Any suggestions for a new computer?

[Lord of Planar]

I have a rather old computer. Still treats me well. Bought it with XP installed and upgraded it a few times. At a minimum, I want to but a new motherboard, M2 drive, DDR5 RAM and a good processor. I might just buy a whole new tower. Here is what i have:



With a new motherboard, I save the cost of the case, power supply, and graphics card. However, it is an old case so maybe a new case is in order too. the RTX 2070 will still do me solid for some time.

Any thoughts? I have not kept up with the computer scene. I'm thinking of a Z790 or Z890 motherboard. Intel i7 or i9. thinking of a high end MSI Dragon series.

 

[Integrityrespec]

I have a rather old computer. Still treats me well. Bought it with XP installed and upgraded it a few times. At a minimum, I want to but a new motherboard, M2 drive, DDR5 RAM and a good processor. I might just buy a whole new tower. Here is what i have:

View attachment 67576998

With a new motherboard, I save the cost of the case, power supply, and graphics card. However, it is an old case so maybe a new case is in order too. the RTX 2070 will still do me solid for some time.

Any thoughts? I have not kept up with the computer scene. I'm thinking of a Z790 or Z890 motherboard. Intel i7 or i9. thinking of a high end MSI Dragon series.

Bite the bullet and get an Apple Macbook. I'm on my second and love it. I was hesitant when I got my first because it was a work computer and I used a different laptop. I begged to keep the same, but they made me change anyway. Now so glad.

 

[Lord of Planar]

Bite the bullet and get an Apple Macbook. I'm on my second and love it. I was hesitant when I got my first because it was a work computer and I used a different laptop. I begged to keep the same, but they made me change anyway. Now so glad.

Thanks, but I am not interested. Apple lost their appeal to me when they stopped using Motorola processors. That was a long time ago.

 

[ASHES]

I'd go with a Ryzen AM5 system these days. Which one depends on your budget and use case. Simple gaming, no plans to OC, skip the X and X3D CPUs and the higher end OCing motherboards.

 

[ASHES]

For reference, my newest 3 PCs (not counting laptops) are an an i7-4790k, an i5-11600k, and a Ryzen 5700X. The first is starting to show it's age as you have discovered, despite upgrading GPU. Obviously ddr3 ram speed is a serious limit these days being up to 1866 or so. The other 2 still run flawless with DDR4 3200.

 

[Slartibartfast]

This is my daily driver and I am pretty happy with it.



Its a Lenovo LOQ brand laptop. I will probably upgrade it to 64gb of ram for running better AI models on LM Studio at some point though.

 

[ASHES]

Bite the bullet and get an Apple Macbook. I'm on my second and love it. I was hesitant when I got my first because it was a work computer and I used a different laptop. I begged to keep the same, but they made me change anyway. Now so glad.

No hate for MacBooks. My every day laptop is a 2012 MacBook Pro. Still runs great. My only gripe is after 2015 or so you can't replace storage or ram. I'll still get a newer one eventually.

 

[Lord of Planar]

I'd go with a Ryzen AM5 system these days. Which one depends on your budget and use case. Simple gaming, no plans to OC, skip the X and X3D CPUs and the higher end OCing motherboards.

Call me silly, but I will stick with Intel. I have been inside several of their fabs regarding the semiconductor processing equipment we sold them when I was in engineering. Learned lots from their engineers and upper management. Not so keen on how they rotate their workforce, but I believe their quality is unmatched. I know benchmarks generally show AMD faster, but whoop-Te-do. I want a computer that will last me several years again.

 

[Slartibartfast]

No hate for MacBooks. My every day laptop is a 2012 MacBook Pro. Still runs great. My only gripe is after 2015 or so you can't replace storage or ram. I'll still get a newer one eventually.

I refuse to buy apple because I can't upgrade it myself. In fact, my last laptop was a framework due repairability. I ended up spilling a gatorade on it though and haven't bothered to replace the motherboard yet. I will probably end up getting one of those new AMD AI processors which seem to be doing well on third party tests. That being said, my work laptop is an apple because I tend to do development for the Linux environment or spark data processing systems (which are Linux based as well). I freaking hate the fact that I can't customize the apple interface though. I also hate their weird keyboard.

 

[ASHES]

Call me silly, but I will stick with Intel. I have been inside several of their fabs regarding the semiconductor processing equipment we sold them when I was in engineering. Learned lots from their engineers and upper management. Not so keen on how they rotate their workforce, but I believe their quality is unmatched. I know benchmarks generally show AMD faster, but whoop-Te-do. I want a computer that will last me several years again.

