# Need a new PC



## SeniorBen (Jan 7, 2023)

My PC is over 10 years old and it's a bit slow for graphics intensive applications, so I'm thinking about buying a new one. 

My current computer is a Lenovo H320 Type 4041 with an i5-650 CPU. I looked into upgrading to an i7 CPU, but since the graphics card of my current configuration is integrated into the motherboard, an upgraded CPU won't work, and new graphics card will require an upgraded power supply. So I'd be upgrading the graphics card, power supply and CPU. I've already installed an SSD and more memory.

So rather than do any more upgrades, I'm thinking it's time for a new PC. From what I've read, the graphics program I'm using relies on the CPU more than the graphics card.

So what's a good computer for under $600 that would suit my needs?


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## OldFeller (Jan 7, 2023)

I'm not a hardware expert. I've worked on CAD capable machines all my life.

$600.00 doesn't sound like enough money to get a graphics capable machine.

The graphics cards to run CAD are $1500 or more.

Maybe what you're calling a graphics heavy software isn't as intensive as a professional graphics software.


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## Farrah Nuff (Jan 7, 2023)

SeniorBen said:


> My PC is over 10 years old and it's a bit slow for graphics intensive applications, so I'm thinking about buying a new one.
> 
> My current computer is a Lenovo H320 Type 4041 with an i5-650 CPU. I looked into upgrading to an i7 CPU, but since the graphics card of my current configuration is integrated into the motherboard, an upgraded CPU won't work, and new graphics card will require an upgraded power supply. So I'd be upgrading the graphics card, power supply and CPU. I've already installed an SSD and more memory.
> 
> ...


What is the name of this graphics intensive program? And is it a program that you use often?
I'd think that after more than 10 years of service, the computer has lived a long life. Won't be
long until many newer program versions won't be compatible. If this is all you do, try Linux for
free or get two chromebooks for that price.


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## SeniorBen (Jan 7, 2023)

Mmmm, okay...   

Amazon sells "renewed" (used) computers for cheapskates like me.    

This one would be fast enough for what I'm doing, and it runs Windows 11. I could always upgrade the graphics card in the future if need be.

DELL Optiplex 7060 SFF Desktop Computer PC | Intel 8th Gen i7-8700 (6 Core) | 16GB DDR4 Ram 256GB NVMe M.2 SSD | Built-in WiFi & Bluetooth | Windows 11 Pro | Wireless Keyboard & Mouse(Renewed)​https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09XKBZ4RZ/​$544.98​
This one might be faster since it has a better graphics card, but it's not compatible with Windows 11, so it's obsolete out of the box.

Dell Gaming PC Desktop Computer - Intel Quad I5 up to 3.6GHz, GeForce GTX 1660 Ti 6G, 32GB DDR4 Memory, 128G SSD + 3TB, RGB Keyboard & Mouse, WiFi & Bluetooth 5.0, Win 10 Pro​https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BJFBWJB1/​$479.99​
I'll need to think about it.


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## Farrah Nuff (Sunday at 1:59 AM)

SeniorBen said:


> I'll need to think about it.


That’s probably a great idea but you never did mention what program is drawing down your current computer due to graphics issues. But you sound like you have a plan so I think that’s a good start in the right direction. Good luck!


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## Jean-Paul (Sunday at 3:15 AM)

Bonjour à tous
We do most everyday email, photos, notes on an iPad, less and less need for the PC.

On our PCS (7 of them!) We use all the Adobe Creative Suite CS6, ACAD, and other graphic intense. Modern on-board graphics like Intel 630 with HDMI, DISPLAYPORT,  have no problem even  at 3860x1900 res.

Our main pc is a  3 yrs old Lenovo ThinkPad Carbon X1 laptop, used for travel.Also,  at office, with 27..38" external monitor. See Lenovo website for refurb  sales, etc..

Nowadays, DIY PC builds are passé, except perhaps for gamers seeking fastest possible frame rate, virtual reality, 3D immersive etc. it's much cheaper and  easier to just buy a used PC.

For desktop, we now use only HP SFF Small Form Factor elitedesk 800 g3, G5. Were $230..400, refurb, ebay, almost new. highly recommended.All the other brands Dell, Asus, etc, have cheapened the construction, mobo, SSD, PSU so the  reliability and useablety is worse. Most ready-made PC are loaded with bundle ware, adaware, and junk.

In the SFF HP, just add new SSD Samsung 1 TB EVO 860,  update OS, load programs and data.
Most Elitedesk including W10. OEM liscencing W10 or 11 is only $30..50. I  do not reccomend W11 yet, easy to upgrade later.

