So I found a system with the Intel Xeon W3568 3.2GHz and a Quadro 2000 in it, 8GB of ECC ram, I'll put my own HDD in it I have at home. Its a Lenovo S20 Workstation, its £300 refurbished from a popular site for components in the UK called Aria, I play indie titles, F2P games etc (might buy an RX480 and a new PSU for it). Is this a worthy spend or could I do better for 300?
See if you can find an HP Z420, they should be around the same price but with a better, more modern E5-1620
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it's a locked i7-960 with ECC memory support and that's pretty much it.
personally, I think you could do better if you have more of a snoop around. Generally if you're looking a system that someone else is advertising, you'll be paying for the time they spent making sure that it works properly and is in an advertisable state.
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I've found a HP Z600 dual E5 Xeon, 12GB RAM and onboard graphics, its 250 for that, does that seem worth it? I did see about recycling centers for stuff but I'm looking for a gaming PC for uni work too, I have assignments needing done so I'm out of luck for time on traipsing around places
Depends on which xeon. Thing is, you might think, more cores? what could be wrong with having more. If you're gaming, most games dont give a shit beyond 4 cores. Then it comes down to clock speed. You want as much single core throughput as you can get. More cores is always good/useful but gaming specifically it wont always matter. A balance between them is ideal.
That said, it does seem like a decent deal.
Not possible to be E5's, unless it's a Z620. Z600's only supported the W/E/X series of Xeons.
I see them always going for $400+ on Kijiji, no matter the CPU's, so I feel like that's a good deal.
hey @mrtypist7 I'm in the UK and have 48GB of DDR3 EEC (6 x 4GB, 3 x 8GB) sat on my desk doing nothing after I scrapped my Z800 last year. I also have 2 x Nehalem X5677 CPU's (Quad cores 3.46/3.73GHz with the full hex-core 12Mb cache) that are not much slower than a Sandybridge I7-2600.
If you do find a workstation (or chassis) you like you might want to bear that in mind, I'm sure I'll settle at an agreeably low price for a fellow L1T's member cos I can't stand ebay :-)
I had another question which I believe doesn't warrant another topic being posted, I have had a motherboard sat on aluminum foil for a few days now, people tell me it protects it from static build up, is this true? If not, can I do anything about it now? (Not sure if chrome is being weird or my reply did come through about the proposition of PC parts, I wouldn't be looking to buy them, seems BaconLord is though! Thanks anyway)
Only if the foil is somehow made to be at the same potential as you. Otherwise, no, not even close.