* perfect, complete, etc, or even getting aysmptotically closer to the singularity, but *pretty good,* as a baseline. And since the things I use most are cross platform, I'm not all that concerned about the look of the scaffolding.
2) Older Lenovo ThinkPad, recently upgraded from 2GB to 4GB (the RAM, another Craigslist buy -- 4 GB that got split between two older 2GB ThinkPads; 4GB may be strictly low-end these days, but sure beats 2). This is running Elementary OS, which I'm generally pleased with, barring one (quite substantial) objection: memory use creeps up and up, and once in a while I have to reboot the whole system, because fighting with process control takes more time than restarting does. That's what motivated the RAM expansion in the first place, but even with doubled RAM it can get obnoxious even after just a day, sometimes less. 100-ish GB (spinning) drive. Optical drive ... well, it has one, but either I've tried a few bum disks or that drive is toast.
This machine has a terrible keyboard, and a lousy trackpad -- both of which are disappoints from Lenovo, and from a machine that says ThinkPad -- so it's static, set us as dual-screen CPU, with an LCD display attached via HDMI.
That one is set up with
1) Model M keyboard, manu'd mid '80s -- PS/2 connector and USB adapter
2) A Dell quiet key keyboard (USB) -- this one is to keep peace at night, since apparently not everyone loves the sound of a Model M
3) Logitech trackball, the one true USB trackball (they fail once in a while, but it's worth the pain and cursing as they decline, to avoid the pain and cursing of a conventional mouse, or even most trackballs). MouseMan, the way to go!
3) a multi-port USB hub with switches per port -- bought it for $5 on Amazon, though you can find them for much more elsewhere, if your intent is to spend more money. Ahem.
4) A nice HD Logitech webcam
Elementary OS, save that inevitable, occasional reboot (the kind of thing I'd like to be able to crow more about with Linux, but Hey) is growing on me; it replaced Linux Mint, largely because of the obnoxious custom google search that Mint uses. I still prefer the default MATE DE to the Mac-ish one in Elementary, but they both have their merits, and I'm enjoying the difference / novelty, too.
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
I've upgraded it with scavenged parts to 6 GB RAM (could use more but DDR2 is expensive), a 1 GB Radeon 6450, Crucial 128 GB SSD boot disk and a WD 1 TB data drive. It works great and is surprisingly peppy (I don't game on it, obviously). Originally it only supported 4 GB of RAM, but Dell put out a BIOS update a few years ago that bumped it to 8 GB. And there is a hacked BIOS out there that re-enables the AHCI that Dell removed so the SSD pretty much maxes out the 3 Gbps SATA port. Very impressed after adding the SSD - it boots up in about 10 seconds with 8.1 64-bit.
Exactly.
I fall mostly into the first category:
The closest thing to interesting is that I just decided to upgrade to 4K, so I'm having to replace my video card (a Radeon HD 4850) even though it's fast enough, just because it doesn't have the right ports to output a high enough resolution. I'm replacing it with a Radeon R7 260X because that's (as far as I know) currently both the best performance per dollar card right now, and pretty much the cheapest available with DisplayPort 1.2 (to do 3840 x 2160 x 60p). I'll be using it with a Quasar SQ4201U TV that I got for $300, and will be limited to 30 FPS until DP 1.2 -> HDMI 2.0 adapters come out in another few months. (If I'm running a full-screen game I'll run it in 1920x1080 mode for better framerates, both because the interim HDMI 1.4 connection can't handle 60 FPS and because the card wouldn't be fast enough rendering newish games at 4k anyway.)
I have no plans for a new CPU until after AMD Zen comes out, at the earliest.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I built mine about 3 or 4 years back, but it is still hangs pretty good with modern hardware. i7 3770k 8 GB RAM (considered 16 GB, but it never goes above 6 GB usage, so all that memory would be sitting there burning electricity). 128 GB SSD (considering upgrading to 1 TB because space is becoming an issue even though I only put the OS and Flight Simulator files on it.) 3 TB HD ( only 400 GB used). Radeon 6990 Video Driver. 30" HP IPS LCD Asus Maximus IV Extreme Motherboard
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Replaced the HDD with a 120GB SSD and the DVD with a 240GB SSD - both drives are encrypted
Two external monitors (don't use the built-in display except when traveling)
I don't need any more power than that because all the heavy lifting is done on database servers over a VPN. And (thankfully) not doing any more Java development so no heavyweight IDE :^)
i7-930
20 gigs ram
770 gtx (upgraded recently from a 4850)
1tb 850 pro
12tb raid 0
2 6tb drives, 1 2tb drive
2 27" ips monitors
2 24" ips monitors
HP Z800, 2xXeon X5650 (6-core with HT, 2.6Ghz), 48GB RAM, 2x2TB HDD (one with Win7, one with UbuntuStudio)
John_Chalisque
Dell Latitude E7440
Intel Core i7-4600U
16GB RAM
Microsoft Windows 7 Pro x64 SP1
Docking Station
Dual 24" Dell Ultrasharp Monitors
LiteOn 256GB SSD
Hauppage WinTV HVR-950
Great for IT work and running VM Workstation.
I'll post my home rig later.
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
Hand-assembled desktop:
Case: Corsair Obsidian 650D
PSU: Corsair Professional Series Gold 1200W
Mobo: ASUS P8Z77-V
CPU: Core i7 3770K
RAM: 32 GiB DDR3-1600 (Komputerbay)
Storage: 3 x 4 TiB HGST 7200rpm 3.5" + 1 x Seagate Barracuda 4 TiB 7200rpm consumer HDDs (in hardware RAID10)
RAID controller: Adaptec 6405E
GPU1: Sapphire Radeon HD7970 (reference design with impeller)
GPU2 (in CrossFireX): XFX Radeon R9 280X (with three large 'standard' fans and clocked at GHz Edition speeds)
Soundcard: Creative SoundBlaster Z
Accessories:
Headphones: Steelseries H Wireless connected via bidirectional Optical (Mini-TOSLink) to the SoundBlaster Z
Display: Panasonic VIERA TC-L32DT30 HDTV (1080p60)
Keyboard: Das Keyboard Model S Professional
Mouse: Steelseries Sensei
Mat: Razer Vespula
The story:
Ordered the HD7970 in February 2012 and stuck it in my old box for a few months.
Ordered the CPU, Mobo, case, PSU, two HDDs (one of them has since died), and RAM in April 2012 and built new box by adding GPU. Handed down my old box to a family member along with my older GPU.
Ordered the Adaptec RAID controller a couple days after getting the box together and realizing I didn't like software RAID.
Ordered the SoundBlaster Z in February 2014 in preparation for the arrival of the Steelseries H Wireless (pre-order) in March 2014.
Ordered two HGST disks in March 2014 and combined them with the existing two Seagate disks to make a RAID10 array.
Ordered the R9 280X in June 2014 after realizing how cheap it was and that I could Crossfire it with my existing card because it's the same chipset.
One of the Seagate disks failed badly in August 2014, but I didn't lose the RAID array because the other three disks were fine. I overnighted a new HGST disk (same make and model as the other two) to replace it. At present, I have one of the original Seagate and three HGST disks still in the RAID array.
The configuration has been static since then.
Presently I estimate that this system has gone through about 75-80% of its service life *with me*. Since I'm a gamer, coder, virtual machine runner, and general all-around resource hog, I'll be looking to upgrade when Skylake mainstream processors land. I'll probably get a Skylake "K" (unlocked) i7. Of course, this system is perfectly serviceable for lighter duty gaming and web browsing, so I expect it will become the upgrade for the same family member who is using my old system today (though with a few retrofits due to some component failure).
The internals of the case are an absolute mess; a tangle of poorly organized cables. The only thing that keeps it even slightly manageable is the modular PSU; I removed (or never plugged in) all the molex connectors I'll never need.
One of the big limitations I've come up against with this system is the limit of the number of PCIe lanes and slots. I'll definitely consider this more heavily when I buy my next system, but I understand that Skylake mainstream is going to be expanding the number of lanes anyway.
Right now, this system can play 2014-and-earlier AAA games at maximum detail (or very near to it; some settings are just so poorly optimized that they're not usable), even on a single GPU. With CrossFireX I just get more consistent framerates (AMD's Frame Pacing feature is a lifesaver).
I'm starting to feel that it is experiencing significant slowdowns, even in CrossFireX, on the latest AAA titles. Dragon Age Inquisition and The Witcher 3 are giving me a lot of trouble. I am not sure if it's due to their poor driver maintenance, bad optimization, or Nvidia-favoring algorithms. I can probably deal with this performance deficit for the remainder of this year, but I will definitely want to upgrade in time for Star Citizen.
I have older systems, but this is my best one... it just keeps doing everything I need it to.
Gigabyte GA-MA700-UD3P v1.0
Phenom II X6 1045T
Cooler Master Hyper TX2 cooler
Cooler Master 460W PS
Zotac GF750Ti
4xG.Skill 2GB (2x f3Â-10666-cl8dÂ-4gbhk)
ThermalTake Shark case
Samsung 850 Evo 500GB (heh heh) and Intel VO0160EC HPL (160GB HP-branded, eBay-sourced Intel SSD)
Viewsonic VP2655wb 25.5" IPS, Gateway FPD2275W 20" LCD, Dell E228WFPc 20" LCD
HL-DT-ST GH22NS50 DVD-blah blah blah
Kenwood KA-305 with Yamaha Monitors and Sennheiser HD420s
Microtek MRS-2400A48U scanner
Dell media keyboard with 2-port USB1.1 hub
Logitech Trackman Wheel USB T-BB18
The total cost of this system was below $1000, including displays, because I sourced so many parts used, including two out of three of the displays. Maybe I'm in $1100 including my HPLJ2300DN.
This system started out with a hand-me-down 160GB HDD, a Sony/Optiarc DVD which has since died as they all do, a flea market X-Blade case and a Phenom II X3 720, as well as only half the memory, and a Gigabyte 240GT, later an Asus 450 GTS OC.It seems likely I will upgrade again, but the next upgrade is MB+CPU+RAM and I haven't felt the need to go that road. Skyrim is the most demanding game I play, and it runs OK with almost everything turned on at 1920x1200. I have replaced microswitches in the trackball twice. The pot on my Kenwood amplifier could use a cleaning or replacement. The Sennheisers were $5 at a yard sale and I had to refoam 'em, that was around $20 and some scissor work. I have a fancier (active, high-wattage, high-efficiency) PSU to install, but it has no SATA power so I need to solder some in so I don't have a bunch of stupid Y cables.
My very first PC was an IBM PC-1 and my first Linux box was a 386DX25 with 8MB of DIP-socketed DRAM. I'm constantly amazed at what you can dig out of the trash: I've got a C2D with 2GB at my left that I did precisely that with. There's genuinely nothing wrong with it, and it even had an HDD in it.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I just bought a new desktop from System76, which makes awesome machines fully linux compatible (I'm not a shill, I'm just impressed with them).
2012 MacBook Pro with an i7 and 8gb ram. Only computer I have. I simply have no interest in babysitting a bunch of garbage.
SJWs are the new boogeyman. -Me
My main PC is as follows:
Phenom II 6 core (2.4 GHz)
16GB RAM (DDR3, 1333MHz if I remember correctly)
2x 128 SSD disks (Raid 1)
1x 2TB disk for TV Recording
1x 16x Blu-Ray drive
1x 48x DVD drive
1 Radeon 74xx video card (2 GB DDR5 ram, 720 threads)
2x 24in 16:9 monitors
IBM Model M keyboard
Microsoft version 1.0 laser mouse (from 2000)
Windows 7 Ultimate
I have a low powered (6 watt CPU) linux box running on the network as my file storage through Samba, mail server, web server. This is more than enough power for me and does what I need it to do.
My current computer was built in Dec 2012, with some updates since (i.e. video card). I'm usually on a 3 year refresh rate. I'm thinking that I'll be building my next one when Skylake comes out.
I use mine for photo editing, video editing, gaming, GNS3 (Network simulation), etc. It was built primarily for gaming with the thought that anything else thrown at it would work just fine. The weak point in my system are the displays, its past time for new monitors. For gaming I use my 52" Samsung Plasma but I plan on moving to a 3 monitor setup, which is why I have the 970.
System:
ASUS P8Z77-V PRO LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
Intel Core i7-3770K Quad-Core Processor 3.5 GHz 8 MB Cache LGA 1155
G.SKILL Ripjaws Z Series 16GB (4 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 2133 (PC3 17000)
MSI GTX 970 GAMING 4G GeForce GTX 970 4GB
Sapphire Radeon HD 7950 3GB DDR5 HDMI / DVI-I
Creative Sound Blaster Audigy2 ZS Platinum 7.1 Channels 24-bit 192KHz PCI
2x Samsung 840 Series 250GB SSD (System, Programs)
5x Seagate 2TB 7200RPM SATA III drives (single drives for data, no RAID)
2x SATA drive bay with 2.5" and 3.5" hot swap SATA slots
2x BH14NS40 14x Blu-ray Disc Rewriter
CORSAIR HX Series HX850 850W ATX12V Power Supply
Antec P280 Black ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
Displays:
Dell 2405FPW 24" 16:10 monitor
Acer 24" 16:9 monitor
How do you get 64GB ram working on a 32GB CPU ?
Intel Haswell 3.3ghz i5 quad
24GB DDR3
Samsung 850 EVO 500GB x2
AMD6950
Intel i210-T1 NIC - because I refuse to use the intergrated RealTek
Lenovo D20 ThinkStation with a intel Xeon X650 @ 2.67ghz ( x 2) with 48gb RAM and an extremely noisy 2TB HDD running... wait for it... Windows 7 x64. Dual Samsung 24" LED Montitors.
