New PCs

[nikaiyo2]

With Win 7 going end of life soon I have been going round installing Win 10.

During this it dawned on me that some of the computers in the office are so slow, stty i3 4GB ram. Also found that we still have an xp machine in use!

Anyway, are these good enough for general office duty, nothing ott, excel, sage, outlook etc

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Dell-Optiplex-9020-SFF-...

[grumbledoak]

Yes, they'll be half decent.

[nikaiyo2]

Cool, they look similar in spec to what I built on novatech but £500 less, just wanted to make sure there was not something I had missed

I assume that they are not refurbished as such just ex public sector, wiped and sold on, that’s ok, isn’t is?
They should still be decent enough after a couple or 3 years?

Would I better off getting new lower spec machines?

[Mr Pointy]

nikaiyo2 said:

Cool, they look similar in spec to what I built on novatech but £500 less, just wanted to make sure there was not something I had missed

I assume that they are not refurbished as such just ex public sector, wiped and sold on, that’s ok, isn’t is?
They should still be decent enough after a couple or 3 years?

Would I better off getting new lower spec machines?

No, I don't think you would; these look to be a very nice spec little machine that will cope easily with most business use. I've got a similar 7010 with 3rd gen i7 sat on my desk & it runs Office & AutoCad with no issue. Obviously it's not a mega graphics gaming machine but for general office stuff it'll be perfect. Buy a spare if you can so if one goes down you can wheel a new one in while you scout ebay for a replacement.

Get in touch with the seller & try for a discount for multiple machines & if you're near Cheltenham go & collect & ask for a discount as they haven't had to ship them.

The only thing I would suggest is that you consider wiping both drives & reinstalling Windows 10 so you know there's nothing nasty lurking.

[Zad]

i7-4790Ks are still horsepower monsters, most of the improvements in i7s since then have concentrated on better power efficiency for laptop computing, the horsepower hasn't really got much better. I can run a decent modern 1080 game on 1 monitor with HD streaming on another and not notice any slowdown (reasonable GPU notwithstanding).

For a work machine, I would trade off the i7 for an i5 and have a bigger SSD. 16GB is nice to have.

[heisthegaffer]

Out of interest,, could you put an okay graphics card in to use for light gaming?

[grumbledoak]

heisthegaffer said:

Out of interest,, could you put an okay graphics card in to use for light gaming?

The i7 will do light gaming without a graphics card.

[Dave.]

Since seeing these pop up (and the hp z workstations) I've been considering getting one purely for sim racing (rFactor 2 currently, but may switch to AC in the future).

Couple of hundred on one of these plus a card for around £100 should do me well, or am I missing something?

[grumbledoak]

Dave. said:

Since seeing these pop up (and the hp z workstations) I've been considering getting one purely for sim racing (rFactor 2 currently, but may switch to AC in the future).

Couple of hundred on one of these plus a card for around £100 should do me well, or am I missing something?

Almost certainly no PCIe power for a graphics card. GTX 1050Ti max.

[TX1]

Have a look at Microdream as they specialize in those type of machines and you can change specs if you need, got a 7010 a while back with an ssd drive and use it as a work PC.
Came with windows 10 installed and have Sage and Microsoft Office installed and is great for my needs, boots up in about 25 sec.

[Mr Pointy]

heisthegaffer said:

Out of interest,, could you put an okay graphics card in to use for light gaming?

That chassis format only takes a half-height card & the cooling & PSU aren't up to running meaty graphics cards. You can certainly fit one but it can't be a monster.

[heisthegaffer]

Mr Pointy said:

That chassis format only takes a half-height card & the cooling & PSU aren't up to running meaty graphics cards. You can certainly fit one but it can't be a monster.

Thanks. Given my current PC is based around an Intel q8400 (I think) and the last game I played (and would like to play again) was Battlefield 2, what would be a good graphics card do you think?

[Mr Pointy]

heisthegaffer said:

Mr Pointy said:

That chassis format only takes a half-height card & the cooling & PSU aren't up to running meaty graphics cards. You can certainly fit one but it can't be a monster.

Thanks. Given my current PC is based around an Intel q8400 (I think) and the last game I played (and would like to play again) was Battlefield 2, what would be a good graphics card do you think?

Sorry, I don't play games so I'm not at all familiar with the specs of graphics cards; maybe someone else can help. You can get small tower versions of these PCs which means they can take a full height card but the PSUs are still not particularly powerful.