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What's your home/everyday PC?

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First post, by 386SX

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Hi,

I'd like to know which pc configuration you use/prefer for your home/work/everyday machine and if you actually prefer using an older configuration just for the passion of retro computing when you could actually use something faster or you just simply use the fastest/most modern one you have got?

I've used a lot those ARMv6 and ARMv8 single board computers and actually using the P4 478 machine I'm building. I have more modern components but I find nice to see these old machine how well they can still live with nowdays applications/kernels and usual everydays tasks.

Bye

Reply 1 of 97, by stamasd

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My daily computer is a laptop. Eurocom Tornado5, i7-6700, 32GB RAM, GTX1070 video, 15" 1080p. Have a 500MB M.2 and a 1TB SATA SSD. Using Win7, not buying into Win10 (it's bad enough that I have to use it at work). Have a desktop too but don't use it that much, much more comfortable on the couch with the laptop. The desktop Is an AthlonFX 8-core 4.4GHz, 3GB, Radeon HD7970, several drives for total of 5TB total. My retro rig varies as I only have enough space to bring one at a time from the storage area, currently working on a 286 but soon to be replaced with a Pentium Pro rig. I'm also in the process of building a NAS based on a Sandy Bridge CPU and microATX motherboard with C206 chipset. I may use this one as a semi-retro machine as well for XP-era stuff if I dual-boot it, thinking of going with a GTX750 for video.

I/O, I/O,
It's off to disk I go,
With a bit and a byte
And a read and a write,
I/O, I/O

Reply 2 of 97, by 386SX

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stamasd wrote:

My daily computer is a laptop. Eurocom Tornado5, i7-6700, 32GB RAM, GTX1070 video, 15" 1080p. Have a 500MB M.2 and a 1TB SATA SSD. Using Win7, not buying into Win10 (it's bad enough that I have to use it at work). Have a desktop too but don't use it that much, much more comfortable on the couch with the laptop. The desktop Is an AthlonFX 8-core 4.4GHz, 3GB, Radeon HD7970, several drives for total of 5TB total. My retro rig varies as I only have enough space to bring one at a time from the storage area, currently working on a 286 but soon to be replaced with a Pentium Pro rig. I'm also in the process of building a NAS based on a Sandy Bridge CPU and microATX motherboard with C206 chipset.

It look like a fast notebook! I've never used an i7 not even the first generation. 😵
I wanted to build a FX computer lately but at the end I ended finding this 1155 motherboard with the G2130 cpu and it's the most modern thing I've got but for now I prefer using the P4 (soon the 3,4ghz prescott) to see its cpu utilization close to 90% every seconds. 😁
Maybe next step will be the Pentium D.

Reply 3 of 97, by blurks

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I am using an Asus ET2410 all-in-one PC with an i5-2400s, 6GB RAM and a GeForce 540M. Bought the system new in 2012 for around 1000 bucks and considering the fact that it still is my main system it has been a fantastic value so far. It isn't much of a surprise that it feels a little sluggish after 6 years with all the software installed but I refuse to replace it as it has been a reliable companion. I will probably upgrade the system with a SSD and more RAM, that should boost it sufficiently.

et2410idiad.png
Sorry folks, stock image...

Last edited by blurks on 2018-10-14, 12:46. Edited 3 times in total.

Reply 4 of 97, by stamasd

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386SX wrote:

It look like a fast notebook! I've never used an i7 not even the first generation.

Was sold as gaming laptop. I really like the Eurocom brand, they build customizable laptops based on Taiwanese barebones (Clevo etc). Almost everything in the laprop is customizable from CPU, video, storage, even the screen. Really good to get exactly what you want.
The only downside to powerful laptops like this one (except for price of course) is that they're really heavy. They have a lot of copper inside for cooling.

I/O, I/O,
It's off to disk I go,
With a bit and a byte
And a read and a write,
I/O, I/O

Reply 5 of 97, by BinaryDemon

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5960x @ 4.2ghz, 16gb ddr4, gtx980ti, ssd’s for win10 and game storage. It’s not the latest but I can’t justify upgrading yet, and most of the games I tend to enjoy aren’t very demanding like TF2 or Fortnite.

Check out DOSBox Distro:

https://sites.google.com/site/dosboxdistro/ [*]

a lightweight Linux distro (tinycore) which boots off a usb flash drive and goes straight to DOSBox.

Make your dos retrogaming experience portable!

Reply 6 of 97, by PTherapist

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I use my current fastest PC as my everyday "main" PC -

Gigabyte GA-P31-DS3L, Socket 775 Motherboard
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600
4GB PC2-6400 DDR2 RAM
7x SATA Hard Drives, 10.75TB Storage
Nvidia GeForce GT 430 1GB PCIe Graphics Card
VIA VT6421 PCI IDE/SATA RAID Card
Asmedia ASM-106x PCIe SATA RAID Card
Everything else bog-standard Onboard stuff.

OS: Windows 10 Pro x64

I built this PC back in 2008 and it's served my needs well, but is seriously crying out for a replacement now. It originally ran Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, before I switched to Windows 7, then 8.1 & finally upgraded to 10 (to fix a memory leak bug in 8.1).

My mother has an Intel Core i3 laptop which outperforms my main PC (except for Graphics) and she only uses that for light Office usage. 🤣

I've been pricing parts for a cheap Ivy Bridge i5 build to replace this with and might be buying a friend's old Haswell i7 build in the new year. So my old Core 2 Quad's days are numbered and it'll probably end up as a replacement for the family's main system - a lowly AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+.

Reply 7 of 97, by stamasd

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PTherapist wrote:

I've been pricing parts for a cheap Ivy Bridge i5 build to replace this with and might be buying a friend's old Haswell i7 build in the new year. So my old Core 2 Quad's days are numbered and it'll probably end up as a replacement for the family's main system - a lowly AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+.