Is there such thing as "too much" power? Somehow with 48gb of RAM and a server processor this thing still crawls like it's Windows 2000.
AMD Phenom II X4 945, 8G RAM, Radeon HD 5450, with HP branding. It's a Pavilion Elite HPE 210F if I recall correctly. It's about 6 years old now. Only thing I have replaced is the hard drive, twice. Original drive was a WD Caviar Green, and it failed in just 9 months. Next hard drive was a WD Caviar Black, and it failed in 4 years. I've had enough of WD, and the current drive is a Toshiba. There's some funny BIOS problem connected with the hard drives. Occasionally, the computer fails to detect any drives at all and waits on "press F10 to enter setup". More often it detects the drive but fails to boot, and Linux will drop me to an initramfs prompt. Most of the time, it boots as it should. Maybe this intermittent BIOS problem could have led to the early demise of my hard drives?
Anyway, yeah, I see no need for more power. I've become more interested in the other direction, very low power computers. I don't think I want to downgrade all the way to a Raspberry PI, but laptops are a pretty good balance. Have had good luck with a Giada i53, a mini desktop based on a laptop platform. Takes 30W max, and that only when running a game that requires intense 3D accelerated graphics, which its Intel HD Graphics 4000 is actually able to handle, does a little better than the Radeon HD 5450. When just editing text, it takes only 10W. Maybe I'll go for the Giada i57b, or maybe not. Main problem with these Giadas is that they are basically laptops without screens, keyboards, or mice, at higher prices than actual laptops that do have all that.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
I normally don't do these anywhere else, but.... :) )
Case: Antec 1200 v3 case
CPU: Intel I7 3770k Ivy Bridge OC'd @ 4GHz
Mem: 32 GB's Kingston Hyper - X Beast (CAS blah-blah-whatever-cool) @ 2133 MHz
Mobo: ASRock Extreme9, Ivy Bridge chipset
AM cooler: Zalman 9900 MAX-B long-life bearing cooler
Primary storage device: 120 GB Samsung EVO 850 (primary OS disk, partitioned 1/2 win8.1 pro, 1/2 #! Linux)
Secondary Storage Device: 1 TB Caviar Black 7200 rpm
Mass Storage/Backup Device: 2TB Caviar Black 7200 rpm
Long Term Mass Storage 2: 4TB Red NAS 5400 rpm
PSU: Corsair 750w Pro Gold.
GPU: EVGA NVIDIA 680 SC2 (the purty one with the dual-fan backplate
Think that's it...
Best build to date.
2012 iMac 27" running Windows 7
Intel i5-3470 @ 3.2 GHz
16GB ram
Had to get rid of desk clutter therefore the Apple and I love it.
I upgrade my system piecemeal over time as bits get too slow and/or fail. It's currently:
Case: Corsair Obsidian 550D
Mainboard: ASUS Sabertooth R2.0
CPU: AMD FX 8350
Memory: Crucial 16GiB ECC
GPU: AMD Radeon 6850 w/ 1GiB VRAM
Disks: 256GB Crucial M550 SSD (Windows 8.1), 120 GB Intel SSD (FreeBSD 10.1), 256GiB Seagate HDD (data)
(Important data is on a FreeBSD NAS w/ ZFS RAID)
Monitor: HP LP2475w
Keyboard: Kinesis Freestyle2
Primary use is software development and secondary is gaming. People criticise the AMD 8350, but with 8 cores it's a beast for parallel building; shared FPU isn't a big deal at all.
Planned upgrades:
New monitor; I'd like a 16:10 (or greater aspect ratio) at least 4K resolution with at least 10 bit depth (I do scientific imaging work). Might have to settle for the 5K Dell or similar if the ghastly 16:9 is all that's available.
New GPU: I'm waiting on the forthcoming AMD releases, probably wait until the new year for a reasonable deal; might have to wait on the monitor as well if I need a new one to drive a much bigger display.
In that case, 2 foot. I have to throw it over my shoulder just to walk around....right...
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Asus Maximus VI Gene
i7-4770
16GB RAM
Samsung EVO SSD
Some ATI mid range graphic card
2x24" monitor
I don't fiddle with the settings but I keep my drivers/BIOS updated. I don't see the point of overclocking and then suspecting it as a possible cause of issues. It's a work machine and I don't need that kind of doubt.
I replace my setup every 2-3 years. I figure my time is worth far more than the cost of a computer so I stay up to date.
SSD!
love is just extroverted narcissism
It's probably like 5-6".
Dell 1745 17" Laptop w/battery
Intel T6600
8GB RAM (after market)
240GB SSD (after market)
320GB HD
DVD+RW
I originally purchased a Dell laptop in 2006 just prior to my wedding. As this was going to be my primary workstation, I purchased Dell's 4-year extended warranty. 6 months before the warranty was up, the motherboard began to fail. Dell replaced it with the 1745 above (back in January 2010). When it began to show it's age 3 years ago. I popped an SSD drive, re-installed the OS. And moved the old drive to the secondary drive bay.
It has since been 5 years since. I am now divorced. So my purchase of a Dell laptop and warranty in 2006 has lasted for 9 years - longer than my marriage. LOLZ
As built: 2008
Antec 900 ATX Ultimate Gamer PC Case
Corsair 750W CMPSU-750TX
Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3R
Intel Core 2 Due Processor E8500, LGA775 Pkg 3.16 GHz, 6MB L2 Cache, 1333 MHz FSB, 45mm
Zalman Ultra Quiet CPU Cooler CNPS9700 LED
OCZ Fatal1ty Pair 2 Gigabyte DDR2 800Mhz Sticks
OCZ Fatal1ty Pair 2 Gigabyte DDR2 800Mhz Sticks
Diamond ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB GDDR5 PCI-E DUAL DVI-I/TVO
Diamond ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB GDDR5 PCI-E DUAL DVI-I/TVO
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3750640AS 750GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3750640AS 750GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3750640AS 750GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s
Creative Labs X-Fi XtremeGamer SB073A
Logitech X-540 Speakers
Sony DRU-V200S-BR DVD+/-R 20x
Acer G235H 23" Monitor
Acer G235H 23" Monitor
Acer G235H 23" Monitor
Acer G235H 23" Monitor
In 2012 I replaced the two ATI video cards with two nVidia 560's. It's a touch slower but the system doesn't blue screen on startup any more.
In 2014 I replaced the four 2G memory modules with four 4G memory modules.
I'd planned to replace the system this year but have a couple of trips planned so it's put off until next year.
The system was built mainly as a development environment. I do a bit of web coding and mess around with gaming PDFs (table top gaming) so being able to have four screens lets me have windows open so I can work and keep track of what's going on.
[John]
Shit better not happen!
I'm running a mostly stock but partially custom Dell Precision T7500. The main purpose was gaming (Battlefield 4) but I also need it for graphics and development. Two quad core Xeon processors at 3.73 GHz (8 cores) Stock motherboard with Intel 5520 chipset 24 GB ECC Fully Buffered 1333 MHZ DDR3 nVidia GTX 690s with surround view enabled Eight OCZ 60GB SSD Drives in RAID0 (480GB array) with dedicated 512MB DDR3 I/O buffer Stock 1100W PSU Three Dell Ultrasharp 24 inch monitors (surround view) Windows 7 Enterprise x64 Dell UPS 1920W battery backup
Let's make like a bird... and get the flock outta here.
sure, also you get troubles installing osx on that hp-box, if it's even possible (let alone allowed by apple). raw power doesn't cut it, if you're snugly locked into apple's ecosystem, or just prefer osx. i'd rather monkey around with apple's os and trade some render time for the frustration and maintenance time windows always gave me. whatever floats your boat/works best for you, but comparing PCs and Macs by hardware specs alone is a bit narrowminded
AMD FX-8350 Vishera 32nm @4.0 Ghz GSkill ripjaws x F3-14900CL9D-8GBXL (pc 14900) dual channel DDR3 1866 x8 Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd. 990FXA-UD3 (CPU 1) rev 4 Coolermaster Hyper 212 plus Cpu cooler 2047MB NVIDIA GeForce GT 640 (EVGA) Graphics ASUS DRW-24B1ST i SATA 931GB Seagate ST1000DM 003-1CH162 SATA Disk Device (SATA) X1 931GB SAMSUNG HD103SJ SATA Disk Device (SATA)
My test machines are headless, no monitor or video cards. But they have 256 GB RAM, no SSD, two 1 TB SCSI disks. One linux and one windows.
At home I have an old iMac, and an old Win7 four processor 8GB machine. A few chromebooks, kindles, nexus phones round up the devices list.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
5 Laptops but I use this the most. Starling Netbook Memory 2G Processor Intel Atom CPU N570 1.66GHzx4 Graphics Unknows 32 Bit OS ubuntu 12.04 LTS Disk 490 GB I hope the owner of the Difference Engine on loan to the Computer Museum in San Jose does this survey.
Trackpad aside. It has the power to do most computing chores, from CAD, to video and photo editing, watching movies, etc. .
If I had my way, I would have a smoking fast dual-core, and a good Nvidia GPU, in a thinkpad yoga form.
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
My best computer is a Lenovo T430 with a 1600x900 display, a 250GB Samsung 840 EVO MSATA SSD and 12 GB of RAM, plus a docking station for ease of external monitors. More than enough for almost anything I'm doing, though I've occasionally regretted not spending the extra $50 for upgraded graphics.
It does the job, but for 90% of what I'm doing I don't notice a huge difference in speed between that and a Thinkpad W700 with some level of Core 2 Duo. I figure at some point I'll drop $60 on a 120+ GB SSD and jump the W700 to 64-bit Windows, then see even less difference (Linux isn't a good option with the ATI switchable graphics in that generation).
My best non-portable is a venerable Core2Quad running CentOS that I need to get back up and running as a secondary Crashplan destination server.
Are these exciting? No, but they do what I need them to and if one dies or walks away it's easy to get back up and running with relatively little fuss due to backups and disk encryption.
fencepost
just a little off
Intel Core i5-4670K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor
Corsair H80i 77.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler
G.Skill Sniper 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory
Asus Maximus VI Hero ATX LGA1150 Motherboard
Intel 330 Series 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (OS and installed apps that do not allow default install location to anywhere but the C:\ drive)
Sapphire Radeon HD 6950 2GB Video Card x 2 (CrossFire enabled)
Antec HCG M 850W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply
Philips 227E4LSB 60Hz 21.5" Monitor x 2
Corsair Vengeance K60 Wired Gaming Keyboard
Logitech G9x Wired Laser Mouse
NZXT Phantom 630 (Black) ATX Full Tower Case
Total cost (thank you Christmas, Boxing Day, and Black Friday sales events): $1200 approx.
If anyone needs me, I'll be in the Angry Dome.
I'm using a desktop system with a Quad Core i7-3770 with 8 GB of memory and a 1 TB hard drive (which I should upgrade to an SSD soon). It also has a Radeon 6870 in it (which I should also upgrade soon), and is connected to a HP LaserJet Color multifunction printer (because color lasers are awesome and I got sick of unclogging Inkjet cartridges).
I also have a nice set of studio monitor speakers plugged into it.
I'd imagine that most Slashdot users have more interesting systems lying about their houses, though. I'd rather hear more about their custom Raspberry Pi builds or home theater PC's.
Cages, otherwise pigeons would feel worried when they fly away. Think of the children.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion. -- Spazmania (174582)
Computer's Name: Binky (I always name my primary computer Binky, as it's my pacifier) Intel i7-4770k w/Asus Maximus Hero VI 32gb RAM 980-GTX GPU 512gb Samsung 740 EVO Pro 4x 3tb RAID 10 The monitor is only 1080p, but I plan to upgrade that very soon. I use the system for gaming, photography, and software development. The RAM really helps with running virtual machines.
Anyone giving their machine specs here in the comments is an idiot. It's just Dice data mining the users again. It's obvious we have computers, their specs are none of Dice's business. Now, get off my lawn!
Sony VAIO Fit 13A
13" 1920x1080 display with active digitizer (yay pens for Kanji)
Intel Core i5 4200U@1.6GHz
8GB DDR3
128GB SSD
Operating System MS Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit SP1
CPU AMD Phenom X4 9500 31 ÂC Agena 65nm Technology
RAM 4.00 GB Dual-Channel DDR2 @ 401MHz (5-5-5-18)
Motherboard ASUSTeK Computer INC. M2N32-SLI DELUXE (Socket AM2 ) 40 ÂC
Graphics LCD1970NX (1280x1024@60Hz) LCD1970NX (1280x1024@60Hz) NVIDIA GeForce GT 640
Hard Drives 1954GB Seagate ST2000DM 001-9YN164 SCSI Disk Device (ATA)
1465GB Seagate ST315003 41AS SCSI Disk Device (ATA)
234GB SanDisk SDSSDX240GG25 SCSI Disk Device (SATA-SSD)
Optical Drives TSSTcorp CDDVDW SH-222BB SCSI CdRom Device
I had an iMac and a Macbook Air. People/Clients always bug me to sell them my computers. I don't know why. So I did. Both of them. Bought a suped up Macbook Pro 15" with fastest CPU and max RAM to replace both those Macs. Turns out, I rather have a proper desktop and laptop :)
Soooooo, thought about getting a Mac Pro and was a) turned off a bit from the pricing and b) they haven't updated it in a while. Went for the next best thing, a Hackintosh of course!
