OVERKILL
$100 Site Donor 2021
He's talking about RAM, not the SSD. Completely separate subject.
Need a new desktop
- Thread starter spasm3
- Start date
You can use the system scanner on the crucial.com site to find out what SSD options there are for your PC.
Crucial System Scanner | Memory Upgrade Scanner | Crucial
Upgrade your system storage with our range of solid state drives. Find prices, specs and customer reviews to help choose the best device for you.
www.crucial.com
If you are just browsing web, watching YouTube, not playing 3D games (2D is not hard work at all), pretty much anything i3 within the last 6 years and above would work fine.
What I would get for my dad:
1) 4 cores (not 2 core 4 threads) processors
2) newer integrated graphics that support VP1 decoding, they will be the future very soon and older hardware would use CPU to decode video and that can be slow very quickly (pretty much anything in the last 2 years would have it). If not, just add a lowend graphics card that supports it when you need it (maybe in 3 years you probably can get a used low end one for $70).
3) 8GB of memory if you are comfortable buying another stick and installing it yourself. If you are not comfortable doing that buy a system with 16GB.
4) 512GB of SSD, they are likely NVMe these days and most OEM use DRAM-less SSD. For home users the speed won't be noticeable between that and DRAM buffered SSD, it is significantly faster than mechanical hard drive (not having to swing the arm around or wait for the disk to rotate to the location you want to read). If you need more space get another hard drive for your videos and photos.
Many of us already have a system good enough if DRAM is upgraded and SSD is installed, assuming the Windows are not bloated and install clean with no virus, etc.
I got my dad an AMD Ryzen 7 4600G with 8GB / 256GB SSD (I installed 1 more SSD to make it 768GB total) from HP for $450, then add another stick of 8GB DDR4 3200 to it from eBay for $20.
What I would get for my dad:
1) 4 cores (not 2 core 4 threads) processors
2) newer integrated graphics that support VP1 decoding, they will be the future very soon and older hardware would use CPU to decode video and that can be slow very quickly (pretty much anything in the last 2 years would have it). If not, just add a lowend graphics card that supports it when you need it (maybe in 3 years you probably can get a used low end one for $70).
3) 8GB of memory if you are comfortable buying another stick and installing it yourself. If you are not comfortable doing that buy a system with 16GB.
4) 512GB of SSD, they are likely NVMe these days and most OEM use DRAM-less SSD. For home users the speed won't be noticeable between that and DRAM buffered SSD, it is significantly faster than mechanical hard drive (not having to swing the arm around or wait for the disk to rotate to the location you want to read). If you need more space get another hard drive for your videos and photos.
Many of us already have a system good enough if DRAM is upgraded and SSD is installed, assuming the Windows are not bloated and install clean with no virus, etc.
I got my dad an AMD Ryzen 7 4600G with 8GB / 256GB SSD (I installed 1 more SSD to make it 768GB total) from HP for $450, then add another stick of 8GB DDR4 3200 to it from eBay for $20.
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Problem with refurb workstations like Dell Precision, is that 1) they are big, 2) they use a lot of power, 3) they can be loud, 4) they may have obsoleted hardware that no longer support future stuff (SIMD instructions, security feature, video codec etc). If you already have them they are fine, but if you are trying to buy one because they are good deals, they may not last as long as a low end new system.
Problem with Apple stuff is they may be proprietary and not upgradable (soldered ram? soldered SSD?), and may not be a good deal in the long run. They do look pretty and seems to hold value well in used market though.
Problem with Apple stuff is they may be proprietary and not upgradable (soldered ram? soldered SSD?), and may not be a good deal in the long run. They do look pretty and seems to hold value well in used market though.
Do you know of any good videos on how to install an SSD on to a desktop with ubuntu ? It looks like I need to buy a SATA cable to
OVERKILL
$100 Site Donor 2021
Kingston was selling "kits" for a while that had a 3.5" bay adapter, cable, and USB housing for cloning your old drive onto the new one using Acronis (which it came with a license for). Let me see if I can find if the kit is still around.
OVERKILL
$100 Site Donor 2021
OK, found it:
Amazon.com: Kingston Digital 512GB SSD KC600 SATA3 2.5IN BDL : Electronics
Amazon.com: Kingston Digital 512GB SSD KC600 SATA3 2.5IN BDL : Electronics
www.amazon.com
An idea for an old PC or laptop is to try installing Chrome OS Flex. I installed it on a Early 2011 MacBook Pro and it works pretty good.
Linux is a different world now. Redhat Linux is fully maintained and supports enterprise use. There are offshoots that favor the home user. Ubuntu is pretty popular. i like fedora, a lot, as they package different versions you can select based on interests, like writing, drawing, A/V editing, photography, etc.. most come with an office-like program for word processing, email, and the like. Good stuff!
Man I shoulda jumped on that when you posted it. I think it was $70 at the time then they ran out. Back in stock price is $101. May have to buy from different seller.
you can try this if this works for you , type in your zip
brickseek.com
HP 24 Desktop Bundle i3 8GB/1TB Desktop Bundle - Walmart Inventory Checker - BrickSeek
Items are priced differently from store-to-store. Use BrickSeek's Inventory Checkers to search your item and see its current, real-time stock count and pricing at stores near you.
brickseek.com
Like Overkill said, "NO".
SSD is replacing the Hard Drive in the computer not the RAM.
As far as technology, inside an SSD, there are Memory Chips (non-volatile, data stays when computer is off) that act as Hard Drive without spinning which is a faster access than a mechanical spinning hard drive..
RAM stands for Random Access Memory which is the memory that is used when computer is working.
It is usually using a Volatile Memory Chip which means when the computer is turn off, the data stored in it is gone.
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Chrome books work great for web browsing.. cheap and they’ll receive at least 6 yrs of updates.
We're looking for a new desktop as well. Our Dell desktop is at least 10 years old and it's getting really really slow.
I'm confused about hard drives. Do today's computers have both a SSD and a disc drive or just an SSD? (My laptop has only an SSD). If only an SSD, how big should we get? Can you add capacity later?
We're fairly light users and are not interested in games. We do have a lot of photos however. I'd like to stick with Windows 10 (we have an Office 2010 disc that I think I can install). We'd prefer a tower and separate monitor rather than an all in one. So far a single monitor has met our needs. Future proofing and reliability are obviously important. Budget is say $1500 Cdn ($1,000 US) but could go higher.
Thoughts?
still can connect things to laptop directly or through dock
That and do yourself a favor go with a 27 inch monitor, you will be glad you did and cost not much more than a 24.
We have 3 desktops and as of this year all 4 are 27 inch.
2 - 27“ HP’s that we bought a year or two ago for our 2 Mac Mini’s and 2 - 27” Sceptre’s on my wife’s Dell work station bought by her company.
We also have two laptops, but when not sitting on the couch or traveling, for us there’s nothing like sitting at our desks with the nice large keyboard, mouse and monitor.
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Depends on the computer. Some are NVMe (looks like a big stick of gum, mounts to the motherboard, sometimes called PCIe) and some are SATA (looks like a laptop hard drive, has a cable). Some real low end models will still have a HDD only, and some have both.
As for capacity, see what you’re using now and use that as your baseline. If you have a 500Gb drive and you’re using 400Gb of it, step up to a 1Tb drive for example. You’ll definitely want a solid state boot drive though.
