build your own desktop

Couperin47

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SumnerH said:
 
i5/i3 are Sandy Bridge/HD2000-era stuff, which is still more than enough.  He doesn't game.  Unless you're doing 3D stuff, the GPU is utterly irrelevant (it may be used a bit for compositing, but even old Intel stuff is more than capable of that).    (I have a Sandy Bridge laptop that I use with dual monitors for all kinds of (raster and vector) graphics work no problem from the GPU; going to 8MB RAM and installing SSD would definitely be the preferred ways to speed it up.)
 
Your selection's great otherwise, and if the scratch and dent pricing puts it ahead of the other offerings it might be worth it even with the overkill GPU.  But if it were me, I'd at least check if it's available without or if there's something comparable without at a competitor.
 
I don't disagree..weirdly they have like 30 of these, all identically speced and all at $405 or $459.. and atm nothing else even remotely interesting or similar. I've been watching the others who carry Lenovo refurbs, nobody ever beats their prices and nobody else gives you the one year warranty so on Lenovo I mostly just check the Outlet these days. Having pulled apart tons of Dells to find that everything has been stripped from what started as semi-standard motherboards, plus their charming habit of undersizing their power supplies even more than most...and switching the wiring standard on the main PS to MB harness so attempting to use aftermarket or standard PS fries your motherboard...and I just avoid them now.
 

kelpapa

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SumnerH said:
 
Haswell's integrated graphics supports up to 3 monitors if the motherboard does (e.g. with this motherboard).  Most mobos will do 2 no problem.
I need to look into this more. I just assumed I needed a graphics card.
 

Couperin47

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Rsox4life said:
i like the pricesd and specs at the lenova outlet and the option to add an SSD...would you go for scratch and dent or refurb?
Refurbs from the Outlet tend to be very clean. Scratch & Dent is more variable, on a laptop s&d if it refers to the screen would probably leave most of us quite unhappy. On a desktop ? Most of us don't decorate under our desk...
 

derekson

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SumnerH said:
 
i5/i3 are Sandy Bridge/HD2000-era stuff, which is still more than enough.  He doesn't game.  Unless you're doing 3D stuff, the GPU is utterly irrelevant (it may be used a bit for compositing, but even old Intel stuff is more than capable of that).    (I have a Sandy Bridge laptop that I use with dual monitors for all kinds of (raster and vector) graphics work no problem from the GPU; going to 8MB RAM and installing SSD would definitely be the preferred ways to speed it up.)
 
Your selection's great otherwise, and if the scratch and dent pricing puts it ahead of the other offerings it might be worth it even with the overkill GPU.  But if it were me, I'd at least check if it's available without or if there's something comparable without at a competitor.
 
You can get a Haswell i5. i5 and i7 chips have coexisted for the last several revisions. I think most of the Haswell i5 desktop chips have HD4600 graphics.
 

Rsox4life

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Dec 23, 2005
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I am having a hard time telling the difference between the 402 dollar Lenovos on the outlet and the 450 dollar ones specs wise. any guesses as to the difference? maybe the 450 ones are less scratchy and denty? I think I am going to go this right just don't want to pay more for no reason.
 

Couperin47

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Rsox4life said:
I am having a hard time telling the difference between the 402 dollar Lenovos on the outlet and the 450 dollar ones specs wise. any guesses as to the difference? maybe the 450 ones are less scratchy and denty? I think I am going to go this right just don't want to pay more for no reason.
 
lol, yeah they are ALL identical, the Outlet pricing policies are....strange...2 days ago when helping someone in the luddite laptop thread there were 5 almost identical laptops... the only spec differences were some had 8 Gig of ram and a 128 Gig ssd, and 2 had 12 Gig or ram and a 256 Gig ssd.. and all 5 had the same price. In this case there are far too many to really be all serious scratch & dent unless a a wild rhino got loose in one of their warehouses...so I'm guessing what we have here are a collection of open box returns. They won't ship anything with functional issues...I'd probably go for a $402 and see...with a good sale on an sdd you could do this all for under 5 bills... btw please report back what condition it shows up in... only way we can get a feel for what the 'low end' of what they will ship might be...I've yet to hear of anyone who received a unit they were unhappy about.
 

Rsox4life

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Will do. This might be a dumb question but if it comes with windows 8 how do I switch the OS to the SSD for boot. Would I then wipe the sata hard drive
 

kelpapa

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Looking on that site, what is the value in an 8 GB micro SSD? The OS is larger than 8 GB, so what is run on that?
 