Gigabyte GA-Z97M-D3H
Intel Core i7 - 4790K
EVGA GTX 960 Superclocked
Samsung PRO 850 - 250GB
Samsung EVO 840 - 120GB
32GB RAM
Hackintosh's have come a long way. Much easier these days and a wider range of support for hardware. Of course, if you stay within' recommended specs, makes it all that much easier. Software updates weren't a problem. 4K monitor hooked up. MUCH faster than the Macbook Pro 15" with the same 4K monitor hooked up. (In the Macbook's defensive, I opted for the integrated GPU only for battery life reasons). This thing screams. Very happy with it. Windows on the EVO 840 (don't boot it up much) OS X on the PRO 850 with vmware running Xubuntu. about $1700CAD (exluding the 4k monitor that I had from before)
I needed a laptop as well, so I picked up an Acer V5-473p-5602. About $600CAD. 14". 1090p IPS screen. Immediately put in an extra 4GB of RAM and a Samsung EVO 840. :) This one runs just Xubuntu.
So from 2 Macs to none :)
P.S. The Macbook Pro 15" becomes a hand me down to my wife ;)
AirSpeak - http://itunes.com/apps/AirSpeak
Good question and good catch. 64 bit OS, I actually have 32 GB of RAM. And Alzheimer's apparently.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Somehow with 48gb of RAM and a server processor this thing still crawls like it's Windows 2000.
Rigs with recent-release Xeon's seem to do that, SSD or not..
Haven't been able to explain why.
Intel Core i7 4790
Asus Maximus Ranger VII Mainboard
GeForce GTX 970
8 GB RAM (2x 4 GB DDR3-1600 CL9 9-9-24)
Intel 80 GB SSD
Samsung Evo 830 120 GB SSD
Samsung Evo 850 1 TB SSD
Seagate ST 2000 2 TB SATA
Alfa AC1200 wifi
Hitachi HL-DR-ST BluRay dvdrw
LG 29UM55-P - 29" Ultra Wide IPS Scherm
BenQ G2420HD 24"
Lenovo Yoga 2 10" Android + 64GB SD Card
This is the computer I by far use most in my private time. Right now, riding on the train, in fact. I've just about stopped "lugging" my macbook air about. I don't use the MB Air anymore right now - moved all my E-Mail this. 18 hours of battery time, tons of movies and serials (watching agents of shield right now), 60+ books, especially those with 1000 pages or more, 6GB of music, awesome Games (The Wold among us f.e.). It's a state of the art mobile computer, one generation short of total convergence.
Moto G2
My fresh dirt-cheap high end cellphone. Definitely a computer, definitely my second most used one.
Lenovo W510
Refurbished and pimped out with 18 GB RAM, 256 GB SSD and Ubuntu 14 LTS - for serious web work and fiddling with FOSS. I'm pondering leaving the Apple Golden Cage (TM) - but am not quite sure yet. There are some pretty awesome software tools available for OS X, especially in the webdev dept.
Lenovo T400
Refurbished and bought as a cheap, small and quiet utility (web) server to fiddle with and run deployment and scripts on. Xubuntu 14 LTS.
2011 MacBook Air
Neat and trusty. Great device. The Yoga kicks it's ass in portability and battery time though.
2007 Mac Mini ... Tiger? Don't now. It has front-row though, and I use it with the remove a lot.
Second-gen Intel Mac Mini. Very nice computer, still doing its work. But I only use it as a media center right now. It still runs Snow Leopard
Xbox 360, last gen with Xbone Enclosure. Dirt cheap console, dirt cheap AAA games. I pondered getting a console for almost 10 years and picked this one up as the Xbone was out a few months. Very good deal.
At work:
27" iMac, refurbished. 24GB RAM
All in all I'd say I have to many computers and probably will consolidate the amount at my next hardware redo which happens every 4-5 years or so.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Alienware m17r2, 32gb, 2 500gb ssd, external 39" 4k monitor
primarily used for development (embedded system and android contract work), some web browsing and email, no games.
My primary workstation is an ATX enclosure from the turn of the century populated by a motherboard from about 2005 with an early Intel quad core processor, 8 GB memory (I do a lot of work with photoshop and similar tools) a 2 GB system drive, a 3 GB data drive, a hot swappable slot in which I can temporarily plug a 3 GB drive for backups, USB 3.0 controller card (faster uploading from memory cards) and some video card I inherited from a gamer after one of his continuous upgrades. Plugged into an elderly but color-accurate 24" monitor. This will do me until something breaks that can't be fixed or swapped out. I'm not a fan of upgrading for its own sake. Internet provided by fiber to the house.
In the last 15 years I've lost 3 power supplies. I've learned to keep one in stock for rapid repair.
I was a late adopter of Windows 7, will stick with that until further notice. I installed Win8 on a test machine, decided it did not meet my needs. Haven't looked at 10 yet, don't see the need at this time. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank every Win10 early adopter for their valuable QA service.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Sure, but they have a marketing budget.. they can pay for one!
I know the summary said "best one", but screw you.
Primary desktop (work, games, screwing around on /.):
Core i5-4670
ASRock Z87 Pro3
GeForce GTX 660
16GB G.Skill DDR3-1600 RAM
2TB Hitachi spinning disk
256GB Samsung 850 Pro SSD
A pair of 24" Dell U2412M 1920x1200 monitors
HTPC (watching movies, occasional couch gaming):
AMD Phenom II 965
ASUS M4A87TD/USB3
GeForce GTX 560
16GB G.Skill DDR3-1600 RAM
2TB Western Digital spinning disk
Pioneer DVD-RW optical drive
Hauppauge WinTV PVR-250
50" Samsung DLP 1080i TV
Work Laptop (Excel, general computing while travelling):
15" Retina MacBook Pro (2012)
Core i7
8GB RAM
GeForce GT 650M
500GB SSD
#include <sig.h>
I am a contractor and have to supply my own computer at work. Work: Running Fedora 22 on ASRock X58 Extreme, Intel i7 930, 12GB RAM, cheap video card, 3x64GB SSD in RAID0 and 3x2TB Enterprise SATA in RAID5. Work is used for sysadmin and development stuff. Home: Dual booting Ubuntu Studio and Windows 7 on Gigabyte MB with Intel i5 something, 16GB RAM, GTX760, 3x64GB SSD in RAID0 (Linux only), 500GB RevoDrive 3 PCIE SSD (Windows only), and 1TB Enterprise SATA (split for Windows and Linux). I use Linux for everything I do everything (including an xp virtual machine to run QuickBooks Pro) except gaming, which is where Windows comes in. I've been pretty happy with the set up. My graphics card at home gets upgraded once every two years and I upped my RAM to 16, but besides that I don't have to do anything to the boxes, other than occasional fan replacement and dusting the power supply.
Is that a roll of dimes in your pocket or are you happy to see me?
Core i7 3960X ASUS P9X79 WS 64GB RAM nVidia GeForce 980 GTX 480GB Intel 730 SSD (used for OS and applications) LSI PCIe SAS/RAID Controller 2x2TB 7200RPM WD Black HDDs in RAID1 array (used for data storage) Blu Ray Burner I use it for gaming, photo editing, video editing, and programming. What takes my Broadwell-U laptop 15min to compile this thing builds in 4min (our build scripts are multi-threaded.)
Hello,
System specifications are as follows:
Chassis and Power Supply
Case: Fractal Design Define R4 Black Pearl w/ USB 3.0 ATX Mid Tower Silent PC Computer Case
Power: Corsair RM750 CP-9020055-WW 750 Watt ATX PS
Accessory: Antec Easy SATA Hot Swap Hard Drive Caddy with eSATA Port
Storage
Optical: Asus BW-12B1ST Blu-Ray R/W SATA
Storage (SSD): 2 x Samsung 840 Pro Series MZ-7PD256 256GB SATA 6Gb/s 2.5" SSD
Storage (HHD): Western Digital WDBSLA0040HNC-NRSN Desktop Performance 4TB SATA 6Gb/s HDD
Storage (USB): Seagate Backup Plus Fast Portable Drive 4TB USB 3.0
Compute, Graphics and Audio
Motherboard: ASUS P9X79 PRO LGA 2011 Intel X79 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard with USB BIOS
CPU: Intel i7-4820K LGA 2011 64 Technology Extended Memory CPU Processors BX80633I74820K
Cooling: Intel Thermal Solution Air
RAM: 32GB - 2 x Patriot Viper 32GB (4Ã--8) Kit DDR3 PC3-12800 1600MHz PD000282-PV332G160C0QK
Sound Card:: Creative Labs X-Fi Fatality Titanium Sound Blaster PCIe adapter card
Video Card:: EVGA GeForce GTX660 SC 2GB GDDR5 PCIe 2.0 SVGA Card
Peripherals
Monitor: Auria EQ276W 27" WQHD LED LCD Display
Keyboard Rosewill Mechanical Keyboard RK-9000V2
Mouse:: Microsoft Trackball Optical USB mouse
System is used for a variety of professional and personal activities
Regards,
Aryeh Goretsky
Dexter is a good dog.
Mac Pro (Early 2009)
Processor: 2 x 2.26 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
Memory: 32 GB 1066 MHz DDR3
Graphics: Dual NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 512 MB
Hard Drives: 4 1TB Disk drives.
Keyboard: Microsoft Natural 4000 with mouse
I have 4 monitors on this machine. 1 32inch, and 3 24inch.
Bad User. No biscuit!
Notice the interesting trend of people on Slashdot being generally happy/content with machines that are up to 5-6 yrs old?
That's intriguing from a group of technology happy people who mostly earn good money.
I suspect it's the combination of family obligations (time and money), good work machines, and portable devices...that have reduced our desire and allocation of money for frequently updating our machines. And of course the fact that CPU performance has largely been flat lined over the past several years while SSD upgrades have dramatically improved the performance of our older machines.
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
Lenovo Helix i5 - 4GB ram 256 SSD, stock. That is what I use to connect to the dozens of virtual servers and workstation where I do my real work. So I guess, technically, those are my real primaries? Dunno, I spend my days in virtual environments, sometimes 3 remote desktop / shells deep and I get confused ...
My dream is a 17in laptop (keyboard without num keypad, please), under 2lbs, sort of the ultimate "dumb" terminal ... Nobody makes a machine like that (I think, if you've seen one, chime in). I don't need local horsepower, I just need a connection port to the matrix.
First generation i7 (i7-740QM), 8GB ram, 1GB Nvidia Quadro 1800M, 15" 1920x1080 screen, 240gb Crucial SSD.
OS is Debian Unstable.
we see things not as as they are, but as we are.
-- anais nin
[Despite of the lousy approach of putting numbers and facts in free floating UTF text instead of a database:]
Lenovo T410s
i5 2,4 GHz
6 GB RAM
256 GB SSD
1 TB HD
WWAN and GPS
on docking station
32" 1920x1024 monitor
Logitech Bluetooth keyboard with touchpad, SG
All this is recent, and a result of concentration of my several machines into a single one, for all purposes, as desktop (docking) as well as for travel, containing all and everything that I need in one machine to carry, and sufficient for my purposes as desktop. I always hated all the laptops with cables extended and pulled and plugged from all sides and corners, the docking station is perfect for me.
A smaller partition of the SSD has W7, for the odd application that doesn't run on *nix, and the larger part *buntu 14.04. The 1 TB carries media files. All other data are in the cloud.
Over 5 years or so I expect to be able to migrate this single machine into some sort of phone that does everything as above, including the docking (that is a real keyboard plus touchpad like now when docked), plus phone functions, to carry around in my pocket. I am still waiting for a proper k*buntu, eventually on Qt6 / Plasma 6 to be as much of a great phone interface as a standard interface with a large monitor like above. With the current sizes of 1 TB SSDs this should not be a problem. Rather, I am afraid the OS or its versatility might still be lacking. Just look at Windows 8.1: it is really great on the phone (and I am a *nix person!), while it still is butt-ugly on a larger screen, AFAIAC. Still hoping for improving sanity with the KDE devs in this respect.
with 4 digits or less? :-P
Perl - $Just @when->$you ${thought} s/yn/tax/ &couldn\'t %get $worse;
You buy a CPU that can only address 32GB of memory?
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
No computers are cheap and everywhere
I have a primary work computer
I have a primary lab computer at work
I have a primary game rig at home
I have a primary bench computer in the workshop
I have a primary computer in my pocket
Who cares what's in the computer case? Well, it should work of course. ECC RAM, certainly. But the important parts are the keyboard, trackball and screen. I have an old Dell keyboard with Alps switches. (I don't remember what kind exactly. Something tactile.) I have the worlds best trackball, the Logitech TrackMan Marble FX. And I have a 1920x1200 IPS screen with fairly accurate colours. (Plus an extra 1600x1200 IPS screen with not so accurate colours that is usually turned off.)
(But to answer the question a bit: FX8350/16GB ECC/some SSD/cheapest gfx card in the store.)
The best computer in my house is my kids' minecraft rig, which is fairly unique due to the multiseat setup:
http://trumblings.blogspot.com...
It's a neat trick... but I need to go in and set up udev so I don't have to untangle the usb device IDs in /etc/X11/xorg.conf every time we plug another usb device in, though.
Old system: AMD FX-6100, Asus M5A99X EVO R 2.0, Tuniq Tower 120 heatsink New system: Intel i7-4790K, Asrock Z97-Extreme 6 mobo , Noctua NH-U14 heatsink Carryover from previous system: 32 Gb DDR3-1600, Samsung EVO 840 256 Gb SSD primary drive, three 1.5 - 2 Tb secondary drives, Coolermaster HAF 922 case with front/side/top 200mm, rear 120mm fans Currently on Fedora 22, lots of cycles & space for tinkering w/VMs
Dell T3610
Xeon E5-1620 v2
32GB ram
2 SSDs
NVideo Quadro K600.
It is a dev machine
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Yeah 2008 was forever ago. But this Mac Pro has 2 2.8GHz Quad Core Intel Xeons. That's 8 total cores. 12GB RAM. I have a modern MacBook Pro, but I prefer to work on my Tower when I'm not mobile.