Enjoy and Bon chance!

Jon

Just the ramblings of an old retired EE

Jon


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## SeniorBen (Sunday at 10:11 AM)

Jean-Paul said:


> Bonjour à tous
> We do most everyday email, photos, notes on an iPad, less and less need for the PC.
> 
> On our PCS (7 of them!) We use all the Adobe Creative Suite CS6, ACAD, and other graphic intense. Modern on-board graphics like Intel 630 with HDMI, DISPLAYPORT,  have no problem even  at 3860x1900 res.
> ...


Your HPs won't run Windows 11 without some workarounds, but they are cheap. I see Amazon has some with a Intel i7-7700, SSD, and 32GB DDR4 for $300.

Hmmm...


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## ManjaroKDE (Sunday at 11:47 AM)

Good luck!


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## SeniorBen (Sunday at 10:28 PM)

Okay, I just pulled the trigger on this PC:

Dell Optiplex 7050 SFF Desktop PC Intel i7-7700 4-Cores 3.60GHz 32GB DDR4 1TB SSD WiFi BT HDMI Duel Monitor Support
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08X1KKVCZ/ref=ppx_od_dt_b_asin_title_s00

That shows $324.46 but I paid an extra $25 for Amazon Prime, which means I'll get it on this Wednesday instead of in two weeks, and if there's anything wrong with it, there's no hassle returning it. It's worth $25 for piece of mind.  

Even though it's not going to be able to run Windows 11, it should be fine for what I'm going to use it for, as long as MS supports Windows 10.


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## Silver Spoon (Monday at 9:38 AM)

I change desktop computers every 3 years. I pull the hard drive and donate the old computer. My laptop is treated differently. I keep upgrading it because I have a lot of really important data on it and would be lost if I lost any of that data doing a transfer. Some of it is considered PIP.


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## SeniorBen (Monday at 9:45 AM)

Silver Spoon said:


> I change desktop computers every 3 years. I pull the hard drive and donate the old computer. My laptop is treated differently. I keep upgrading it because I have a lot of really important data on it and would be lost if I lost any of that data doing a transfer. Some of it is considered PIP.


You buy a new desktop computer every three years?


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## 1955 (Monday at 9:54 AM)

SeniorBen said:


> Okay, I just pulled the trigger on this PC:
> 
> Dell Optiplex 7050 SFF Desktop PC Intel i7-7700 4-Cores 3.60GHz 32GB DDR4 1TB SSD WiFi BT HDMI Duel Monitor Support
> https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08X1KKVCZ/ref=ppx_od_dt_b_asin_title_s00
> ...


I've had good luck with the Amazon Renew deals.  Don't worry about the win 10 support or running 11.  Win 10 will be supported to Oct 2025 and you can keep running it after that without any problem. Although they will stop the OS updates, defender still updates.  Also, there are many YouTube's that show you how to make 11 run on anything!


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## SeniorBen (Monday at 11:09 AM)

1955 said:


> I've had good luck with the Amazon Renew deals.  Don't worry about the win 10 support or running 11.  Win 10 will be supported to Oct 2025 and you can keep running it after that without any problem. Although they will stop the OS updates, defender still updates.  Also, there are many YouTube's that show you how to make 11 run on anything!


I read that Windows 11 needs to be installed from a disk for older computers (older than 8th gen CPUs), whereas for newer PCs, the installation files are downloaded during installation. But other than that, it runs just fine. The main difference between 11 and 10 is some hardware functionality for security.


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## 1955 (Monday at 11:59 AM)

SeniorBen said:


> I read that Windows 11 needs to be installed from a disk for older computers (older than 8th gen CPUs), whereas for newer PCs, the installation files are downloaded during installation. But other than that, it runs just fine. The main difference between 11 and 10 is some hardware functionality for security.


Yep, but there are workarounds for 11 to get around the security hardware thing called TPM 2.0.


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## SeniorBen (Monday at 4:10 PM)

1955 said:


> Yep, but there are workarounds for 11 to get around the security hardware thing called TPM 2.0.


Amazon is selling those TPM chips for around $30, but the motherboard needs to be compatible. For compatible motherboards, the chip just plugs in. There will no doubt be a big demand for them if MS phases out support for Windows 10, but that probably won't be for at least another five years. I'll deal with it when the time comes.


