Desktop Computers
- Thread starter brekk
- Start date
Haus
I am Big Balls!
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I am having a philisophical quandry....
Over time here at Chez Haus (for over 20 years in fact) the "circle of life" was that when a machine was retired from being a gaming rig, it settled into retirement in my workshop/lab as a lab box for various things I did, usually replicating things for my work.
Now, with the advent of cloud computing, and the ability to roll out compact VMs and Docker in general the need for multiple machines is pretty much gone. I have one moderately beefy lab box (i7 and 32G of ram, 2tb SSD) and it handles everything I have a need for.
So I am looking at what is currently a pool of three perfectly functional , but very old, machines. (Talking i3 and 8-16g of ddr2 for example) and whereas I know "Oh I can slap an efficient OS on that and milk some more use out of it" I don't really have a need to, and it would essentially be getting the same work done using more electricity from running multiple systems. So I figured it's time to ditch the old but workable machines. But the cases are still great, good cases, many of which I have built in extra fans for optimal airflow. Hate the idea of throwing those out, but what do we do with such things these days?
Over time here at Chez Haus (for over 20 years in fact) the "circle of life" was that when a machine was retired from being a gaming rig, it settled into retirement in my workshop/lab as a lab box for various things I did, usually replicating things for my work.
Now, with the advent of cloud computing, and the ability to roll out compact VMs and Docker in general the need for multiple machines is pretty much gone. I have one moderately beefy lab box (i7 and 32G of ram, 2tb SSD) and it handles everything I have a need for.
So I am looking at what is currently a pool of three perfectly functional , but very old, machines. (Talking i3 and 8-16g of ddr2 for example) and whereas I know "Oh I can slap an efficient OS on that and milk some more use out of it" I don't really have a need to, and it would essentially be getting the same work done using more electricity from running multiple systems. So I figured it's time to ditch the old but workable machines. But the cases are still great, good cases, many of which I have built in extra fans for optimal airflow. Hate the idea of throwing those out, but what do we do with such things these days?
Control
Golden Baronet of the Realm
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Haus
I am Big Balls!
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I've been debating it, but if I'm going to build AI boxes they will have dual GPU capabilities, and these ancient MBs don't have that. heh
Control
Golden Baronet of the Realm
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Some of the claw-type automations might be interesting to tinker with and wouldn't necessarily need much gpu. I haven't bothered with it, but I haven't really been doing any automation so I haven't found a reasonable usecase that's personally useful yet.
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Anyone ever use a reverse connect motherboard? My case will work with those and I'm at the point of starting that build. I'm just curious if the reverse connect/stealth motherboards make that big of a difference. I'm most likely not going to go with that but was just curious.
Jovec
?
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Never used one personally, but I haven't heard of widespread issues with them. It's simply for looks / cable management.
The main one that would be interesting to me is the Asus GPU 12VHP mobo connector (I think Sapphire has their own version with their mobos), especially on their high-end 5090s where the power can be split between the standard cable and the mobo edge connector.
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Jovec
?
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Minisforum launched their NAB9S that uses DDR4 sodimms - if you have any laying around (and a NVMe drive) the barebones runs $399. 13900HK, so 6P cores w 12/T, and 8E cores. Dual 2.5Gbs NIC, only 1 NVMe + 1 Sata 2.5", but no Occulink. Still useful for a homelab / home router /etc.
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Predicament: My PC plays anything I throw at it on Ultra. The problem? The women I date generally dont play games. But.. I want them too. I built mine from scratch and I dont mind pulling it altogether. But.. if I can skip that part, it wont hurt my feelings. Seen any deals for less than a G that would be purely for g/f playing something like.. Baldurs Gate 3 or something? I cant imagine her wanting to play anything like Total War or w/e, but.. maybe?
Juvarisx
Florida
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Switch 2 or a Steam Deck with the tv dock. They wanna play shit on a couch with a controller.