Joseph Elwell.
Linux machine: Linux Mint 17.1 Cinnamon, Dell XPS Studio 435mt (2009) w: Intel i7 920 (2.67 GHz), 12 GB DDR3, DVD, Highpoint SATA 3 PCIe card w/ SSD (OS) and 1 TB HDD (Files), USB 3.0 PCIe card, Nvidia GTX 660 video card. Windows machine: Windows 7 Pro 64-bit, Self-built PC using ASRock 970 Extreme 3 R. 2.0 motherboard w: AMD FX-6300 (3.5 GHz), 8 GB DDR3, DVD, SSD and 1 TB HDD, Nvidia GTX 750Ti video card NAS Server: HP Microserver running NAS4Free (BSD-based) AMD Turion 1.5 GHz dual-core, 2 GB DDR3, 4x WD Enterprise 2 GB HDD in RAID 5, 8 GB USB Flash (OS) I use my Linux box for almost everything, including VMs. I use my Windows box for games and the occasional odd piece of Windows-only software. Everything in the house has access to the NAS server. A lot of the stuff I got used, deeply discounted, or on eBay.
Smoke signals
I did something a bit odd for my desktop, since I wanted a media system more than a gaming monster. It's a year old and is currently running an Apache on a Linux VM to host a website, among other things that've gone far beyond its original design brief. It'll even play Crysis. Well, Crysis 2. The A10 has really impressed me, - better than a crippled Intel and a budget graphics card anyway - and I'm curious to see what happens with the next the next FM2+ products
Fast RAM and an APU go well together. Even if the 7850k wasn't available when I built it.
APU: AMD A10-7700k
Motherboard.: MSI A88xm-E45
RAM: 8GB Kingston Hyper-X 2400Mhz
Cooler: Something that works
PSU: Corsair CX600M Modular
SSD: 128GH Samsung 240Evo
HDD: 1x320GB + 1x1TB salvaged from 'somewhere'
Case: Fractale Design 1000 USB3
BD-RW drive.
It's got basically 500 days of contant running on it. And only the ten year old HDD has ever given issues.
So there I was, scribbling down some notes off the PC screen by hand, when I reached for the keyboard and Ctrl-S'd.
CPU: AMD 2800+ 64-bit, 2GB RAM, 320GB HDD, DVD+-RW drive, 19' Monitor, Gentoo/Win 7.
Serving my need (Internet, Octave, R, Skype) for the last 10 years now.
Ono sendai cyperspace 7
Sig withheld to protect the innocent.
Furthermore, I kinda have always fallen into a hybrid of the 1) - 2) system so I can upgrade *something* every 2 years instead of 4 and still save money overall while also collecting a larger pile of spare parts to build extra lower-end boxes.
When building a new system, I typically get the best motherboard I can, and the cheapest half-decent CPU available for it.
Then in two years after the CPUs have hit the market, I'll throw in the second-best CPU available for that motherboard (the first-best usually still carries a premium). Bonus points for finding something off of Craigslist.
The most recent time I did this was pretty nice... I went from an Athlon II X2 (with 1GHz HT2.0) to a Phenom II X4 (with 2GHz HT3.0), which doubled the memory bandwidth. So even though the core clock went up less than 50% from 2.2Ghz to only 3.2Ghz, I ended up getting more than a 100% improvement in frame rates for my games, even the single-threaded ones that couldn't make use of the additional cores. And the poor sap from Craigslist that I bought the Phenom II X4 system from had it in an older motherboard that only supported HT2.0, so he was missing out on the extra memory bandwidth. I put my old CPU in his motherboard, so that's a better match now.
OS: Windows 8.1/10IP (and yes, I do actually like windows 8.1)
CPU: i5 3570K OC'ed @ 4.0GHz (using an H80 to cool it)
RAM: 16GB DDR3
Video: 2xAMD 7870 2GB
Mobo: Asrock z77
Drives: OS 120GB SSD, Games 500GB SSD, Storage/Docs 4TB, no optical
LAN: 802.11ac (however, currently in the middle of running cat6 throughout the house)
But Maaa! Everyone else has a
CPU - AMD FX-8320
mainboard - MSI 760GMA-P34(FX)
RAM - 8GB DDR3 1600
Video - Radeon R3 1GB GDDR5 (I'm not a huge PC gamer - mostly MAME and console emulators)
Storage - 1x128GB SSD for boot, 4TB HDD for storage, 3TB HDD for Windows Media Center OTA DVR (soon to be for upcoming HDHomerun DVR)
Optical - LG triple-layer BD burner (mainly for ripping discs)
this system is mainly used as a Plex server, WMC box for Xbox360s as extenders (going dead when Win10 comes out), and a general office computer I use for work.
...iMac, 27-inch, late 2013.
3.5 GHz Intel Core i7
32GB 1600 MHz DDR3
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M 4096MB
1.12TB Fusion Drive
OSX 10.9.5
Used for graphics processing and Parallels virtual machines (Win 7 and OSX 10.6).
The pursuit of absolute tolerance leads to the most rigorous and ludicrous intolerance. - REX MURPHY
My desktop is currently a refurbished HP Z800 workstation with some upgrades:
- 2x Intel Xeon X5675 @ 3.07 GHz
- 48GB DDR3 SDRAM
- NVidia Quadro 5000 (waiting for a EVGA GTX980Ti to arrive)
- 5x Samsung EVO 500GB SSDs (RAID-5)
The SSDs were an upgrade, it came with a single 300GB SAS disk. Also upgrading the video card, since the Quadro is ancient.
Had been using a older Dell XPS720 since 2006 or so, figured it was time to upgrade to something better that won't need any significant upgrades for another 5+ years.
I have other boxes in my home lab, but this is my gaming+everything else box.
"We'll need 2000 crickets, 4 cans of Easy Cheese, and the fluid from 18 glowsticks for this plan to work...." - ph0n1c
Lots of fans.
Oh, and blue LEDs.
Have gnu, will travel.
FWIW, for my main desktop I run a nice cute ECS Liva (dual 1.7 Celerons, 2 GB RAM, 16 GB flash 3W). It replaced an Asus 900 Mhz EEE 10W. This machine is up 24/7 along with a few headless power-sipper Atoms & Raspberries. Fit for purpose
I have some compute monster 3 Ghz quad 16 GB, but they seldom see power more than once per week. Just not needed unless I have a big job like transcoding GBs or a major project build.
.
For me, instant availability is worth more than wait-time. In fact, I would rather wait and know I've got a bloated page than have the flash whiz past. More important are the HID -- like a great screen (I prefer portrait 1200x1960) and good kbd/mse.
CPU: Intel i7-920 2.66 GHz 45nm
GFX: Evga GeForce GTX 260
Mobo: Evga x58 3x SLI - LGA 1366 i7
RAM: Corsair Dominator DDR3 1600 6Gb
Case: Cooler Master HAF 932
System HDD: Western Digital Caviar Black 7200rpm WD 1000 LSRTL 1 Tb
Data HDD: 3x 1Tb
Ext HDD: Simpletech 1Tb Pro-drive
PS: Corsair TX850W
Optical: LG BH08 Super Multi Blue
OS: Win 7 Ultimate - 64 bit
Mouse: Logitech MX-1100
Monitor: 2x HP Pavilion 2311x
+1
Im still on a 2600k and besides a vid card upgrade for gaming this processor is going to last at least another 2-4 years. Looking at the preliminary skylake testing theres no huge gains to be had in the next tick for intel compared to that. Everyone I know with the 2600's have all agreed it was probably their best pc component purchase ever. For me I still run it stock and have no reason to even OC yet since with a gtx970 it can still run almost every game out there at max settings and put out 60fps+ which I dont see changing any time soon since games arent particularly cpu constrained
Thinkpad T500 here. Nothing fancy, 3 GB of memory, Core 2 Duo @ 2.53 GHz, Mobility Radeon HD 3650.
I buy cheap refurbs. Computers have hit the price point of being essentially disposable, and my needs for raw computing horsepower aren't that great on my primary box. I mostly need a browser, text editor, and a shell.
Guess that has to be my main server, even though it's a few generations older than my desktop, it has more cores, more IO, more memory and more storage. It runs FreeBSD.
Case: SuperChassis 745TQ-R800B (pic)
Motherboard: Supermicro X8DTN+
CPUs: 2 x 6-core Xeon L5639 @ 2.13GHz
RAM: 144GB - 9 x 16GB DDR3-1333 ECC Reg
Primary Storage: 2 x SanDisk Extreme Pro 960GB, ZFS mirror.
Mass Storage: 6 x 5TB Toshiba MD04ACA5, ZFS 3 x mirror.
Disk controller: IBM M1015, seems one of the most favoured HBA's these days.
Keyboard: NTC KB-6153EA with clicky White Alps.
I play with search engines and stuff, the memory comes in handy and I got it for a great price.
Desktop is a 32GB ECC quad core Haswell Xeon mumble mumble running Windows 8.1, with a pair of 30" 1600p monitors and a 20" 1600x1200. Nice having space to put stuff. Also nice having memory that doesn't silently corrupt itself every few months, you crazy kids and your non-parity.
But really I have no direct clue as to what I have without checking.
And that considering the fact that I used to upgrade computers every couple of years and sometimes even upgrade some component in between and that I have built dozens of computers over the years, advised what to buy for hundreds of computer purchases and so on.
But the only reason that I bought this computer was that the motherboard on my previous one "let out the magic smoke" after it had been serving about four years and that is three years ago. I have no current plans to upgrade or switch computers as there is no need, so it will likely serve until it gives up. By now I may have done something to the previous one if it had survived, something like install a SSD and reinstall windows on it.. though it is far from certain.
How times change.
MacBook Pro, 2.7GHz quad core i7, 16GB ram, 750GB SSD, 2 external Thunderbolt monitors
iMac, 3.4GHz quad core i7, 32GB ram, 1TB internal storage, 12TB Thunderbolt RAID
Dell T420, ESXi 6, dual 6 core Xeons, 128GB ram, 6TB RAID
Dell T110, ESXi 6, quad core Xeon, 32GB ram, 2TB RAID
Custom FreeNAS server, quad core Xeon, 32GB ram, 16TB of ZFS goodness
Anywhere from 30 to 70 VMs depending on the projects I'm currently working on. I've got a few old boxes set up as an OpenStack lab.
Main PC for the house. Office apps, Backup host for all other PCs, Skype, Music, Photo library, Video Editing, Gaming
Windows 7 x64
HP Pavilion Tower
2nd Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3930K six-core processor [3.2GHz, Shared 12MB Cache]
12GB DDR3-1333MHz SDRAM
256GB Solid state drive
1TB 7200 rpm SATA hard drive
3GB AMD Radeon HD 7950 [Dual Bracket, DVI, HDMI, 2x mini-DP]
Liquid Cooling Solution
Blu-ray player & SuperMulti DVD burner
Wireless-N LAN card (1x1)
15-in-1 memory card reader, 4 x USB 2.0 (front), 2 x USB 3.0 (top)
HP 2711x 27 inch Diagonal LED Monitor
HP HD-4110 Webcam
Bose Companion 2.0 Speakers
Razer Naga Mouse
Razer Black Widow Ultimate Keyboard
Logitech Mouse
Logitech Wireless Headset H800
Belkin Nostromo Speedpad n52
You can lose something that is loose, so tighten the loose item so you don't lose it.
* SUPERMICRO MBD-X10SLM+LN4F-O Micro ATX Server Motherboard LGA 1150 DDR3 1600
* Intel Xeon E3-1246 v3 Haswell 3.5GHz 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1150 84W Server Processor BX80646E31246V3
* Kingston 32GB (4 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM ECC Unbuffered DDR3 1600 Server Memory w/TS Model KVR16E11K4/32
* EVGA 04G-P4-2744-KR GeForce GT 740 Superclocked 4GB 128-Bit DDR3 PCI Express 3.0 Video Card
* SAMSUNG 840 EVO MZ-7TE1T0BW 2.5" 1TB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
* SUPERMICRO SuperChassis CSE-512F-350B Black 1U Rackmount Server Chassis 350W
Has been working well for me so far, purchased for a multicasting experiment.
Main:
Core i5 4670k @ 4.3Ghz
Gigabyte Z87 mobo
32GB DDR3 RAM
256GB Samsung 840 Pro SSD (OS/Apps)
2 x 1TB Seagate HDD in RAID0 (scratch disk)
2 x ATI Radeon HD5850 Crossfire
Watercooled CPU/GFX (mainly for the noise)
2x 24" 1080p Samsung LCD
Older 50" LG FullHD Plasma (movies)
Runs Win7 Used mostly for VMs, Creative Suite and a bit of Gaming and HTPC use.
NAS/Server:
AMD Athlon II x4 615e
8GB DDR2
Asrock Nforce based mobo
LSI 16 Port PCIe X8 SAS/Sata Controller
4 x 5in3 SAS/SATA backplanes w/trays. 64GB SSD OCZ Vertex III (OS)
16 x 2/8TB HDDs (RAID6, main storage ~100TB usable w/XFS once upgrade to 8TB drives is complete)
2 x 4TB HDD(RAID1, backups)
2 x PCIe Gbe Network cards
1 x PCIe Wifi adapter a/b/g/n
Runs Ubuntu Server, Mainly used for archiving lots of VMs, DVD and BD images. Also does double duty as main router/Intranet/VPN host. Runs 24/7.
Also several other older systems around the place, but nothing particularly interesting about them, they're mostly Franken-rigs built with whatever leftovers were available during a decades worth of upgrade cycles and random projects.