That was my most recent choice as well. In that case, I'd still go with an i5 over an i7 or i9, unless you really must have the latest and greatest or are running parallel processing software that can make use of the higher thread counts. I'd even be happy with a new gen i3 for all my gaming purposes if budget is a concern. I'd recommend a motherboard with at least 2 nvme slots, so you can have an OS drive and a storage drive.

 

[Lord of Planar]

For reference, my newest 3 PCs (not counting laptops) are an an i7-4790k, an i5-11600k, and a Ryzen 5700X. The first is starting to show it's age as you have discovered, despite upgrading GPU. Obviously ddr3 ram speed is a serious limit these days being up to 1866 or so. The other 2 still run flawless with DDR4 3200.

That 4790K (4 ghz) has stayed in the upper speeds for single thread speed for a long time. I had at times thought of upgrading mine to that, but I really never needed the extra speed. I believe it was like a $360 processor.

I want the DDR5 and M2 more than anything else. but I will splurge, probably $2k give or take a little.

 

[Slartibartfast]

Call me silly, but I will stick with Intel. I have been inside several of their fabs regarding the semiconductor processing equipment we sold them when I was in engineering. Learned lots from their engineers and upper management. Not so keen on how they rotate their workforce, but I believe their quality is unmatched. I know benchmarks generally show AMD faster, but whoop-Te-do. I want a computer that will last me several years again.

Intel is fine, but the E cores are more of a headache then a benefit IMHO. You would be better off with a used Xeon system.

 

[BabaVoss]

Reconsider your position on a MacBook. That is my best advice.

 

[Lord of Planar]

I am currently running three 32" 1440P monitors. In a "H" pattern.

I hove toyed with the idea of replacing them with 4K, or even 8K.

 

[Slartibartfast]

@Lord of Planar, check this out

MINISFORUM BD790i

official store

www.minisforum.com

There's been a lot of innovation in using mobile processors on desktop lately and this is an amazing deal I think. You may not like AMD, but this thing is 32 thread and has an upper limit of 64GB of ram. It will probably last you a long time.

https://www.amd.com/en/products/processors/laptop/ryzen/7000-series/amd-ryzen-9-7940hx.html

Wendell knows his stuff.

 

[Lord of Planar]

Intel is fine, but the E cores are more of a headache then a benefit IMHO. You would be better off with a used Xeon system.

LOL...

Like the Xeon Silver?

We have a new server for a small system at work, it uses a Dell Poweredge server with a Xeon Silver processor. Base price of $5300, but we have much better than the base model.

 

[Mycroft]

I have a rather old computer. Still treats me well. Bought it with XP installed and upgraded it a few times. At a minimum, I want to but a new motherboard, M2 drive, DDR5 RAM and a good processor. I might just buy a whole new tower. Here is what i have:

View attachment 67576998

With a new motherboard, I save the cost of the case, power supply, and graphics card. However, it is an old case so maybe a new case is in order too. the RTX 2070 will still do me solid for some time.

Any thoughts? I have not kept up with the computer scene. I'm thinking of a Z790 or Z890 motherboard. Intel i7 or i9. thinking of a high end MSI Dragon series.

You are probably due for a big upgrade. Your CPU is more than 10 years old. That's a huge amount of time in computer world. Plus, you really should move up to Win11. Win10 is losing support in October 2025. That means no more security upgrades, etc. Your current CPU cannot handle Win11.

As with any upgrade, it all comes down to needs and money. You'll need a new motherboard to upgrade your CPU and RAM. An M2 drive is a great upgrade, but you could make do with your current SSD's...unless they are getting filled up now. If you are okay with your graphics card, keep it, though I would suggest going with something in the RTX 3XXX line...if only for longevity. Eventually, that 2070 won't cut it. Regarding the case...if your case works well keeping everything cool, stay with it.

Anyway, if money is no object, get the high end MB/CPU stuff. If money matters, look at a previous gen CPU and a cheap MB for it. Get good RAM, though. 16GB used to be okay. Now, 32GB...or even 64GB...is necessary.

I just noticed you intend to spend about two grand. That'll get some nice hardware. I suggest a high end MB and a i7-14700 (K, if you want it) CPU. An i9 is overkill right now.

This is my system...



My display is two 27" 1080p monitors and a 1440p curved screen monitor.

I don't need to OC, but it's available if I ever decide to do it.

