Edit - just realized this is my first post despite being a lurker for three years.
Hello all,
So I have a few spare Haswell i5 4570T (2c4t 3.6ghz turbo) based mini pc’s (ranging from 4gb to 16gb ddr3 1600). I’ve already given one to a family member that needed an upgrade and will likely do so with one of the others.
That being said, this leaves me with two that I quite frankly don’t know what to do with. Here is what I have already -
Main pc - 10900 p/l unlocked so all core turbo 4.6 / 5.2 singe, 32gb ddr4 3600 oc’ed to 4000, AMD 6900XT, etc.
Living room pc / htpc - i7 4790k @ 4.4ghz, 32gb ddr3 cl10 2400mhz, oc’ed / uv’ed Vega 56.
File Server / Spare pc - Xeon E3-1246 v3 / 16gb ddr3 1600mhz
Laptop - Ryzen 7 4700U / 32gb cl20 ddr4 3200
I list these only to show that I’ve got most bases covered for usage but aside from the laptop, the desktops are quite large (Thor V2 case for the main pc for example)
I’ve got older/slower hardware too but these mini pc’s are a bit faster and I’d like to use them, I’m just honestly not sure what to do with them here. Open to any and all suggestions - thanks!
I see your stuff and maybe think about power consumption? These PCs, while more robust, also uses a lot more power than the more recent architectures.
I may be asking you to consider going to the other direction instead, to save power on operating cost? I am unsure at what point does an old computer become more wasteful than buying a newer more efficient model. There should be a correct answer out there.
Actually, yeah, as long as you have the right inputs for the security camera. Haswell is pretty good at handling video or ferrying data at low power. Quicksync is also surprisingly very decent at low bitrates for it’s time; better than even the latest and greatest AMD h264 encoding, and quite comparable to nvidia’s early offerings.
Also, the efficiency thing isn’t exactly true; newer CPUs are more efficient per unit of work completed while working hard, but they also have a lot more units of working hardware to keep powered when not working. Haswell desktops are very, very efficient at idling, perfect for low-load or desktop idle. I don’t think they hold up well for high bandwidth routing or network encryption, though.
Another consideration might be a dedicated low-power media server. Haswell should handle otf transcoding very well, and when not in use, it should sip power and not be a bother. If your fileserver isn’t constantly available, sticking a few SSDs wherever they can fit inside of there, and using it to serve music to every computer in the home can be nice.
If you have a use for it, there’s also the possibility of putting a capture card on one of the USB ports, and using it to capture video from game consoles, or DVDs or VHS tapes or the like. Again, quicksync in haswell is very serviceable.
In general, really, haswell is still good enough for low-demand applications of any kind.
I think gamecube and Ps2 would be too much for the iGPU, you can maybe get away with software rendering native res on Ps2
but you can do a batocera Box
you can also check the bios to see if you can disable cores for better power efficiency, won’t need more than 2 core for batocera and it’ll boost higher
Those i5s are already dual cores. I think they’ll handle PS2 or GameCube mostly fine, sans a few problem games. Even at 2x native, I would think it would handily run most of the PS2 library.