"Oh look at me, I'm so awesome, I don't need that high end technology! I'm just so great and productive that this old stuff is excellent!"
The reason I say that is because I've always seen it on Slashdot. Many people here seem to take pride in using old systems. Even back in the P2 days when a brand new system was still "slow" for a lot of things you'd have people humblebraging on how they were using a 486 and it was fine.
While I'll certainly agree that machines have WAY more life these days (a 5 year old machine is perfectly serviceable at work for most things) it has always been something I've observed on Slashdot. Rather than a bunch of people bragging on the high end hardware they have, as you tend to see on gaming forums, you have a bunch of people bragging on the low end hardware they have.
Built in 2009, hardware cost: about $900 originally.
Currently:
Gigabyte X58/1366 socket (can't remember the exact model now)
Processor: Core i7 920 (Bloomfield) -- runs stock speed but is undervolted to 1.005v
6 GB DDR3/1600 running in tri-channel configuration
Geforce GTX 670 graphics card (this is actually an upgrade for me from January)
WD Caviar Black - 1 TB -- Boot Drive
Storage drives
WD Caviar Black - 640 GB (this was the original boot drive when I built it)
Samsung - 1 TB
Seagate - 2 TB
Optical drives:
Lite-On DVD burner w. Lightscribe support
Pioneer BD burner
OS: Currently Windows 8.1, originally Windows XP x64
Case: Antec Nine-Hundred
Power Supply: Antec TPQ-850
Monitor: Samsung T240HD (this is a 1920x1200 monitor with TV tuner functionality and component vid inputs) (separate purchase)
I'm not much of a gamer, and the system was built for my hobby of video processing/encoding, so I focused on putting money in the CPU and graphics were less important. I only had the one smaller Caviar and the DVD burner. But as HD video becomes more popular, storage needs grew. I do play games occasionally and have an account on Steam, I originally had a Radeon HD4830/512 for the graphics card and it worked fine. I had to upgrade recently because of the high video processing requirements of MadVR and a friend gifted me a copy of Transistor last Christmas (the system requirements needed a card with at least 1 GB of VRAM). I actually bought the GeForce second-hand from the same friend for a good price (it's an RMA replacement he'd only used for a few months himself before upgrading to a GTX 970).
I might build a new rig this year. I don't really have a processing emergency or anything, but I want to see what Skylake offers. I'd like a system that isn't so large and runs cooler. I have an NCASE M1 in a box here for the next system when I do it, and I already have a small FreeNAS server running I want to transition all the video storage to in the future so I don't need all the spinning drives in the PC. Will likely go to an SSD and 16 GB RAM for the next build.
Get off my LAN comment in 3 .. 2 .. 1 ..
FTFY. :-)
I just went through an upgrade / refresh cycle, so normally I'm not this up-to-date with my hardware
== Laptop ==
2012 Macbook Air, 2 GHz i7, 8 GB RAM, 256 SSD
I wanted to buy the new retina Macbook Air, but the situation with ports, processor, etc was enough to keep me on this thing for the time being.
== Home desktop ==
i5-4690K, 16 GB RAM, 512 SSD
Motherboard = I don't remember, one of the ones that works well with OS X (at some point I'll hackintosh it)
GPU GTX 970
Went with the 970 b/c it's way cheaper than the 980 (and apparently has way less RAM...which was annoying to find out after the fact)
I went with the K because at some point I'll goof around with overclocking
== Workstation 1 ==
i7-4820K, 32 GB RAM, 512 SSD
Motherboard = I don't remember, something about 4 channel RAM...
GPU Titan Black
I went with the i7 to test hyper threading performance. This machine also has very good single threaded performance (it shuts down the other cores and ups the clock on one of them).
This machine is due for a PCIe SSD upgrade (for testing performance where 32 GB RAM isn't enough)
The Titan is for double precision CUDA work.
I went with the K because at some point I'll goof around with overclocking
== Workstation 2 ==
Dual Xeon E5-2660 v2 (top says I have 40 threads), 28 GB RAM, 1 TB spinning disk (it was lying around...)
Motherboard = I don't remember, it has two sockets...
GPU GTX 980
The 980 works _very_ well for real time rendering.
I plan to switch to 4k monitors on the workstations relatively soon (I want a reasonably priced IPS panel to show up).
After my previous enormous rig proved to be a pain to move around or even keep on my desk, I became fixated on the impressive progress that Mini-ITX systems have made. Unless you are doing something extreme and/or specialized such as SLI, water cooling, or multiple-disk arrays, there really is no need to build a large ATX system anymore; even for gamers. My current setup with a Silverstone SG08 allows me to use a video card of any length in a sleek, compact system that still outperforms many of my friends' much larger rigs. This is also the main reason why I finally ended my many years as an AMD fanboy and went Intel. AMD's options for SFF systems are paltry in comparison. On top of that, Intel offers the 1200 series Xeons which fit in the 1155 and 1150 sockets. This allowed me to get a CPU with the power of an i7 for the price of an i5. Drawbacks? No overclocking (what practical reason is there to overclock an i7, anyway?) and no integrated GPU, which doesn't matter since I have a discreet Geforce 970. I've also been enamoured with the NUC systems, especially when paired with fanless Akasa enclosures. A competent PC that has no moving parts and will never get internally clogged up with dust? Hell. Yes.
CPU: Intel i7-920 unlocked / overclocked to 3.6
Cooler: Corsaire H20-all in one (think it's the H20 80 or 100?)
Motherboard: Asus P5T5 Workstation Revolution
Video card: Geforce GTX 670
Memory: 9GB Misc prize memory 2x2x2 + 1x1x1 in tripple channel
Storage(SSD/HDD): Twin OCZ Agility 3's 120GB in Raid 0 for a single 240
WD 2Tb storage drive
Optical drives: Cheap DVD-/+ RW,
Case: Antec 900 (the first one)
Display: SGI 3.2 Megapixel 4:3 CRT monitor.
Yeah, it's getting long in the tooth, but it's sooo pretty!
It's probably the next part to be upgraded
How much is your data worth? Back it up now.
I do programming and systems administration, both mostly in Perl.
This computer is more than five years old, a Gigabyte GA-EP45 motherboard, an Intel Core 2 quad CPU at 2.66GHz
maxed out at 8GB RAM, swap often used little; currently, less than 1%.
2 1TB disks in software RAID 1
Has never run any OS but Fedora, now F22.
XFCE desktop.
Three monitors: two 27" Kogan 2560x1440 displays, one Samsung 2443 1920x1200
AMD HD5450 with heatsink only, no fan, for reliability. DisplayPort, DVI, VGA outputs drive each monitor.
In the 90s, there was a joke: "If you want to know if you're talking to a decision maker in a company or not, ask them how much RAM is in their computer. Anyone who knows, isn't a decision maker."
But now, we're riding on the cusp of almost a decade of "It just doesn't matter." Most computers are good enough for most tasks for most folks. And by "most" I mean 98% in every case. My work computer has 8 GB of RAM but I only know that because I remember it being upgraded so I could run VMs. My main computer at home has 4 GB and I know that because every once in a while I think about upgrading and I check prices and then I decide not to bother. But I couldn't tell you the exact CPU in either (one might be a Core i5 and the other an i7), nor do I know the speed on either to within 200 MHz. (I think one is 2.3 and the other is 2.7 but I couldn't say for sure which is which, nor am I certain about either of those numbers. Maybe one is a 2.5 or 2.2?)
God only knows what graphics cards they have or who makes them or how much VRAM they have and I don't even know if my machine at home has integrated graphics or discreet. (Work laptop is a MacBook Pro with both; required to drive my 30" display.) This isn't like the old days where it was easy to remember that 1 MB gave you 640x480x24bpp and 2 MB gave you 800x600x24bpp and I was happy to find the *one* 4 MB card that gave me 1024x768x24bpp because I had just found a SWEET 17" CRT for only $400, used, and I didn't want to buy an expensive card with 8 MB to drive it. My 4-year-old computer at work drives my 30" display at 2560x1600 and my equally old computer at home drives a 24" at 1920x1200, so who gives a shit if they're doing that with 1 GB or 2 GB or 512 MB VRAM? Yeah, I'll have to upgrade someday if I want to spend hundreds on a 4K display, but I have no plans to do that. (Dreams, yes; plans, no.) And when the time DOES come, my "upgrade" will be "buy a new machine, transfer my files, and sell the old one."
So anyway, long story short: no fucking clue. But I can bore you with the specs of every computer I owned before around 2008 if you want, including which parts I bought where and what I paid for them.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Gigabyte B85M-D3H Motherboard (Intel B85 chipset).
Core i5-4690 (picked for best value for single thread execution)
16GB RAM (upgradable to 32GB)
256GB Crucial M550 SSD for OS and applications
1TB Western Digital Black HDD for storage
I use the onboard graphics because I don't game, has h.264 hardware acceleration, and it has outputs for HDMI, VGA, DVI, so I can connect 3x 1080 monitors. I have a VGA extension cord running to the living room, so I can plug it into the VGA port to use as a "media PC" with wireless headphones and Logitech K400 keyboard (in addition to my desktop keyboard/mouse set).
Windows 7 Home Premium
I didn't build it myself, but had a local PC shop build it.
CPU: MOS 6510 1.023Mhz
Motherboard; Rev. B
Video card: MOS 6567 (VIC II)
Memory: 64KB
Storage: Commodore 1541 floppy drive, 5.25", 170KB
Display: Commodore 1081 CRT
Peripherals: SD2IEC SD card reader
Try it! Library of Babel
I'm running a i7-4770S on an Asus Z87-K motherboard, 16 gigs of Corsair DDR3 1600 MHz (PC3 12800) (CMX8GX3M2A 1600C9) Ram, with an OCZ Vertex 4 Series 128GB SSD, and secondary storage is a WD Red 2TB WD20EFRX. I have a very basic Nvidia 610 graphics card (it was too much of a PITA to try to get my dual Acer H233H's to work with the built-in Intel graphics, though they are PROBABLY faster than this card. Honestly, I'm a developer, I like screen realestate, I could care less about super speed GPU. The thing sips power, usually around 72 watts total system power, Corsair CX500M PS is very efficient. I have NO CPU FAN on this machine at all (its in some old brand-X mini-tower. Its dead quiet and really awesome.
I bought my wife a prebuilt Acer the other day, it was nearly the same price, barely any faster, if at all, has half the RAM, no SSD, 500GB HD, and integrated graphics. This is a good time for build-your-own, unlike 5 or 10 years ago. Prebuilt desktop machines are junk, and the crap they call windows that comes on them is some nasty nasty stuff.
"Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem." -- Jefferson
The core of my primary computer is grayish, it has about 100 billion cores. Research is ongoing as on how it works.
no, I don't have a sig
My Vic 20 still works too ;)
"Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem." -- Jefferson
Sad thing is that any mobo I could buy that would fit my 3Ghz Core Duo was either used or new but lacking in too many features and massively expensive.
It ran everything I needed smooth as silk. That was a sad day
The old machine:
EVGA 750i mobo Nvidia chipset
3 Ghz core duo
EVGA 580 GTX video card
8 GB 1066 Mhz DDR2
1 TB SATA WB Black HD.
X-Fi Titanium sound card
The only thing I disliked is that it was very noisy with the mobo fan, 5 case fans(2 in front/top 1 in back), the monstrous GPU aftermarket cooler and the two fans on the video card. It was annoyingly loud and still ran hot.
I was planning on keeping it for a few more years. For the people wondering why so many are holding on to older machines is because they still run most modern software just fine. No one sane upgrades for the sake of it. The time when a machine started struggling after two years is long gone and is one of the reasons why so many desktop makers are struggling today.
With no viable and reasonably-priced mobo replacement available, I bit the bullet and built a new machine.
EVGA Z97 FTW mobo
Intel i5 3.5 Ghz processor
EVGA 960 GTX Superclocked video card
Gskill 8 GB 2400 Mhz DDR3 RAM
3x 1TB SATA 3 WD Black HD
EVGA 650W supernova gold PSU
X-Fi Titanium sound card - The only part I recycled. Older hardware is worth more today than it was when I bought it. Selling off the old PSU, GPU, RAM and CPU paid for a good chunk of my new computer..
With an Antec case this cost me around $850 and got The Witcher 3 for free and $80 worth of annoying mail in rebates.
Yeah, benchmarks are much faster but aside from games, there is no noticeable performance increase for day to day usage(including running VirtualBox instances) but the fact that the PSU and video card fans rarely turn on and the mobo doesn't have a fan is a huge plus. I don't think I have have heard the PSU fan ever turn on and the GPU fan only turns on when the card hits 61 C.
The CPU is using its stock heatsink/fan which is very quiet. I only have two case fans and the case has sound-proofing.
My machine is very quiet, I rarely hear anything coming from the box.
It also runs significantly cooler than my old rig.
I buy a customised white box tower with no OS and the least hardware the whiteboxer will ship. I did this in early 2012 with an Asus motherboard, i7 2600 and as many silent/quiet components (including soundpoofing) as possible. I do think PCs should be decibel rated - there's nothing worse than a noisy PC!
Stuff added in the 3.5 years I've had it: 32GB RAM (109 pounds - bought almost at the bottom of the pricing curve), 128GB SATA 3 SSD, 480GB PCIe SSD, muliple 3TB and 4TB fast HDDs, lowly HD7790 card (I rarely play games), an old combo CD/DVD/HD DVD/Blu Ray drive I keep moving to my latest PC cos it's impossible to get such a combo drive new now, 27" 2560x1440 DGM monitor (same LG panel iMacs use).