Don't know if this will help or not, but the NAS I'm building which I mentioned in my post above is based on a Lenovo Thinkcentre E30 motherboard, which you can buy cheaply on ebay. I think I paid $30 for it. It's a LGA 1155 motherboard, micro-ATX with server chipset C206 equivalent to Q67. Works fine with the Sandy Bridge I7-2600K that I have in it right now. Only has USB2, and not many expansion slots (1xPCIe x16, 1x PCIe x1, 2XPCI), may be enough for your purposes or not. It does have a good number of SATA ports (2x SATA 6GB, 2x SATA 3GB) which is why I have chosen it for the NAS application combined with its low price.

I/O, I/O,
It's off to disk I go,
With a bit and a byte
And a read and a write,
I/O, I/O

Reply 9 of 97, by Standard Def Steve

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i7-4930K @ 4.6GHz
GTX 1080 Ti
32GB DDR3-2400 CL10-11-11-30
1TB 860 EVO SSD + 4TB HDD
LG 34" monitor - 3440x1440

And still on Win7.

P6 chip. Triple the speed of the Pentium.
Tualatin: PIII-S @ 1628MHz | QDI Advance 12T | 2GB DDR-310 | 6800GT | X-Fi | 500GB HDD | 3DMark01: 14,059
Dothan: PM @ 2.9GHz | MSI Speedster FA4 | 2GB DDR2-580 | GTX 750Ti | X-Fi | 500GB SSD | 3DMark01: 43,190

Reply 10 of 97, by DeafPK

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This

https://smallformfactor.net/forum/threads/199 … n-sleeper.8294/

Ryzen 1600 + Fury X. All you need is a minitower, right? 😉

"an occasional fart in their general direction would provide more than enough cooling" —PCBONEZ

Reply 12 of 97, by 386SX

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You all have quiet powerful pc... and I was thinking that going for a Q6600 build would be too much modern.. 😁

I want to push the maximum out of this Pentium 4 3,4 Prescott as soon as I'll get it, maybe I'll use some more faster DDR ram even if I don't think it's worth it but next step will be the Pentium D, maybe the fastest I can get. Using Linux I don't need a fast video card so I prefer the most modern still quiet/passive gpu.

Basically my idea is use the best/fastest tech of very old configs for modern os/apps to realize how much they could still be useful nowdays.

Reply 13 of 97, by 386SX

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Standard Def Steve wrote:
i7-4930K @ 4.6GHz GTX 1080 Ti 32GB DDR3-2400 CL10-11-11-30 1TB 860 EVO SSD + 4TB HDD LG 34" monitor - 3440x1440 […]
Show full quote

i7-4930K @ 4.6GHz
GTX 1080 Ti
32GB DDR3-2400 CL10-11-11-30
1TB 860 EVO SSD + 4TB HDD
LG 34" monitor - 3440x1440

And still on Win7.

Big monitor... 😲 😎

Reply 14 of 97, by Kamerat

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My everyday and fastest PC:

Intel Xeon E5645 ES (think it got a defective memory channel, only seeing 16GB RAM now)
Asus Sabertooth X58
24GB Corsair DDR3-1600H (6x4GB)
XFX Radeon R9 290
Plextor M3 Pro 128GB (4x of those in RAID0)
Fujitsu D2607 SAS-controller
LG GGW-H20L (burns BD, reads HD-DVD)
Cooler Master CM 690
Seasonic M12D 850W
Noctua NH-D14 HSF
AOC D2769VH 27"

DOS Sound Blaster compatibility: PCI sound cards vs. PCI chipsets
YouTube channel

Reply 16 of 97, by clueless1

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My financial PC is a 2010 Acer laptop running MX Linux. It's exclusively used for email and finances. My play PC is this:
https://support.hp.com/us-en/drivers/selfserv … ower-pc/5387466
Bought it refurbished for $320. It came with an i5-4590, 8GB RAM and 250GB SSD. I added a GTX 750Ti and a 2TB data drive (both of which I already owned, so no added cost). The only things I need to add to it now are a USB floppy and USB CD burner (it came with a CD reader). It plays Doom 2016 on medium details at 60+ fps, which is more than fast enough for any games I'd play on it. My gaming tastes lean toward older classics, so this system is like a super computer for my needs. 😊

The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know.
OPL3 FM vs. Roland MT-32 vs. General MIDI DOS Game Comparison
Let's benchmark our systems with cache disabled
DOS PCI Graphics Card Benchmarks

Reply 17 of 97, by Murugan

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Rampage 2 Extreme with X5650 @4ghz
Corsair H80i V2
12GB RAM (Corsair XMS3)
R9 290 Tri-X
Asus Xonar DG
Iiyama 27" IPS 2560x1440
Samsung SSD 500GB & 3TB HD
DVD-burner
Win 10

Sold my 2500k system for this one 😀

Last edited by Murugan on 2018-10-15, 07:06. Edited 1 time in total.

My retro collection: too much...

Reply 18 of 97, by brostenen

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Lenovo Thinkpad R61, running Xubunty.

Don't eat stuff off a 15 year old never cleaned cpu cooler.
Those cakes make you sick....

My blog: http://to9xct.blogspot.dk
My YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/brostenen

001100 010010 011110 100001 101101 110011

Reply 19 of 97, by darry

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My non-gaming daily driver for the last 2.5 years has been a Dell E5430 with an i7 3630QM (upgraded from a an i5 3310M) with 16GB RAM, Kingston HyperX 240GB SSD and a Hitachi 1TB hard drive (mounted in the optical drive bay) running Windows 7 Pro .