New Computer

[WM75Guy]

I no longer use my desktop at home, just a laptop. I recently physically destroyed about 20 old hard drives from several old desktop systems. Still need to get rid of cases. Kept the last one with win7 on it.
I absolutely refuse to pay software subscriptions like office 365.

I am not a fan of subscriptions either but in the past I paid $500 every 3 years to get the newest Office Suite for 1 computer. I have to keep current for compatibility with work documents. With Microsoft 365, the new name, I pay $99/yr for 6 licensed copies, each with 1 GB OneDrive space. We have 2 desktops and 3 laptops currently in use so it saves us money.

 

[MossRoad]

I am not a fan of subscriptions either but in the past I paid $500 every 3 years to get the newest Office Suite for 1 computer. I have to keep current for compatibility with work documents. With Microsoft 365, the new name, I pay $99/yr for 6 licensed copies, each with 1 GB OneDrive space. We have 2 desktops and 3 laptops currently in use so it saves us money.

Unfortunately, if it's a business requirement, there's not much you can do but get the best deal you can get.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

You might give Linux a try. I prefer linux Mint with the cinnamon desktop. Not only is it free, it is better.

I use Ubuntu linux in addition to windows. I prefer most windows apps over linux, but prefer linux for my python coding.

 

[scootr]

I was in I.T, for 25ish years. Always had the latest and greatest to keep up on the technologies. Since I got out of I.T., I can get by most days with just an iPad. I do have an older docked Surface Pro with keyboard, mouse, and larger monitor if I want to do some spreadsheet work or photo editing. But I just don't need a PC anymore.

Anytime friends or family would want recommendations on PCs, I'd recommend factory refurbs unless they were gamers or into video production. There's just not much need for a screaming fast PC for most people.

My current PC is a refurb. At the time I bought it my friend was building a new PC with all the latest and greatest components. This refurb had 90% of what he was selecting with a 1 yr warranty from Dell. Good thing too because they had to come to the house and replace the motherboard within that yr but since then and all said it has been a good machine with i7 Intel processor 3.7ghz, 16G ram, GTX 1080 graphics card and a 256 GB SSD

I work on the PC by day and play on it in the evening. The new PC has a Ryzen 7 CPU, GTX 3070TI graphics card, 16GB ram, 2TB SSD, combined liquid and air cooling, and more. The bigger SSD will be a real bonus for me. I added 1TB of analogue storage to the old PC

 

[2manyrocks]

I looked for a retina level display that wasn't an Apple. After finding that even small 4k monitors with only 184 pixel density and not so great color accuracy were $280, I just bought a used 2017 Imac with 4k monitor and SSD drive for $325. I'm not familiar with Thunderbolt ports, but it has two Thunderbolt 3 ports. Apparently, TB 3 is capable of transfer speeds about 3x faster than most older SSDs. Newer SSDs using PCI 4 are even faster. Amazing to me that 2tb of storage can be put on a drive not much bigger than a stick of gum.

 

[scootr]

Right you are about those SSDs. What a great advancement. 2 TB will hold me over for a long time... unless I start photo and video editing. Lol

 

[2manyrocks]

The Western Digital Black SN850x is rated to 7,000 mb/s. The 1tb version was $99 recently on sale which is about the same price we used to pay for much, much slower and smaller spinning hard drives.

Although computers have gotten faster and more powerful, 4k video is still demanding to edit and requires a lot of storage. 2TB will still hold a bunch of photos with no problem.

 

[Oaktree]

The Western Digital Black SN850x is rated to 7,000 mb/s. The 1tb version was $99 recently on sale which is about the same price we used to pay for much, much slower and smaller spinning hard drives.

Have SSD's longevity issues been resolved? For a long time they had only a limited number of write cycles after which they'd become read-only.

 

[scootr]

Have SSD's longevity issues been resolved? For a long time they had only a limited number of write cycles after which they'd become read-only.

What I read says SSD incur significant wear and tear once they are full and start deleting old data to store new data. If this is correct I'm pretty safe as I stored about 500 GB in the last 5 yrs on the PC and the new pc has a 2TB drive.

 

[TractorTYMe]

I upgraded right before Xmas I got a Corsair Vengenace 7300i for a new gaming PC, to replace my old one I built in 2015. But I've had so many problems with it, the RAM sticks keeps working themselves out, they are heavy and bulky DDR5 RAM sticks. I'm gonna open a support case with Corsair, I've been in IT for 30 years. And when you're an IT Manager you HATE to talk to other customer support.