Problem is that the tech for my next "twice as good" PC (64GB DDR4 RAM, 8-core CPU, USB 3.1, M.2 SSDs, 8TB HDDs, 30" monitor maybe 4K?) probably needs around 18 months more to mature and come down to sane prices, so I'm going to be not far from 5 years between PC replacements, which is the longest for me to date as far as tower desktops go.
There isn't really much you can do programming-wise that can outclass an i7 (1st gen) or better with an SSD as long as you have enough RAM.
love is just extroverted narcissism
Copying it from the newegg invoice what I am typing this on is:
CPU INTEL|CORE I7 4790K 4.0G 8M R
SSD 1T|SAMSUNG MZ-75E1T0B/AM R
VGA MSI | GTX 970 GAMING 100ME RTL
MB MSI | Z97A GAMING 7 RTL
MEM 8Gx2|GSKILL F3-2400C10D-16GTX R
BLU-RAY BURNER LG| WH14NS40
PSU CORSAIR | CX750 750W RT
CASE CORSAIR | CARBIDE 200R RT
MS WIN 8.1 PRO 64 BIT %
I'm a signature virus. Please copy me to your signature so I can replicate.
Apple Mac Pro master race signing on
Boing boing boing....
Probably the last one where the batteries are not Glued, meaning that, when the time is due, after removing 14 pentalobe screws, and doing some other voodoo I can replace them myself.*
2,4Ghz proc, 8GB RAM and 255SSD.
Is used mainly as a Desktop, so extrernal wired USB Keyboard (from an HP PA-RISK Workstation no less, which probably means the machine never goes into deep hibernation) ...
And wired Genius 1200dpi mouse (tried the magic mouse for 3 weeks, hated it).
A second panel, a Dell P2011H (with all the shortages in Venezuela, I was lucky to get this one) Bought mainly because it can pivot.
And a bunch of extrenal USB 2.0 HDDs and Hubs (inherited from the previous machine). Only this machine is backed up (via time Machine).
Mostly web browsing, office work, ScreenFlow lectures, Chromecasting and Portal 1 and 2 as well as Left 4 Dead 1 and 2 (stupid me bought them at the same time).
Windows 8.1 64 Bits via BootCamp for Arkam Origins and via VirtualBox for Project and Visio.
LabTec LCS-600 Speakers from my DEC starion 700i (still sound good).
Also have a MacBook Aluminum Unibody Late 2008, was my main machine until a few months ago, now at my parents' house (I visit every 3 weeknds or so). And an old and beaten toshiba from 2007 when I need to take a machine with me for presentations and notetaking (used to carry the mac to impress people circa 2009, but that now is old school), if I get mugged, not much is lost really.
* My previous mac was hit by pregnant battery syndrome, and I do not live near an Apple Store (as a matter of fact, there are none in my country), since I use the machine as a desktop, I only realized the malaise when I was at a customer consulting gig, and was later told by apple that "The battery is a consumible anyway, not covered by AppleCare". I bowed to never buy an apple battery again, nor buy a laptop were I am not able to replace the battery.
*** Suerte a todos y Feliz dia!
The same reason you do not want to upgrade caused me to upgrade. Computers are not really getting faster at a good rate any longer, especially at the top end.
My old computer was a 3.2ghz dual core AMD with more than normal cache memory, a middle of the line graphics card from the era, and 8GB memory from 2009 which cost me about $800. It runs nearly everything, but not at max.
My new one is nearly top of the line, which is partly due to seeing the similar one I ordered for the lady last year, and partly looking at product roadmaps and determining that it would be at least a few years before anything substantially faster would be released.
It was about twice the cost and six years later, and is about twice as fast for CPU limited tasks (the SSD is a major improvement, hard drive load times are much faster, the kind of games I play are usually vsync locked at 60 anyway.)
I'm a signature virus. Please copy me to your signature so I can replicate.
That's what I've found. I'm angling to get one of my clients to pay for an upgrade to 32GB. Figure it will take a couple years to eat through that.... I will say though, in 2013 16GB was fine, the stuff just shrinks over time and the fit gets tight.
"Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem." -- Jefferson
Home server: i7-4770s, 32gb RAM, Gigabyte Z87 motherboard (don't remember the model, but it was the cheapest with 3 x16 slots), LSI 9211, Dell PERC H800, 2x 240gb SSDs (Intel 520, Corsair Force 3) in a software RAID 1, 6x Seagate 2TB HDD in a software RAID 6, 8x 3TB HDDs (mixed models, some Seagate, some WD Reds) in a software RAID 6, plus external drive array with 8x 3TB WD Reds in a HW RAID 6. Oh, and a Chenbro SAS expander on the internal SAS bus. Primary laptop: Dell Precision M3800 (i7-4712HQ, 16gb RAM, 1TB Samsung 840 EVO mSata, 960gb Crucial M500 2.5") Primary desktop: temporarily in pieces, not working, but Dell Precision T3500 (Xeon W3570, 12gb RAM [6x 2gb]) no hard drives right now, Nvidia GTX560 don't remember who made the card.
I've got a 4-core 955 AMD CPU running at 3.2GHz in a generic ASUS motherboard populated with 8GB of DDR3 RAM, a 120GB Sandisk SSD on SATA-3 for OS and programs with a 3TB spinning-rust Toshiba drive for data. The video card is a lowish-end AMD R250 with 1GB of video RAM, nothing special, chosen because it was the cheapest card I could find with DisplayPort.
Why DisplayPort? Because my mad money went on buying a 32" IPS 4k monitor, the Dell Ultrasharp UP3214Q and I needed DisplayPort to drive it at 60Hz. I have no peripheral vision left. It's the best computer upgrade I've ever spent money on, even better than fitting an SSD as a boot drive. My eyes aren't getting any younger after all.
My previous monitor, a 27" Dell IPS 2560x1440 display is running in portrait-mode as a sidekick off the same card with no hassles but I do most of my computing (video, graphics, photoediting, browsing) on the 4k monitor directly in front of me. If you're hesitating about going 4k, my advice is don't wait. The IPS panels like this Dell are more expensive than the smaller TN 4k displays but I really wanted the extended colour gamut and good off-axis viewing the TN displays lack.
I don't play any spec-hungry games, so my focus was on what I do use: media.
..every one of them 95-99%+ full. can't believe it's 2015 and i'm back to 'well which do i want to delete to make room for my next download'
-27" high-end-but-not-eizo-level primary monitor, 17" auxillary display off to the side
-Pentium G620 (dual-core/2.6GHz) on Gigabyte P67A-UD3-B3 board (AMD actually lost on my low-end price/single-core performance search; and bad enough to make me switch away after 4 systems/12 years with AMD)
-8GB RAM
-Radeon 4850 (was outdated even when i bought it, but it has more than enough power even still, won't be upgrading until 4k)
-Onboard sound/LAN
-dvdrw/multi-card reader
-Storage.. this is what happens when you're too poor to expand drives in a way other than adding old ones:
--1x1TB@7200rpm SATA (OS)
--1x4TB SATA
--1x2TB SATA
--1x750GB IDE (SATA bridge)
--4x500GB individual disks in external NAS
Mobo: ASRock B85M Pro4
CPU: Core i3-4150
RAM: 16GB DDR3
Video Card: Geforce 750 Ti
PSU: Corsair CX430
Drives: Samsung 840 Evo (250GB) and Samsung 850 Evo (250GB)
Case: Some cheap case
OS: Windows 7
The best part of this is that after tweaking the fan controls and drive standby settings, the machine runs almost silent. You can just barely pick up a hum when sitting at the desk, more than a couple feet away you can't hear anything.
Not sure how I feel about running Windows 7 as my main OS after 15 years as a Linux guy, but it has been acceptable so far.
with an Asus M7N78 Pro and 4 gigs ram running a Geforce GTX 660. Yes, you can pair a cpu that old with a GPU that new :P. I'd like to upgrade but everytime I think I'm ready my car breaks and there goes my CPU upgrade :(.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
I consider that a feature, not a bug.
I dont really want to be locked into a single ecosystem, I dual boot Linux and Windows, except for the box that runs ESXi but technically that also runs Windows and Linux in VMs. I haven't found a use for OSX that these two didn't cover... in fact I haven't really found a use for OSX at all.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
15" Retina Display
2.5 GHz Core i7
16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
500 GB SSD
AMD Radeon R9 M370X with 2GB of GDDR5 memory and automatic graphics switching (Intel Iris Pro 1536 MB)
Also have several external USB drives for storage:
5 TB Seagate (USB 3)
3 TB Western Digital (USB 2)
1 TB Western Digital (USB 3)
500 GB Samsung (USB 3) -- used to mirror the SSD drive as backup using Time Machine
http://zimage.com/~ant/antfarm... ;)
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
2013 Quad core i5 iMac 27" with 8 GB of RAM, internal 1TB HD. It's a nice machine and pretty, too.
I'm surprised there are so few iMac's admitted to on this post.
I use my current setup for everything, watching movies on dvd, streaming netflix/amazon video, web browsing, and of course gaming. My current rig consists of:
Asus z97 Motherboard
i5 4690k
8GB of 2400Mhz SDRAM
EVGA GTX 970 SSC
500GB SSD
LG Bluray burner
I play everything from retro/indie titles to free to play games to current games like witcher 3 wild hunt.
>>Sig under construction
Mac Pro 2013 Quad core dual AMD video 12 GB/512GB.
It's primary purpose has been applying genetic algorithms to financial data. Long live OpenCL.
Now that I have packaged up that blackbox solution I am looking for new and interesting things to do with it. But whomever my next financial client is will probably want ML algorithms applied to financial data instead of GA.
I am typing this on a 2008 Toshiba laptop. Nothing fancy. Intel Core2 Duo T6500 @ 2.10GHz. Upgraded the memory to the maximum of 8GB a year or two ago, and that made it fast enough. Of course it runs Linux (Kubuntu 14.04 LTS, yes KDE, not Gnome nor Unity). As long as it does the job, and fast enough, why replace it?
2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning.
CPU: Intel core i7 3820 3.6ghz CPU
RAM: 32 gigs Patriot Intel Extreme memory
Cooling: Corsair H60 closed loop water cooler
System drive: 120Gig Kingston HyperX 3K SSD
Data drive: Western Digital Black 2TB HDD
Video cards: 2 X EVGA GTX 670 FTW Edition (factory over clocked version) in SLI.
Case: Thermal take Chaser MK-1 full tower
Sony bluray/DVD/CD burner
Motherboard: Asus P9X79 Pro X79 supports quad crossfire or 3 way SLI
OS: Windows 7 Professional 64bit
Logitech marble trackball
Microsoft Sidewinder X4 keyboard
Nostromo N52 macro pad
XBox PC USB game controller
Second PC is AMD dual core 2.1 GHz
8 gig ram
Debian Linux
6 X 1 TB hard drives
Shared on LAN as file server, running rutorrent web frontend for remote and vnc
Nexus 7 2013 32gig tablet
Acer AMD Quad core / 4 gig laptop with ati 3200hd video I use for work, or whatnot.
4 raspberry pi , 2 setup as WiFi repeaters I occasionally leave at hospital or library to act as colocated proxies :-P
And an old iPod touch 3rd gen.
Plus 3 old dual core amd desktop PCs in closet unused.
With windows 7
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
* Intel Core i3 2120
* Intel mobo, H67 with onboard third-party USB 3.0 controller
* AMD HD 6670 - 1GB GDDR5
* 500W Antec PSU - Recycled from 2 computers ago
* 4 GB DDR3 1066 MHz - Recycled from 1 computer ago
* Corsair M500 240 GB - System
* WD Blue 1TB - Data
* WD Green 1TB - Video encoding
* Pioneer BDR-209D Blu Ray burner
* Onboard Realtek audio
* Onboard Intel gigabit LAN
* Brother L2380DW PSC mono laser
* 20" Dell monitor from about 2007
* $16 no-name case
At the time I built it, the system also had a recycled 640 GB WD Blue and optical drive. I wanted to upgrade my AMD X2 240 HP system with integrated graphics to do some moderate gaming and get the latest IO standards - USB 3 and SATA 3.
The Intel 2120 was a commonly recommended processor at the time (Mid 2012) and the mobo was the best reviewed board with all my desired features for under $100. The 2nd gen Intel stuff was also starting to come down in price a bit as the 3rd gen parts started trickling out.
The graphics card came recommended from Tom's Hardware; it was a toss up between the horsepower of the AMD card with GDDR3 and an NVIDIA card with less horsepower but faster GDDR5; I found the AMD card with GDDR5 on sale.
The rig ended up playing vanilla Skyrim on high fairly well and Mass Effect 3 on high quite well at the time. PC gaming was easy in the last half of previous gen gaming with everything being ports from ancient consoles. Not so much nowadays. CPU benchmarks were something like twice as high and GPU was hugely faster for a something like $350. It hasn't felt inadequate for the last 3 years or so until the requirements for next gen games I wanted to play started coming out and I started transcoding Blu Rays in Handbrake. Usually queue up jobs to run before I go to work and bed now.
A10-6850K, 16GB RAM, 64GB C: SSD, 2TB D:, Radeon 6670 (needs upgrade), 21" 1680x1050 Dell monitor (23" 1080p monitor died after a power failure), BDRW drive. also, 1.5TB USB HDD and 10.8TB Drobo (got to put my movies somewhere). it rips movies, it plays games, and it surfs the intertubes.
-It is by will alone I set my mind in motion.
It's an Acer with a quad core AMD processor. At least the integrated graphics is Raedon HD 6530D. I upgraded it to 12 GB of memory so I can run all the old OSes in Virtual Box.
Five years ago I was running a slew of systems on a 4-way KVM and also dabbling in Sparc hardware. Right now I am just using the stuff you buy in a store. For casual use I have an Asus Transformer running Windows 8.1. I gave up on Android awhile back and Apple made everything I've ever bought from them obsolete so fast that I'm not going back. I have a Macintosh SE/30 that runs NetBSD though. X11 is, well, interesting on an SE/30.