Couperin47

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Rsox4life said:
Will do. This might be a dumb question but if it comes with windows 8 how do I switch the OS to the SSD for boot. Would I then wipe the sata hard drive
 
As far as I can tell Lenovo desktops don't ship with a recovery disk, it's on a partition of the hard drive. I believe there is a procedure to burn an actual disk from this, their 'one key' restore option will only restore to an already formatted C drive so can't be used to install onto the ssd easily. Alternatively there are tons of migration program software that can easily transfer the installed boot image, some ssd actually include such migration software, most often by Acronis, which is not my favorite but it will work. One of my favorites has a free version of backup/migrate software that should do this easily: http://www.todo-backup.com/products/home/free-backup-software.htm
 
The other issue is physical install: You're probably never going to the the usm dock, if it attaches at the dock end using standard sata & power connections you could use these for the ssd (check that the usm is attached to one of the standard 4 SATA ports on the mb, NOT the eSata port next to them). If the usm is using captive cables at the dock end then you will need a standard sata III data cable and a sata power splitter of this type: http://www.monoprice.com/Product?c_id=102&cp_id=10226&cs_id=1022604&p_id=5184&seq=1&format=2
as far as I can tell these desktops don't use any of the older standard molex power connectors so that type of more common power splitter (large white 4 pin molex to 2 small sata power connectors) won't work.
 
Here's a link to the User manual for the 450 series, you can see layout and general issues to open the case and change/add components: http://download.lenovo.com/consumer/desktop_pub/ic_k4_ug_v3.0_win8_en_r_online_20130517.pdf
 

AlNipper49

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kelpapa said:
Looking on that site, what is the value in an 8 GB micro SSD? The OS is larger than 8 GB, so what is run on that?
nothing, it's for cameras and shit.  it's probably a micro SD you're looking at
 

Couperin47

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kelpapa said:
Looking on that site, what is the value in an 8 GB micro SSD? The OS is larger than 8 GB, so what is run on that?
 
Actually not much, it gets used as a cache and in most cases can be used for the hiberfil.sys file so hibernate runs even faster. The good news is that virtually any machine with an mSata port can also use that port as a 'real' hard drive, including a boot drive if you plug in a large enough mSata drive.  Technology overtook the concept quickly, when designed it was assumed mSata drives would be small and expensive, in fact mSata drives rapidly reached 120+ Gig size and at prices only a few bucks higher than standard ssd drives. The good news is pretty much all laptops that have them will see the mSata drive as a 'normal' hard drive so it can be made your boot drive.
 

SumnerH

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kelpapa said:
Looking on that site, what is the value in an 8 GB micro SSD? The OS is larger than 8 GB, so what is run on that?
 
A lot of times these are used as part of a hybrid drive and serve as a monstrous cache.
 
As far as a standalone goes, whether the OS is larger is a more nuanced question.  You can comfortably fit a Linux install in less than 4GB (and if you're at all moderate, < 1GB).  My work machine's just barely over 8GB used for everything (not just the OS) and I don't try at all to intentionally keep things small there.
 
If it is, there's no technical reason you need everything that comes in the OS install to be on the SSD--before they got bigger, it wasn't uncommon to have boot-specific stuff and DLLs and the like on the SSD, with less commonly accessed or speed-sensitive stuff on spinning platters.  Putting help files or the sample AVI that comes with the OS on the SSD isn't really making things much faster for you, it's just burning more expensive storage.  Dunno if Windows has (or still has) an option to do this, but it used to be pretty common.
 

Rsox4life

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Dec 23, 2005
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Got the Lenovo Scratch and dent desktop I ordered and cant stress enough how perfect this thing is. Calling it scratch and dent is really misleading. I am loving how fast it is. The Windows 8 I am not crazy about however the learning curve seems pretty steep but I will figure it out I'm sure. thanks for all the help!
 

Couperin47

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Rsox4life said:
Got the Lenovo Scratch and dent desktop I ordered and cant stress enough how perfect this thing is. Calling it scratch and dent is really misleading. I am loving how fast it is. The Windows 8 I am not crazy about however the learning curve seems pretty steep but I will figure it out I'm sure. thanks for all the help!
 
Go download Classic Shell (free) and make the pain go away...it takes a few mins to config (opposite click on the start button and use the advanced setup, but that's because you can configure it to be exactly the way you want as in XP or 7).
 

jercra

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Windows 8 is super easy as soon as you learn to boot to desktop and that you never need to look for your programs in a start bar.  Hit the start button and start typing.  The search works great.
 

Rsox4life

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Thanks for the tips. Right now I am using Pikko as a start menu replacement and that is working pretty well. I am not having a hard time finding stuff I'm just not a huge fan of the apps UI. Anyone know of any issues with office if I have a windows 8 version at home and a windows 7/xp version at work?
 

CoRP

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AlNipper49 said:
My guess if you're having troubleshot staying in a budget that you're overspending on your video card or CPU.  You don't need bleeding edge on either, unless you have specific uses that you haven't detailed.
How 'bout a 4-6 monitor set up?  Bloomberg...Eze over VPN...etc
 

AlNipper49

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CoRP said:
How 'bout a 4-6 monitor set up?  Bloomberg...Eze over VPN...etc
It's really the video card. Depending on the type of Bloomie usage (API/big spreads,etc) you're ok w/ 8gb/RAM and an i7. I never go cheap on these types of machines since downtime or slowness is costly, particularly at what those tools cost per month
 

CoRP

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Sweet, so I can mine while I work...
 