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## 1955 (Monday at 4:24 PM)

SeniorBen said:


> Amazon is selling those TPM chips for around $30, but the motherboard needs to be compatible. For compatible motherboards, the chip just plugs in. There will no doubt be a big demand for them if MS phases out support for Windows 10, but that probably won't be for at least another five years. I'll deal with it when the time comes.


There are ways to install win 11 without the TPM hardware.
How To Install Windows 11 Without TPM​


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## Sawfish (Monday at 4:39 PM)

If you are somewhat flexible and can install an OS, there are places that are basically data destruction companies. When a corporation decides to upgrade all employee's laptops, which happens maybe every 3-5 years in many cases, the companies contract to take the old one and completely wipe the drives (HD or SSD), no OS no format, nothing.

A part of the deal is to turn around and sell these, with no real guarantees, for 100-200; they bring up the BIOS diagnostics, run them, and if it passes, offer it for sale.  You can then get Ubuntu (Linux) for free and install it.

I did this around last spring and am happy with my 200 purchase, am using it as I write this.

It is for people who are willing to do an OS install (quite simple) and who are not married to the Windows OS. Most of my working carrier was on some forum of UNIX or Linux workstation, so I like Linux quite a lot. Ubuntu is pretty close to a Mac-like experience.

If you are interested, I will look up the place I got it from. I decided on Dell (it's a known quantity) business class model and  first studied this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dell_Latitude#Technical_specifications

Then I decided what I wanted and looked at the data destruction company websites.


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## Sawfish (Monday at 4:46 PM)

SeniorBen said:


> Okay, I just pulled the trigger on this PC:
> 
> Dell Optiplex 7050 SFF Desktop PC Intel i7-7700 4-Cores 3.60GHz 32GB DDR4 1TB SSD WiFi BT HDMI Duel Monitor Support
> https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08X1KKVCZ/ref=ppx_od_dt_b_asin_title_s00
> ...


I think that's a really good deal!


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## SeniorBen (Monday at 5:02 PM)

Sawfish said:


> If you are somewhat flexible and can install an OS, there are places that are basically data destruction companies. When a corporation decides to upgrade all employee's laptops, which happens maybe every 3-5 years in many cases, the companies contract to take the old one and completely wipe the drives (HD or SSD), no OS no format, nothing.
> 
> A part of the deal is to turn around and sell these, with no real guarantees, for 100-200; they bring up the BIOS diagnostics, run them, and if it passes, offer it for sale.  You can then get Ubuntu (Linux) for free and install it.
> 
> ...


I'm running Linux on my old MacBook Pro laptop, but I need Windows for my PC because I sometimes stream football games on it on the xfinity website, which won't run on Linux. I guess it might with some spoofing, but I'm not going to waste time with that. 

Windows makes everything easy. Linux can be time consuming sometimes when it comes to installing software and I'm just not that into it. I worked on various UNIX platforms during my career, also. It's more stable and secure than Windows. And I was running Linux back in the mid-'90s on my home computer. I think I even ran Minix before running the early versions of Linux. Remember that one?


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## Sawfish (Monday at 5:12 PM)

SeniorBen said:


> I'm running Linux on my old MacBook Pro laptop, but I need Windows for my PC because I sometimes stream football games on it on the xfinity website, which won't run on Linux. I guess it might with some spoofing, but I'm not going to waste time with that.
> 
> Windows makes everything easy. Linux can be time consuming sometimes when it comes to installing software and I'm just not that into it. I worked on various UNIX platforms during my career, also. It's more stable and secure than Windows. And I was running Linux back in the mid-'90s on my home computer. I think I even ran Minix before running the early versions of Linux. Remember that one?


Nope.

At work we went from Solaris to Linux 8086 type workstations, then laptops. 

Ubuntu is pretty easy for installs (apt get-install).I also have a CentOS desktop workstation. This is harder.


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## Jean-Paul (Monday at 5:27 PM)

beware of the Dell bundleware, ad are.

Use a utility to remove all their junk default so called programs that are actually selling stuff.

Get all the W10/11 Spyware, to stop phoning home.

Avoid the MS or Google accounts or clouds.

j


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## SeniorBen (Monday at 10:00 PM)

Jean-Paul said:


> beware of the Dell bundleware, ad are.
> 
> Use a utility to remove all their junk default so called programs that are actually selling stuff.
> 
> ...


I don't think there's going to be much bloatware since it's a "refurbished" (used) computer from a third party vendor — not a new one from Dell. I'm hoping they did a fresh OS install and left it at that. Guess I'll find out.