 

[Lord of Planar]

Intel is fine, but the E cores are more of a headache then a benefit IMHO. You would be better off with a used Xeon system.

Hasn't the Alder Lake chipset solved the problems?

 

[Slartibartfast]

Hasn't the Alder Lake chipset solved the problems?

If you look at their flagship product, you are still seeing E cores, which I just have a preference against.

Intel® Core™ 9 processor 270H (24M Cache, up to 5.80 GHz) - Product Specifications | Intel

Intel® Core™ 9 processor 270H (24M Cache, up to 5.80 GHz) quick reference with specifications, features, and technologies.

www.intel.com

On top of that, they are still on a 10nm node while AMD processors are on 4nm. That's going to mean lower power and higher performance (assuming a rational processing architecture, which both companies provide)

https://www.amd.com/en/products/processors/laptop/ryzen/ai-300-series/amd-ryzen-ai-max-plus-395.html <-- if you get something like this, you are likely to blow a cap before the processor becomes fully obsolete. On top of that, these processors are going to focus on (normal, overdetermined, and underdetermined) matrix equations which are going to become increasingly important.

 

[Lord of Planar]

You are probably due for a big upgrade. Your CPU is more than 10 years old. That's a huge amount of time in computer world. Plus, you really should move up to Win11. Win10 is losing support in October 2025. That means no more security upgrades, etc. Your current CPU cannot handle Win11.

Yes, I am completely aware of this. we have Win 11 at work. I hate it worse than win10. They need to bring an OS back more like XP.

As with any upgrade, it all comes down to needs and money. You'll need a new motherboard to upgrade your CPU and RAM. An M2 drive is a great upgrade, but you could make do with your current SSD's...unless they are getting filled up now.

I have 0.5T M2 that I bought years ago. Bought an adapter card. It worked, but was slow, because it is designed to use four lanes, and my buss only allowed in one lane.

If you are okay with your graphics card, keep it, though I would suggest going with something in the RTX 3XXX line...if only for longevity. Eventually, that 2070 won't cut it. Regarding the case...if your case works well keeping everything cool, stay with it.

I already have the 2070. The Dell came with a 720. Bought a 950, and later the 2070. I am fine with upgrading over time. Picked up a 750 watt modular PS when I needed the longer power connector for the 2070. I am set with good parts to reuse, including my DVD and Bluray Rewriters.

Anyway, if money is no object, get the high end MB/CPU stuff. If money matters, look at a previous gen CPU and a cheap MB for it. Get good RAM, though. 16GB used to be okay. Now, 32GB...or even 64GB...is necessary.

I will go to at least 64 GB. I have a good budget to work with. I want to try to keep my costs under $2,500, but if the right ideas come together, I might go more. I sometimes have several dozen windows open at the same time.

 

[MamboDervish]

I'm on my third MacBook Pro, but it's 7 years old and I know from experience that they won't service it anymore if things go south, so last month I picked up a 15" MacBook Air that just happened to be on a rare sale because it was a floor model. 2TB M3 Pro chip, but I have yet to fire it up. Still in the box. I think I might need some new cables because none of them have the old USB ports that my peripherals do, so a few adapters might be in order.

 

[BabaVoss]

Also on the Mac front, of you don't need the portability of a MacBook, a Mac Mini or Mac Studio are awesome machines. I run a Mac Studio. More power and storage than I will ever need. It has 32GB, a 1TB drive, and an aftermarket add-on that houses a 12TB backup drive and a 4TB SSD drive. I do video editing so I also have a couple of 6TB drives I can connect at will. I run a pair of 27" ASUS monitors. Don't run windows much anymore, but I do have a parallels Windows 11 VM if needed. Works fine. Great setup.

 

[Cosmo]

Gonna depend on what you want to do with the computer obviously.

 

[Daisy]

I'm not nearly as PC savvy as y'all are but I bought a Lenovo in 2018, had the hard drive replaced once, other than that, not a bit of trouble from it...when it finally dies, I will definitely buy another...

 

[Ganondagan]

Call me silly, but I will stick with Intel. I have been inside several of their fabs regarding the semiconductor processing equipment we sold them when I was in engineering. Learned lots from their engineers and upper management. Not so keen on how they rotate their workforce, but I believe their quality is unmatched. I know benchmarks generally show AMD faster, but whoop-Te-do. I want a computer that will last me several years again.

Thank you, I'll let my son know. He worked for Intel for 25 years. He reached the role of Senior Design Engineer a few years ago before recently being recruited to join the engineering team at the AI company, Tenstorrent