Computer 'hotrodding' is very 1990's in my opinion. But I got old and grew up, I suppose. My first 'PC' was an 8 MHz 8088 motherboard I bought at a swapmeet. My first hard drive was a full height Shugart 5 Megabyte MFM drive I bought second hand when everybody else was spending hundreds on Seagate ST225s. I spent too much money learning electronics back then to buy anything shiny-new from the store. My first home computer with disk drives was a CP/M machine with 8" floppy diskettes and all 64K of ram. It didn't have a case until I shoehorned the board into a surplus rackmount case.
After Bessie Smith, and she has grown from a 133Mhz Pentium with 32 MB RAM and 2 (Count 'em, two!) 1.2 GB hard drives in true axe-of-my-forefathers style. Ahem. Ready?
CPU: Intel Core i7 5930K Haswell-E 3.5GHz Hexacore CPU
RAM: 24GB (6 x 4GB) G-Skill RipJaws 1600 DDR3 RAM
GPU:EVGA Nvidia GTX 780Ti KingPin edition
GPU: Another one just like it. All the shiny, are belongs to me!
SSD: 2 x 256 one for Windows, one for Linux
HDD: 2 x 1TB HDD, RAID 0, for data and games I'm not playing right now.
PSU: 1200W CoolerMaster Silent Gold
Case: Corsair Graphite 760T
Monitors: 3 x 24 inch, giving me a great big shiny 5760x1200 field of view
I also have a copy of WinTune 97 that I have carried across all the iterations of this machine. A benchmarking run takes around 5 seconds now, so it's probably not all that accurate, but as a historical document, it's very interesting.
MBP, last year. 13 Inch Retina with 1TB SSD, 16GM Ram
The test server under my desk has a i7 3550 with 32GB RAM and a couple of 3TB and 4TB disks and a boot SSD. It has a gigabyte mobo, and can run MacOS/X just fine. I seldomly use it though.
I also have about 10 arduinos,2 RaspPi model1 and 1 RaspPi model 2 for what it's worth.
The dangers of excessive individualism are nothing compared to the oppressiveness of excessive collectivism
...is a custom built MacBook Pro 15" Retina and it is running Linux OpenSuSE 13.2. I used ThinkPad before but the quality has dropped to an unacceptable level (imho).
Hewlett Packard XW8200 Workstation (bought used six years ago)
(this is what's on my desk under my center monitor. The computer is in a server cabinet at the end of the desk, vented through the ceiling)
My background is in printing and typesetting with a short side trip into web design. I'm currently unemployed and looking for something not computer-related.
You can't take the sky from me!
MB:Gigabyte GA-Z87X-UD3H
CPU: Intel Core i7-4771
RAM: Kingston KHX1600C9D3/4GX *4
GPU1: Powercolor Radeon 7950
HDD1: Samsung 840 256GB
HDD2: Crucial BX100 500GB
PSU: Corsair 450HX (modular)
Case: Coolermaster Centurion 5 II
Sound: Asus Xonar DGX
Monitors: Dell U2312HM *3
Operating System Debian 64-bit + Windows 7 64-bit + Xen 4.1
Others: Aten CS1794 4-port HDMI+USB KVM
So here's the kicker: This is my AAA gaming machine, whos BIOS/EFI never booted Windows (I'm also excluding grub loading Windows). My usage scenario: Linux is always booted with Intel's IGP and MB's onboard sound. Then I start my Windows virtual machine which controls the Radeon and Xonar. Adding some USB stuff, and my virtual machine works great. The setup was specifically chosen for Intel's VT-d support.
In case you are wondering, I do play AAA games, like Deus Ex HR (which was the 1st in a virtual machine, but with my previous Z68/i5-2500 setup), Skyrim (whos 200+ Steam hours never saw native Windows), Project CARS, iRacing, last 2 Wolfensteins (I'm playing Old Blood this week).
Actually, yesterday I even did a tech support, by pausing the game (W:Old Blood), switching to the linux KVM port (CS1794's 1st and 2nd port are connected to this PC), do a TeamViewer session, finish, return to the game.
PS: while the CPU+MB are still relevant, I am keeping my out for next-get GPUs.
PS2: there are a lot of issues with VT-d in consumer HW, the biggest ones would be sound (I tried maybe 7 cards) and USB (around 4 controllers). On sound, Xonar DGX and Hercules Fortissimo IV are the best (PCIe and PCI respectively), followed by onboard audio. On USB front, Intel's HW is unbeatable (considering the same chip is rebranded for workstation target). 2nd was a VIA USB3 controller, but I've had issues with my FFB wheel (like not taking the input for around 1s on many ocasions...a racing no-no).
Windows 8.1 - Laptop, Windows 7 Desktop, Debian Linux on the Servers.
L: 16GB, D: 24GB, S: and whatever is needed.
L: AMD, D: AMD, S: Virtualized.
L: Harddrive, D: Hardrives, S: SSD's
As far as needing Classic Shell, could care less.
I make sure and install BINS and 7+ Taskbar Tweaker on the Laptop and Desktop. Done and Done.
Plus Multi-Commander, Total Commander, and QTTabBar from the proper location. Done Done and Done.
Home build system inside a Nanoxia Deep Silence 2 (because the side panels are actually covered in thick noise insulation)
* Sandybridge i7 2600k chosen over an i5 because VMs and k because it was at the same price as the non k version.
* Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD3P rev 1.0 motherboard
* 16Gb RAM (Corsair Vengeance Blue) because blue looks good on the gigabyte motherboard
* Corsair HX750i PSU because unless I game the fan stays off
* Crucial 256 SSD (for boot, LR catalog, etc.)
* 4 x 2TB WD Greens in RAID10 (for raw photos, videos, games)
* 450Gb velociraptor (for VMs, as it's faster than the raid10 array and also because it allows writing velociraptor in the description)
* NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost (enough for 1080p kerbal space program and euro truck simulator 2 )
* optical drive, second network card, serial port
* cheap philips 22' lcd
I used it maninly for VMs (experimenting networking, ha setups, etc.), photo editing, gaming. It's barely making any noise because the case is well insulated and the fan's are well chosen and can run at low speeds.
In a great exercise in willpower to resist my hoarding instinct, I decided I needed to get rid of a decade of tower PC's and laptops that I was keeping around to run different vintages of engineering and build tools.
I decided to create VM's for everything and went with Hyper-V on a Dell server. I have Ubuntu, Win7, Win8, Win10, and XP VM's running in a mix of 32-bit and 64-bit. If an experiment goes awry, I can flush a VM and start over.
I can use a cheap laptop or someone else's machine to access my VMs remotely. Kind of a different take on Bring Your Own Device. I'm using my own device, just not physically in your building.
The discussion is about the machine specs. Without further adieu ...
PowerEdge T420, Intel Xeon E-24XX v2 Processors
PowerEdge T420 Motherboard, TPM
On-Board LOM 1GBE (Dual Port for Racks and Towers, Quad Port for Blades)
PERC Cable for 3.5in 8HD Hot Plug Chassis
LCD display for T420
Chassis with up to 8, 3.5 inch Hard Drives
Security Bezel
Power Saving Dell Active Power Controller
RAID 1 for H710P/H710/H310 (2 HDDs)
PERC H310 Adapter RAID Controller, Full Height
Heat Sink, Dell PowerEdge T320/T420
Intel Xeon E5-2430L v2 2.40GHz, 15M Cache, 7.2GT/s QPI, Turbo, 6C, 60W, Max Mem 1600MHz
4 8GB RDIMM, 1333 MT/s, Low Volt, Dual Rank, x4 Data Width
2 2TB 7.2K RPM SATA 3Gbps 3.5in Hot-plug Hard Drive
DVD+/-RW, SATA, INTERNAL
Single Cabled Power Supply, 550W
I give each Hyper-V VM about 4 GB RAM and 1 TB dynamic disks (overcommitted).
I use a laptop with an i3 and 4 GB of RAM, wih old Nvidia graphics. But what I wanted to say that I learned from comments seems blindingly obvious but I never considered how important it is: having tons of RAM is great because then your OS is not constantly overwriting data you might use again. I am definitely going to use waaay more RAM in the future (64+ GB). coooool
Win 8.1; Intel Core i3-4130; 8GB RAM; 6TB HDD (number of drives); GeForce GT 630; Two monitors, two mouses, keyboard, small speakers
CPU: Intel Core i5
RAM: 8GB DDR3
Video: Nvidia GeForce GT705
HDD1: 512MB SSD
HDD2: 1TB SATA
Windows 8.1
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines
CPU: Intel Pentium G3258 3.2GHz
motherboard: ASRock Z97M Pro4
video card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 650 1GB
memory: 2 x Corsair 4GB 1600MHz Vengeance LP
storage: 3.5" Seagate 1TB 7200rpm SATA HDD, 2.5" Hitachi 120GB 5400rpm SATA HDD
optical drives: LiteOn DVD-multi recorder
displays: BenQ GW2265 21.5" HD, HP L1740 17" LCD Monitor
peripherals: Func MS3 mouse, Logitech K120 keyboard
TV card: hauppauge Win/TV-PCI PAL-BG/I 60134 rev C2V
Case: Cooler Master silencio 352
OS: Ubuntu 14.04 LTS
Uses are a bit of everything really, one main one being gaming.
One spinning hard drive I use for bulk storage, two ssd drives for everything else ...
$ lspcidrake
r8169 : Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.|RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller [NETWORK_ETHERNET] (rev: 06)
firewire_ohci : VIA Technologies, Inc.|VT6306/7/8 [Fire II(M)] IEEE 1394 OHCI Controller [SERIAL_FIREWIRE] (rev: c0)
snd_hda_intel : Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI]|Cedar HDMI Audio [Radeon HD 5400/6300 Series] [MULTIMEDIA_AUDIO_DEV]
Card:ATI Radeon HD 5000 to HD 6300 (radeon/fglrx): Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI]|Cedar [Radeon HD 5000/6000/7350/8350 Series] [DISPLAY_VGA]
xhci_hcd : ASMedia Technology Inc.|ASM1042 SuperSpeed USB Host Controller [SERIAL_USB]
xhci_hcd : ASMedia Technology Inc.|ASM1042 SuperSpeed USB Host Controller [SERIAL_USB]
unknown : JMicron Technology Corp.|JMB362 SATA Controller [STORAGE_SATA] (rev: 10)
unknown : JMicron Technology Corp.|JMB362 SATA Controller [STORAGE_SATA] (rev: 10)
shpchp : Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI]|RD890 PCI to PCI bridge (NB-SB link) [BRIDGE_PCI]
unknown : Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD]|Family 15h Processor Function 5 [BRIDGE_HOST]
fam15h_power : Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD]|Family 15h Processor Function 4 [BRIDGE_HOST]
k10temp : Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD]|Family 15h Processor Function 3 [BRIDGE_HOST]
amd64_edac_mod : Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD]|Family 15h Processor Function 2 [BRIDGE_HOST]
unknown : Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD]|Family 15h Processor Function 1 [BRIDGE_HOST]
unknown : Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD]|Family 15h Processor Function 0 [BRIDGE_HOST]
ehci_pci : Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI]|SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 USB EHCI Controller [SERIAL_USB]
ohci_pci : Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI]|SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 USB OHCI0 Controller [SERIAL_USB]
shpchp : Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI]|SB700/SB800/SB900 PCI to PCI bridge (PCIE port 0) [BRIDGE_PCI]
ohci_pci : Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI]|SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 USB OHCI2 Controller [SERIAL_USB]
unknown : Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI]|SBx00 PCI to PCI Bridge [BRIDGE_PCI] (rev: 40)
unknown : Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI]|SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 LPC host controller [BRIDGE_ISA] (rev: 40)
snd_hda_intel : Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI]|SBx00 Azalia (Intel HDA) [MULTIMEDIA_AUDIO_DEV] (rev: 40)
i2c_piix4 : Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI]|SBx00 SMBus Controller [SERIAL_SMBUS] (rev: 42)
ehci_pci : Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI]|SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 USB EHCI Controller [SERIAL_USB]
ohci_pci : Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI]|SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 USB OHCI0 Controller [SERIAL_USB]
ehci_pci : Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI]|SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 USB EHCI Controller [SERIAL_USB]
ohci_pci : Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI]|SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 USB OHCI0 Controller [SERIAL_USB]
unknown : Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI]|SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 SATA Controller [AHCI mode] [STORAGE_SATA] (rev: 40)
shpchp : Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI]|RD890 PCI to PCI bridge (PCI express gpp port H) [BRIDGE_PCI]
shpchp : Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI]|RD890 PCI to PCI bridge (PCI express gpp port F) [BRIDGE_PCI]
shpchp : Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI]|RD890 PCI to PCI bridge (PCI express gpp port E) [BRIDGE_PCI]
shpchp : Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI]|RD890 PCI to PCI bridge (PCI express gpp port D) [BRIDGE_PCI]
unknown : Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI]|RD990 I/O Memory Management Unit (IOMMU)
unknown : Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI]|RD890 PCI to PCI bridge (external gfx0 port B) [BRIDGE_HOST] (rev: 02)
hub : Linux 3.14.43-desktop-1.mga4 ohci_hcd|OHCI PCI host controller [Hub|Unused|Full speed (or root) hub]
hub : Linux 3.14.43-desktop-1.mga4 ohci_hcd|OHCI PCI host controller [Hub|Unused|Full speed (
My desktop at home has the following:
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 @2.4GHz
8GB DDR2 RAM (MB can hold 16GB, but DDR2 is blood expensive now)
Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3R motherboard
Nvidia GeForce GTX 550 Ti
Crucial M550 1TB SSD (boot disk, most applications)
Mixed SATA hard disks, from 750GB to 4TB (games, photos, backups, etc.)
