New-To-Me PC
 

I've decided it's time for the old Athlon 64 to enter retirement. It has done its duty. I [U]do not[/U] want new! That means dealing with Windows 8, or 10. I also don't have $500+ to shell out.

So, I'm going with a refurb. It's an HP Z220 Workstation. Intel i-5 quad running at 3.4 GHz, 4 GB RAM, and so on. I don't know the capability of the PSU. It has two PCIe 2 slots and one PCIe 3 slot. I've had recent issues with PCIe compliance and nVidia adapters. My fault for not knowing as much as I should. I downloaded the spec document from HP, all 28 pages. I browsed it enough to learn that the CPU can be upgraded to an i7, and the RAM farther than 4 GB. I also downloaded the driver package from HP. It may need an additional fan, or two, for air flow. I have a monstrous copper radial CPU heat-sink with its own fan inside. I keep usable bits and pieces in a plastic tote; keyboards, wire harnesses, rodents, and other things.

I will cannibalize the Athlon for a few new items; an Asus disc burner and the nVidia card. If necessary, the 550 watt PSU. I would think a work station would have something comparable.

I want something tried and tested that I can use for a long time. I'm 61 years old and this may be my last one, before I lose interest in such things.

If you're avoiding new because win10.... have you tried linux?

I bought a new desktop last month for $375 or so. current-gen i5, 8GB, 1TB, space for a video card (I don't game, just CUDA-math stuff), purchased locally at a big-box store. That had Win10, but it was for a retired parent who doesn't care.

Good plan to keep the old power supply as a backup. About half my previous desktop failures have been power supplies (often the generic ones that come with cheap desktops or even older cheap cases).

[QUOTE=VBCurtis;445784]If you're avoiding new because win10.... have you tried linux?
(I don't game, just CUDA-math stuff),.[/QUOTE]

I don't "game" either. In the past, it's been Prime95, and now mfaktc using CUDA. I have looked at Linux in the past. If it was something that I had to use because there was no other choice, I would make the effort to learn it, more.

I've never actually done anything with Windows 10. My sister has Windows 8 on a new HP desktop. I've messed with it enough to know it's not for me. I understand that 10 brought back some features prior to 8. I bought a genuine Windows 7 DVD in 2011. It has both 32-bit and 64-bit. It wasn't cheap either. I like it because it's stable and reliable. This is sort of like the "don't fix it if it isn't broken" deal.

The 550W power supply is an Ultra. It has a lifetime warranty. It was a bit costly, but worth it, to me.

[QUOTE=storm5510;445783]I've decided it's time for the old Athlon 64* to enter retirement. It has done its duty. I [U]do not[/U] want new! That means dealing with Windows 8, or 10.** I also don't have $500+ to shell out. [/QUOTE]

*I came upon my Athlon 64 recently while rooting around in a drawer. I was actually looking for the Phenom II 1090T, but that did not turn up in that location. Nevertheless, the Athlon 64 was hot stuff when it came out, perhaps AMD's last moment of real glory in genuinely beating out contemporaneous Intel offerings.

**Win7 Pro was still available, last I looked.

[QUOTE]I came upon my Athlon 64 recently while rooting around in a drawer.[/QUOTE]According to what I read a long time ago, mine was the first generation. 1.9 Ghz

[QUOTE]Win7 Pro was still available, last I looked.[/QUOTE]The one I bought is "Ultimate." As I said, very pricey at the time.

[QUOTE=storm5510;445783]I've decided it's time for the old Athlon 64 to enter retirement. It has done its duty. I [U]do not[/U] want new! That means dealing with Windows 8, or 10. I also don't have $500+ to shell out.

So, I'm going with a refurb. It's an HP Z220 Workstation. Intel i-5 quad running at 3.4 GHz, 4 GB RAM, and so on. I don't know the capability of the PSU. It has two PCIe 2 slots and one PCIe 3 slot. I've had recent issues with PCIe compliance and nVidia adapters. My fault for not knowing as much as I should. I downloaded the spec document from HP, all 28 pages. I browsed it enough to learn that the CPU can be upgraded to an i7, and the RAM farther than 4 GB. I also downloaded the driver package from HP. It may need an additional fan, or two, for air flow. I have a monstrous copper radial CPU heat-sink with its own fan inside. I keep usable bits and pieces in a plastic tote; keyboards, wire harnesses, rodents, and other things.

I will cannibalize the Athlon for a few new items; an Asus disc burner and the nVidia card. If necessary, the 550 watt PSU. I would think a work station would have something comparable.

I want something tried and tested that I can use for a long time. I'm 61 years old and this may be my last one, before I lose interest in such things.[/QUOTE]
Not a bad system. It doesn't support avx2/fma. If you stick with 1600 memory that wouldn't be an issue as that would limit you anyway. The Athlon 64s were crippled for prime95 due to half speed sse2. Core 2 was 2x as fast per clock. I think this should be at least 6x your althlon64 per core 24x in total.
You won't have pcie issues with anything designed in this decade.
DDR3 is dirt cheap so I would recommend upgrading to 8GB at least. Get as much memory as you will ever need before ddr3 becomes rare and the price shoots up.

BTW as long as it is not skylake win 7 would be fine on a new system.

[QUOTE=henryzz;445791]BTW as long as it is not skylake win 7 would be fine on a new system.[/QUOTE]

As of November 1 you will no longer be able to buy a new machine with Windows 7 installed, so better act fast if you want to do that.

[QUOTE]BTW as long as it is not skylake win 7 would be fine on a new system.[/QUOTE]I remember reading something about "SkyLake" recently. I believe it came out of Germany. Someone was running Prime95 and found an issue with the CPU. It went on to say that Intel had released some sort of BIOS patch to address the issue. I don't know what this one is that is en route. Perhaps the spec document I downloaded will say.

I run "classic shell" on my windows systems to hide tiles and such. It makes Windows 10 look and act like Windows 7. Just google classic shell to download. It's a simple install. I run linux boxes too but it's a less-familiar OS for me.

[QUOTE=stars10250;445806]I run "classic shell" on my windows systems to hide tiles and such. It makes Windows 10 look and act like Windows 7. Just google classic shell to download. It's a simple install. I run linux boxes too but it's a less-familiar OS for me.[/QUOTE]
Heh! I use Classic Shell to make Win7 look more like XP. :smile:

The CPU is an i5-3570 Ivy Bridge. Socket LGA 1155. Original release was May 31, 2012.

This computer is a "blank slate." That's what I want. I'll take its small HD out and put one of the Seagate 500's I have in it. I have enough old HD's here to fill up a five-gallon bucket. Most are < 100 GB. Paperweights, basically.