I do use Google accounts and have an Android phone. And I don't trust them, but I don't switch because I don't trust any software except for maybe some open source applications, so there's really no better option unless you want to spend a lot of time researching alternatives and trying to get it all set up to work together. Google makes it so easy. I stay away from Microsoft products other than their OS.

Most of Google's unethical activity is just tracking you for advertising purposes because that's how they make their money. They're not trying to steal your identity and get into your bank account or something like that. That's what scares me... somebody getting my bank account information by installing a keylogger or something like that. And that's where your far better off on a Linux machine. 

As far as cloud storage, yeah, that can be a security risk. But it makes life easier when you move from one device to another, or get a new device.


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## ManjaroKDE (Tuesday at 8:35 AM)

SeniorBen said:


> Linux can be time consuming sometimes when it comes to installing software and I'm just not that into it.


Being a tinkerer I've probably tested & experimented with hundreds of Linux distros.  Being retired has given me more free time to tinker.  I guess it's all in your personal perspective of what's time consuming.  If a distro does not like my hardware,,,etc I simply move on.  I've settled  on one I like at this time, takes about  30 minutes to download/create a bootable USB and install, another hour or so to setup, add my usable apps to my satisfaction and I'm off.

My wife spends more time & money doing a puzzle.


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## Sawfish (Tuesday at 10:04 AM)

ManjaroKDE said:


> Being a tinkerer I've probably tested & experimented with hundreds of Linux distros.  Being retired has given me more free time to tinker.  I guess it's all in your personal perspective of what's time consuming.  If a distro does not like my hardware,,,etc I simply move on.  I've settled  on one I like at this time, takes about  30 minutes to download/create a bootable USB and install, another hour or so to setup, add my usable apps to my satisfaction and I'm off.
> 
> My wife spends more time & money doing a puzzle.


What version of Linux do you like?

I've only had experience of two somewhat "different" flavors: Red Hat/Fedora/CentOs, and Ubuntu. I like Ubuntu a bit more for ease of use.

I come from command line days on VAX/VMS. When the GUIs came out, Windows never felt "right" to me, and tyhe UNIX virtual windows managers did.

Macs is UNIX for dummies and irresponsible children.

Still not sure how I feel about the concept of the desktop.


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## ManjaroKDE (Tuesday at 11:28 AM)

> What version of Linux do you like?


Almost any version of Manjaro.  German engineering, rolling release, favorite version - KDE Plasma.  German mindset is focused on organization and security.


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## Sawfish (Tuesday at 11:48 AM)

ManjaroKDE said:


> Almost any version of Manjaro.  German engineering, rolling release, favorite version - KDE Plasma.  German mindset is focused on organization and security.


This is very interesting!

I have been running Gnome with all of my installs, and I've never really liked it all that much, but I like KDE even less. My favorite window manager was with Solaris. It was the F virtual windows manager, fvwm. It was configured in a bunch of .rc files.

I am still stuck in that mode, configuring via files, and digging down thru a lot of nested GUI menus to access various configuration controls still feels alien to me.

But, oh well...!


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## SeniorBen (Tuesday at 8:41 PM)

ManjaroKDE said:


> Almost any version of Manjaro.  German engineering, rolling release, favorite version - KDE Plasma.  German mindset is focused on organization and security.


I tried Manjaro on my 12 y/o MacBook Pro a few months ago and the WiFi wouldn't work. Rather than mess around with it, I tried Ubuntu and it installed without a hitch. Google Chrome runs on Ubuntu and not on other versions of Linux, which is another reason I went with that distro. I suspect Chrome would run on other distros with a little work.

I wanted to run Manjaro because it's supposed to be lightweight and good for older, underpowered computers. A lot of people swear by it. Some people love it so much, they use it as their username!


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## ManjaroKDE (Wednesday at 8:29 AM)

Never Mind


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## SeniorBen (Wednesday at 10:02 AM)

It's NCD! (New computer day!)

My new (used) computer is out for delivery! I'll need to keep a close watch so it doesn't get snowed on.


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## SeniorBen (Wednesday at 9:53 PM)

I'm writing this on my new computer. It's definitely quite a bit faster. No problems yet. Everything seems to work.  

All my data is on my old computer, though. I'm going to check out Amazon cloud services to see if that will make life easier.


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## Sawfish (Wednesday at 9:57 PM)

SeniorBen said:


> I'm writing this on my new computer. It's definitely quite a bit faster. No problems yet. Everything seems to work.
> 
> All my data is on my old computer, though. I'm going to check out Amazon cloud services to see if that will make life easier.


Hooray!

Enjoy!


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