Nothing special, but other than the graphics card and hard disks I've found no real need to upgrade the rest of the system. I built it back in 2007 with my then-girlfriend (now wife) and it just keeps on trucking along, plays modern games with no issues, etc.
I think you're confusing the CPU's internal memory cache with system memory. While GP may have phrased his post poorly when he said "how do you get 64GB ram working on a 32GB CPU" it's pretty straightforward to realize that what he really meant was "how do you get 64GB of system RAM working with a CPU that was only designed to address at most 32GB of system RAM".
The memory "in" the CPU which you later refer to as cache is built into the CPU by the manufacturer. It is a place where the queue of instructions waiting to be processed are stored. You can't alter this amount of memory nor can you manipulate its contents (other than by using low level tricks to invalidate or reload the cache, etc). It has nothing to do with system RAM which is where your program's code and data exist, on top the BIOS, drivers and your operating system.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Intel i7 950 @ 3.06Mhz
EVGA X58 FTW3
12GB RAM
120GB SSD PCIe card (it's an add-in card that has 2 60GB drives in raid 0)
2 x 1TB WD Green's in Raid 0
nvidia 570GTX - not upgrading this anytime soon, that thing has a 320bit memory bus, making the animations nice and smooth.
Generic optical drive
27" monitor, and a 23"secondary monitor, both on adjustable swivel arms
Azio mechanical keyboard and mouse (because I can put the num pad on the left)
Altec Lansing 2.1 speakers
Reason for this config? bought it used 2 years ago from a friend, and it suited my purpose just fine.
Main use: Playing WoW, streaming music. As long as it can run WoW decently, I don't see a need to upgrade.
I'm sure that's true wrt writing and compiling....but there's plenty of programs I write that need to run for days to weeks on current i7 processors before producing output...so CPU can still be a bottleneck.
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
First: A 33Mhz Packard Bell with 8Mb memory (I think), 256Mb HDD, sound card, video card, and a turbo button; running Windows 3.11
Longest use: A Celeron 1Ghz (or so) desktop maxed out with 512Mb RAM, a 30GB HDD, sound card, cheap network card, and ATI Rage XL 8Mb PCI video card. Started life in 2001, was in active use up to a couple months ago [schoolwork for most of that, a stint as development / file server, then sat around for a few years, and lastly resurrected as a media player].
Latest: A Haswell Pentium 3.2 Ghz, 8Gb RAM, 500GB HDD running Ubuntu 14.04.2. viewed with a Gateway* 24" 16:9 LED IPS and a Samsung 19" 4:3 LCD. Planning to upgrade to a 256GB SSD (HDD was from a old machine) and a Nvidia GT 730 or GTX 750ti sc ... undecided as this is my last remaining non small form-factor machine, and when possible, I used to upgrade my other desktops with this one's hand me downs :)
* Yeah, I didn't know they were still around either!
https://themodness.wordpress.com/2015/04/29/the-retail-green-light-saber-for-lazy-linux-gamer/
Novel theory: Modern Man evolved from psychopath
Intel i7-4790 3.6ghz, 16gb ram. I added a crucial 160gb SSD for the OS (Linux Mint), a dual head Nvidia graphics card, and a 500W power supply to replace the 300W one it came with. The existing 1TB rotating disk drive now holds my /home partition. I also have two Dell 24" (16x10) monitors.
It's not bad for an El-Cheapo system purchased off of Ebay as 'Factory Reconditioned'.
The Window's 8 OS was wiped off the disk, but I still have a re-install CD if I ever want to put it back. (Nah!).
The nice thing about this machine is 1) how quiet it is ( hums in a corner, while ventilating away in 30+ degrees celsius 2) its low power consumption: 80 to 84 Watts while running a Jenkins build job.
I know I will probably curse myself in a few years for having bought this machine, as the mobo has built-in obsolescence. Fujitsu even cry it out loud in their user manual, when mentioning the aluminum-electrolyte capacitors. Until then, it will have been my absolute workhorse.
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
Intel Core i5 Haswell 4670K OC @ 4.1GHz
Corsair Hydro Series H80i CPU Water Cooler
ASRock Fatal1ty Z87 Killer NIC Gaming Motherboard
Thermaltake SMART Series 750W 80+ Bronze PSU
Gigabyte GTX 770 Windforce Edition OC
G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 16GB (4x 4GB) DDR3 RAM @ 2133MHz
SAMSUNG 840 EVO 120GB SSD
1.5TB HDD storage (1TB + 500GB)
LG 14X Blu-Ray Burner Drive
NZXT Sentry LX fan controller
Corsair SP120 fans (x4)
Thermaltake Chaser Series A31 ATX Mid Tower Case
Microsoft Windows 7 Home 64-bit OS
Acer 22" + Acer 17" displays
Razer Blackwidow Ultimate Stealth keyboard
Razer Naga 2014 Edition gaming mouse
Sennheisner PC360 G4M3 headset
Mos technology KIM-1 board, 6502 CPU, Kim to S100 converter/expander board, 2 Seals 4K Ram boards, MS ROM BASIC edited in assembler for 6502.
8-)
Oh, you mean the computer I do my work on?
Intel i5 Quad 3Ghz, 16Gb RAM, 1TB disk. Looking to get an SSD...
I don't think there are CPUs that are designed to address at most 32GB of RAM. Those limitations are set by the motherboard chipsets, not the CPU. Even 32-bit Intel chips have been able to address 64GB since Page Addressing Extensions were added lo these many years ago (like, 20th century IIRC).
tried to count everything but it's just too much to list. Suffice it to say, my main machine is a head box for a home cluster consisting of something like 35TB of storage, 30GB RAM across 18 processors (total 23 cores)
So, are we talking about one screen and what's connected to it? Or what's in one box?
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
Feel free to check out the intel specifications on the CPU involved. Under memory specifications it says: Max Memory Size (dependent on memory type) 32 GB.
Now I know that theoretically a 64 bit CPU should be able to address 2^64 bytes, which is a very large number indeed. In practicality however I'm guessing they're saving on pins and/or using them for something else.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Intel i7-3930 @ 4.3Ghz,
16Gb ram,
120Gb SSD,
4x1Tb spinning HDD in RAID 1+0,
Asus Nvidia 760GTX (I think..).
Asus P9x79 pro motherboard.
Using the integrated sound, but with a PCIe wireless card.
1600x1200 Dell lcd monitor (yep, still in 4:3 land).
Closed circuit watercooling on CPU.
I have to send the motherboard away for repair as a BIOS update failed - for the second time on this board - I've already had a warranty replacement for failed bios update.
- This sig deliberately left blank. Nothing to see, move along.
Hmm, interesting. Pin count is definitely a factor that Intel would want to manage for cost's sake. So I retract my previous comment, which naively assumed that "if our architecture can address it, we'll physically enable that to happen". OTOH I see that some people on the Intel forum have successfully run that chip with 64GB of RAM; but 32GB is the maximum "supported" amount.
Late-2012 Mac Mini
2.5GHz dual-core Intel Core i5
OWC 500Mb SSD drive
16 Gb memory (upgrade from OWC)
Intel HD Graphics 4000
Toshiba 32" TV as the monitor
El Gato HD game capture for streaming XBOX360 on Twitch.TV ( Johnny4848 )
No problems to date. Of course, use Magic Trackpad and Apple wireless keyboard with it.
Server: Supermicro mainboard, Xeon 1230v2, 32 GB ECC, 3 * Constellation ES in three-way mirror, SSD system volume, 2 TB NAS drive for /slop pool.
Laptop: Recently purchased and refurbished Thinkpad T500 with PC-BSD, CoreDuo 9400, 8 GB DDR2, 256 GB SSD. Obviously this wasn't purchased for trim waistline, but rather for abuse tolerance.
Upcoming desktop replacement: Supermicro mainboard, Haswell Xeon E5-1620 v3 with quad-channel 16 GB DDR4 ECC (expandable to a boatload more), also planning to run PC-BSD if the laptop experiment pans out.
Existing desktop: Aging CoreDuo with 8 GB DDR2, Sapphire Radeon HD5670, with three heads (all circa 22" at 96 PPI, two in portrait, one in landscape). Presently running an older version of Mint that needed to be upgraded ages ago, but I decided to hold off for a usable PC-BSD instead.
All my PSUs are premium Seasonic, and most of my cases are Antec P280 series. My ZFS server presently has over 2 years of uptime. Almost all of my system boards were purchased behind the technology curve, but with superior inductors, capacitors, and trace thickness.
I really can't remember the last time something resembling an electrical glitch took any of my systems down.
In the past I bought high end or built my own. The last thing I bought was a desktop right off the shelf of BestBuy to browse the web primarily. It's a dual core Pentium with some kind of NVidia graphics card I put in it myself. Logitech media keyboard and mouse and maybe 4 or 6 gig of ram. All my gaming is now on a console. I'm not an engineer so there is no need for a smoking tech monster dimming the lights when I cut it on. When you get older and don't need it for work you get more and more utilitarian.
The important bits are:
AMD Phenom II 940
8 GBytes ECC RAM
Areca 1210 PCIe RAID Controller
4 x WD Black Hard Drives
PCI Serial and Parallel Interface Card
Intel PCI Dual Port Ethernet Adapter
The extra network card is because I use the faster Ethernet port for a separate fast internal network. The serial and parallel interface card is for working with embedded hardware.
At the time I built the system, an Intel system which supported ECC would have been at least $1200 more for the Xeon CPU, server motherboard, and very expensive fully buffered RAM. The difference more than paid for the hardware RAID controller (which also has ECC RAM in this case) and drives. Today the premium for an Intel system still doubles the cost of the CPU and motherboard.
Built my current system about 2 years ago:
Case: Fractal Design Node 304
Mainboard: ASRock Z87E-ITX
CPU: Intel Core i5 4670K
Memory: Kingston KHX1600C10D3B1K2/16G
GPU: MSI Radeon HD 7850
Disks: Mushkin MKNSSDAT240GB Atlas mSATA 240GB SSD +3TB HD + 1TB HD + 500GB HD (I also have another 2TB sitting in a box).
Optical: ASUS SDRW-08D2S-U
OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium Edition 64Bit
Monitor: ASUS VS238H-P 23IN
CPU Cooler: Corsair Cooling Hydro Series H90
PSU: Silverstone Strider ST60F-PS
Can be interesting trying to stuff everything in to a small ITX case. Got additional short PSU cables to help, but it is still pretty tight. Shortly afterwards I had some buyers remorse in not getting the i7 for an extra 100$, but really I've had no issues with the i5 so it is probably moot. I decided to get 16GB of RAM, which is a bit of overkill really, however I was more influenced by the fact that the MB only had two slots and its in an ITX case, so if I ever wanted to go beyond 8GB, it would be a super PITA to change out, it was inexpensive so what the hell right? Went with a pretty modest graphics card as the price was right, had to be careful of actual dimensions as not all would actually fit, so far pretty happy. It is primarily a gaming machine, and so far it hasn't balked at anything I've thrown at it, though that said I play DOTA2 99% of the time, which isn't all that demanding anyway. The SSD is kind of neat as it is a MSATA, which plugs into the back of the MB. On the plus side, the case includes 3 HD hangers to fit 6 drives (which are pretty cool btw), however the video card effectively reduces that number to 2HD hangers to fit 4 drives, but the SSD doesn't take up any of that space. On the negative side, it is on the back of the MB, in a tightly packed ITX case, with no removable back plate, which means it is effectively there forever, as I don't see myself ever totally dissembling everything to get at it again. The optical was a good decision also. It is external. I use it rarely. I plug it in when I need to, and when I don't it sits in my desk out of the way. Win7 as didn't want to deal with Win8 at the time. Got the cooler for giggles mostly, it's the biggest you can possibly fit in the case, so that is kind of fun.... PSU had several nice features, size being one of them being important in an ITX case (it is smaller), its HE yet still a decent amount of headroom in total wattage, and it also was modular and had optional short cables, also important in an ITX case. So far I have 3 of 4 hard dives installed. I had a 2TB fail on me, replaced it when a 3TB, then had the warrently go through and got a free 2TB, however I still have plenty of space so I have never bothered to hook up the new 2TB into the system. Once the 3TB media drive starts getting too full, I'll probably throw it in there, as there is just room enough. Anyway I am pretty happy with my system. It is a gaming system, but an intermediate one. Another important purchase I made afterwards was a silent mouse, making girlfriend compatible gaming much more enjoyable! :)
I have a video of my computer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... My computer recently died so it was time to build a new one. A friend asked me to record a video of the process. Here is a list of the new parts I used, I kept some parts that were still good from my previous computer as well. CPU AMD FX-8350 Vishera 4.0GHz Mother Board ASUS M5A99FX PRO R2.0 AM3+ AMD 990FX SATA Memory CORSAIR Vengeance Pro 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866 Desktop Memory Model CMY8GX3M2A1866C9R (Red) Graphics Card EVGA 01G-P4-3650-KR GeForce GTX 650 Ti 1GB Solid State Drive SAMSUNG 840 EVO MZ-7TE120BW 2.5" 120GB Power Supply - CORSAIR CXM series CX600M 600W ATX12V v2.3 SLI
I use an Acer Chromebox. I upgraded it to 16GB RAM, 128GB SSD, and put Linux (first Xubuntu, now Mint, soon to be something else) on it. It's got a Celeron 2957u (Haswell; has Quick Sync in case I ever need it) and that's about it. Interestingly, it's about the same speed as my old Core 2 Duo setup, at a tiny fraction of the volume.
Stasis is death. Embrace change.