What card do I want? GeForce Titan sounds badass.
 

Couperin47

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CoRP said:
Sweet, so I can mine while I work...
 
What card do I want? GeForce Titan sounds badass.
 
Card ? as in singular ? you're a piker, serious miners setup rigs use 2 ,3 or even more video cards (finding motherboards and power supplies to support such rigs ain't easy) and the industry has now moved on to processors even more powerful than the gpus in video cards... see here: http://www.bitcoinx.com/bitcoin-mining-hardware/
 

CoRP

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Way to burst my bubble... My biz is going to buy me a couple of desktops anyway. Even if they're not super fast I'm still mining for free. Is it unreasonable to think I'd be able to mine a coin or two a year?
 

AlNipper49

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CoRP said:
Way to burst my bubble... My biz is going to buy me a couple of desktops anyway. Even if they're not super fast I'm still mining for free. Is it unreasonable to think I'd be able to mine a coin or two a year?
The way to do it is mine all the desktops when people go home for the night
 

CoRP

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AlNipper49 said:
It's really the video card. Depending on the type of Bloomie usage (API/big spreads,etc) you're ok w/ 8gb/RAM and an i7. I never go cheap on these types of machines since downtime or slowness is costly, particularly at what those tools cost per month
Do you have a parts list for a typical i7, 8GB build that you like? 
 

CoRP

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AlNipper49 said:
Your little boyfriend Johnny does
He has a sweet ass. Unfortunately, I'm too cheap to be able to afford him. $1500/month minimum? Not in the budget at the moment. Let me get to $500m aum and we'll talk.
 

Klostrophobic

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CoRP said:
Way to burst my bubble... My biz is going to buy me a couple of desktops anyway. Even if they're not super fast I'm still mining for free. Is it unreasonable to think I'd be able to mine a coin or two a year?
You could probably get 1/10th of a bitcoin in about 5 years mining on a single desktop CPU at this rate. It's still potentially profitable with decent GPUs and one of the altcoins like Lite, Doge or Min though.
 

Couperin47

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CoRP said:
Pretty much dead on reasonable, all my quibbles would be more of personal preferences:
 
These days i prefer the Toshiba/HGST actually owned by WD hard drives: in retail boxes they are faster at 7200rpm, have far better failure rate and a 3 year warranty, all for the same or better prices.
 
On sale you can get equal or better power supplies for $20 less but often that includes a rebate hassle, etc...so again a quibble.
 
The exact monitor you picked, in fact, has a $20 rebate at Newegg. My issues: it doesn't have Displayport (minor issue for this exact setup) and it's not an IPS panel (the VS239H-P is around the same price), but in a 4 monitor setup you have to stay in a narrow sweet spot so it's not as much of an issue, still I hate the color shift on TN monitors as soon as you move your head...and with IPS now affordable I always prefer them unless speed is the prime issue for gaming.
 

derekson

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Why is it using Ivy Bridge rather than Haswell? As far as I can see a 4770 is the same price as a 3770 (technically it's $5 more), and the motherboard isn't going to be significantly different in price either.
 
It also appears that for the same money ($3 more each before $10 cash cards) as the 7770s you could get r7 260x's (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202081&clickid=3Tq0gHWVkUzSVpxTRXyI5w1yUkTTmpTFuXA1x80&iradid=97618&ircid=2106&irpid=79301&nm_mc=AFC-IR&cm_mmc=AFC-IR-_-na-_-na-_-na), which are 7790s with 2 GB of VRAM and some of AMD's more modern features. With these you'd want to grab the monitors Couper referred to with DisplayPort too.
 

Couperin47

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derekson said:
Why is it using Ivy Bridge rather than Haswell? As far as I can see a 4770 is the same price as a 3770 (technically it's $5 more), and the motherboard isn't going to be significantly different in price either.
 
It also appears that for the same money ($3 more each before $10 cash cards) as the 7770s you could get r7 260x's (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202081&clickid=3Tq0gHWVkUzSVpxTRXyI5w1yUkTTmpTFuXA1x80&iradid=97618&ircid=2106&irpid=79301&nm_mc=AFC-IR&cm_mmc=AFC-IR-_-na-_-na-_-na), which are 7790s with 2 GB of VRAM and some of AMD's more modern features. With these you'd want to grab the monitors Couper referred to with DisplayPort too.
 
If you're thinking of overclocking, Ivy can be a bit easier than Haswell (though both screw us compared with Sandy Bridge... a big die and metallic junction to the outer case...2 things we can add to the "Stuff that's not there anymore" thread).
 
Damn both AMD and nVidia, the penchant to repackage last year's boards with new model numbers makes comparisons increasingly difficult... they both delight in producing maximum obfuscation of capabilities.  Since i don't game I can cheerfully ignore the upper end of both lines.