What to tell the old man...

[sandorski]

Am I reading the Specs right and it is even using a Power Brick? This might make sense if it was a ZBox design, at least it would have a form factor to justify the Cost somewhat.

 

[Spungo]

Overpriced junk tends to reside at walmart.

Pretty much everything at walmart is junk. It could be something simple like a paper shredder, and it will screw up immediately if it came from walmart. I just tell people to buy everything at Costco.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Pretty much everything at walmart is junk. It could be something simple like a paper shredder, and it will screw up immediately if it came from walmart. I just tell people to buy everything at Costco.

I'll be polite to say that myths can be a combination of true and false -- like "The Mafia killed JFK."

I try and separate potential purchases in the big-box stores according to whether I like the ownership and its bets and calls in super-PACs after Citizens United. But sometimes, if you need something, you have to cross the line.

I had a friend who told me "all their stuff is crap" when I attempted to order from Frye's [aka Fry's]. But all these resellers order bulk-inventory, and probably try to do EOQ and JIT in their inventory management. I had one store I'd used for years, which offered a 600 GB WD Veloci-Raptor SATA-III. The first one I'd received was DOA. The second one died after 3 years, but within what I'd thought was a warranty-period for the VR drives.

Then, that reseller went out of business: their web-site no longer exists. Monsey, NJ was the location, I think.

Also, the great hard drive panic -- ratings against customer-review statistics and complaint-descriptions. There is some authoritative opinion that the post-9/11 screening at break-of-bulk shipping ports uses equipment so powerful that it damages HDDs of foreign origin. If they're stacked closely and bundled into a rectangular package, the ones on the inside might escape the damage, and the ones on the exterior would later become "DOA" or failing drives. My source reported it to the support group for this or that manufacturer.

But that sort of thing had nothing to do with the reseller. Even factors of employee treatment and work environment may not have much to do with it.

And -- yeah -- buy COSTCO. They're "true Blue." And that's the only thing about my statements here that is more surely factual and less mythical. Remember -- "I heard it from [so-and-so]."

 

[escrow4]

Unless he's 3d modeling or 3d gaming, a Q6600 paired with an SSD is better than easily 98% of actual users need. No reason to spend more than $70 on the upgrade.

It's an old guy. An SSD + Quad is overkill really. An i3 is throwing money in the toilet. He has the board and ram for a Q6600 already.

There is, you can stick a Haswell i3 into a mini-ITX case (Lenovo Tiny say which is easily upgradeable) and it will run faster and cooler than a tired old quad. You may not need it but you will note the benefits plus you have a modern platform. Core 2 is old and obsolete by now. It just doesn't have that snap to it anymore.

 

[cbn]

Considering an E8400 is $7-10 on eBay any given day, and a Q6600 isn't that far behind, an upgrade to the CPU to a quad and an SSD is far better than the ripoff he got on the A4-5000 system.

Yep, the "Buy it now" ebay price on those E8400 processors usually starts @ $9.99 free shipping.

Amazing price considering how powerful the cpu is for every day usage.

And the Q6600 processors are starting at $26 shipped. (For even better prices on a quad check out the LGA 771 to LGA 775 mod. My two favorite value priced Xeon LGA 771 processors are the X3323 for Q chipset motherboards and the E5440 for G and P chipset boards)

 

[TurtleCrusher]

There is, you can stick a Haswell i3 into a mini-ITX case (Lenovo Tiny say which is easily upgradeable) and it will run faster and cooler than a tired old quad. You may not need it but you will note the benefits plus you have a modern platform. Core 2 is old and obsolete by now. It just doesn't have that snap to it anymore.

You're suggesting an entire system build, easily 5x the price of a used C2Q/SSD. That is absolutely overkill for an old guy. Checking email, running flash, and anything else a content consumer would do still runs exceptionally fast on a Core 2 Duo/Quad.

Core 2 Duo + SSD >>> Any i3 + HDD.

Tired old quad... What a spec snob!

 

[Eug]

I still use a C2D with SSD as my main laptop.

However you can't buy such a desktop new now. i3 plus HDD you can, complete with warranty. I'm sure the OP doesn't want to become the old man's customer service support rep.

Actually I'd go for i5 with HDD for $60 more. SSD can be added later if necessary but I suspect the old man won't care, at least in the near term.

 

[AtenRa]

If his old socket 775 PC uses a integrated iGPU then i will have to say that the A4-5000 will be way better for todays software than the Pentium E5300. Combine the new quad core(even at 1.5GHz) with way better iGPU, faster memory, faster HDD, faster OS and it will be a nice upgrade over the E5300.
Installing an SSD later on will give him even snappier feeling and it can keep the 1TB HDD for storage. The only thing i didnt like was the big Midi case, they could use a SFF. But at least with this case he can upgrade to anything later on, even to Core i7.

