Post by Newyana2| On my shopping list when I get the Temporal Transmorgifyer working
| is to pick up several XP-64 boxes, so that as one dies, I have
| replacements.
| And several other items they don't make anymore.
|
I actually picked up a couple of spare motherboards,
but by the time I got around to buying spare CPUs
they were off the market. At the time I got an Asus MB
and an AMD 3.3 GHz 8 core for about $65 each. Costs
have gone way up since then.
So if my motherboard dies I'm ready, but it seems
unlikely that the MB would go without damaging the CPU.
That depends.
In fact, based on my small sampling, RAM and CPU tend to survive.
When your Bestec 200W PSU on an eMachine blew, it killed keyboard,
mouse, HDD, CD drive, motherboard. CPU and RAM were fine (regulators,
help protect some of the silicon onboard).
I took the E8400 out of my dead Core2 motherboard and put
it in the Optiplex 780, and it was 100% functional. It just
didn't give an ounce more performance. (The Dell doesn't
have all the RAM dividers enabled. A retail motherboard
has much better control over stuff like that.) The only application
where an E8400 beats an E7500, is when you're using 7ZIP to do
compression. It can be 50% faster then. But who would have the
patience to wait for an E8400 to compress anything.
*******
Costs have come down a slight bit, but not enough to cover
the inflationary trends.
For an entry level PC, you want a CPU with integrated graphics.
That reduces your overall costs. It's not going to be a gamer PC
(unless you like The SIMS). If you get the equivalent of a graphics
card, plus a cooler in the box, that helps reduce overall project cost.
Some of the adverts for cheaper processors (quad core), happen to use
bad English when describing the "missing" integrated graphics.
AMD Ryzen 5600G Zen3 6-Core 3.9/4.4 GHz AM4 65W (integrated AMD Vega7 Graphics) (boxed with aluminum Wraith Stealth cooler) $132
https://www.newegg.com/amd-ryzen-5-5600g-ryzen-5-5000-g-series/p/N82E16819113683
AMD Ryzen 5700G Zen3 8-Core 3.8/4.6 GHz AM4 65W (integrated AMD Vega8 Graphics) (boxed with aluminum Wraith Stealth cooler) $176
https://www.newegg.com/amd-ryzen-7-5700g-ryzen-7-5000-g-series/p/N82E16819113682
The ??? 5300G quad core launched at ??? 4.0/4.2 Vega6 (Now it is like it never existed)
The $132 5600G processor launched at $299
The $176 5700G processor launched at $359
A few cheap motherboards were issued, to help clean up the remaining AM4 stock.
That's a little more than I paid for a $65 Asrock years ago. Notice the
top VCore components, didn't even get a heatsink. And a 7W chip has a
3W heatsink plopped on top. Still, a low end processor won't tax a thing like this.
ASRock B550M Pro SE AM4 DDR4 SATA 6Gb/s 1 PCIe 4.0 x16 Micro ATX $75
https://www.newegg.com/asrock-b550m-pro-se/p/N82E16813162138
*******
Intel Core i3-10100 Quad-Core 3.6/4.3 GHz LGA1200 65W (UHD Graphics 630) (boxed with aluminum cooler) $110
https://www.newegg.com/intel-core-i3-10100-core-i3-10th-gen/p/N82E16819118138
(Intel heatsink/fan that is included in box - plastic peg mount)
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When the 10100 was in town, there were two in stock. The next
month, there were zero in stock for the month. These companies
do not want to cannibalize their own sales with the perfectly
adequate materials. Guess what ? I bought AMD :-) That's what
being a sleaze-ball nets you.
When I went to the computer store, there were *stacks* of AMD processors.
AMD must have cut them some kind of sweet deal on paying for that stock.
They might only pay for it, when a sale is made or something. Otherwise,
the pile of AMD stuff was too hard to explain. The computer store owner
is such a cheapskate, having actual stock is a mystery concept. Since
the disk drive companies won't cut him any deals, there aren't any hard drives.
Only a few 1TB ones for $60 or so. If you wanted a 22TB drive for backups,
you-can-go-suck-it. So when the guy has stock, it's a miracle or an Act of God
or something. A lot of the bad feelings, could have been causes by the
"Chia interval" (Chia mining on hard drives, caused price fluctuations and
shortages, and computer store owners could lose money on the fluctuations,
like when the bottom suddenly dropped out.)
It wasn't always like that. They used to have 80-100 hard drives in the
drive bay, at one time. And that included a good mix of big and small ones.
Paul