 

[ronopp]

Overpriced junk tends to reside at walmart.

quote of the year!!

 

[Ratman6161]

OK, I'll wrap this up by telling you what I actually did. He is keeping it. While I was skeptical, before I tried it, in fact the machine is totally adequate to what he wants to do with it. All the suggestions about what would perform better are true...but it basically does not need to perform better. Don't forget this is a $249 computer so as long as you have appropriate expectations for it it's fine.

One thing that I will gripe on though is that it has only two SATA ports and one is used by a 1 TB disk drive and the other by the CD. So I can't put an SSD in it without taking out one of the other devices. I've got an old external USB CD drive I may give him and also an old 60 GB SSD drive. With an SSD in it this machine would actually be pretty snappy, keeping in mind that he runs almost no software on the computer other than his web browser and Skype.

At the moment his real problem is that he lives out in the country and has only a 1 Mbps internet connection and since almost everything he does is online, through a web browser that's a bigger issue at the moment.

 

[AtenRa]

I would take off the HDD and put it in a 2.5" USB3 external case, use the onboard SATA for SSD and OD.

 

[VirtualLarry]

OK, I'll wrap this up by telling you what I actually did. He is keeping it. While I was skeptical, before I tried it, in fact the machine is totally adequate to what he wants to do with it. All the suggestions about what would perform better are true...but it basically does not need to perform better. Don't forget this is a $249 computer so as long as you have appropriate expectations for it it's fine.

Well, for reference, I've seen Haswell i3 desktop PCs for as low as $349 (no monitor), with 4GB and 500GB HDD. Which would run possibly order of magnitudes faster, for 40% more cost.

One thing that I will gripe on though is that it has only two SATA ports and one is used by a 1 TB disk drive and the other by the CD. So I can't put an SSD in it without taking out one of the other devices. I've got an old external USB CD drive I may give him and also an old 60 GB SSD drive. With an SSD in it this machine would actually be pretty snappy, keeping in mind that he runs almost no software on the computer other than his web browser and Skype.

Yeah, my Gateway slimline PC with Windows 7 and a G620 (630?) Pentium was the same way. Only two SATA ports, no room for an SSD. What I did was, removed the factory 500GB HDD, and for a while, I ran a 120GB SSD, but then later I replaced that SSD with a Seagate 2TB 7200RPM Hybrid drive. It runs pretty good. I also added a low-profile GT430 video card, because the integrated graphics on a Sandy Bridge Pentium CPU is fairly awful.

At the moment his real problem is that he lives out in the country and has only a 1 Mbps internet connection and since almost everything he does is online, through a web browser that's a bigger issue at the moment.

Well, that could be a big limitation.

Glad he likes it though.

 

[ehume]

. . . One thing that I will gripe on though is that it has only two SATA ports and one is used by a 1 TB disk drive and the other by the CD. So I can't put an SSD in it without taking out one of the other devices. I've got an old external USB CD drive I may give him and also an old 60 GB SSD drive. With an SSD in it this machine would actually be pretty snappy, keeping in mind that he runs almost no software on the computer other than his web browser and Skype. . . .

Ah. Don't forget you can add to the SATA ports by getting a PCIE card. It's easy to find cards with external USB3, ports, but SATA3 cards are out there.

 

[crashtech]

I understand rationalizations and justifications after the fact, but I don't like them, in myself or in others.

 

[TurtleCrusher]

OK, I'll wrap this up by telling you what I actually did. He is keeping it. While I was skeptical, before I tried it, in fact the machine is totally adequate to what he wants to do with it. All the suggestions about what would perform better are true...but it basically does not need to perform better. Don't forget this is a $249 computer so as long as you have appropriate expectations for it it's fine.

One thing that I will gripe on though is that it has only two SATA ports and one is used by a 1 TB disk drive and the other by the CD. So I can't put an SSD in it without taking out one of the other devices. I've got an old external USB CD drive I may give him and also an old 60 GB SSD drive. With an SSD in it this machine would actually be pretty snappy, keeping in mind that he runs almost no software on the computer other than his web browser and Skype.

At the moment his real problem is that he lives out in the country and has only a 1 Mbps internet connection and since almost everything he does is online, through a web browser that's a bigger issue at the moment.

If there's any available pci/pcie slots available, get an expansion card and get the ssd in there. Even if you get a second-hand SATA 1/2 card, SSDs are all about seek time. I'd much rather have a current SSD on SATA 1 than a SATA 3 HDD to boot from.

 

[ehume]

If there's any available pci/pcie slots available, get an expansion card and get the ssd in there. Even if you get a second-hand SATA 1/2 card, SSDs are all about seek time. I'd much rather have a current SSD on SATA 1 than a SATA 3 HDD to boot from.

Amen. You said it better than I did.