Comment on After RAM and SSDs, PSUs and CPU coolers are next in line for price hikes
dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world 21 hours agoHell, I have a Sandy Bridge based machine I built in 2012. It’s getting there, 14 years old now, and with its 1080ti in there it can still play most games just fine.
Mainstream PC performance really hit its plateau by, when, like 2018? I imagine somebody with a machine that’s only 8 years old will probably do just fine unless some critical and irreplaceable component in it explodes.
SpikesOtherDog@ani.social 10 hours ago
Sandy bridge still has a little life in it. Most those systems top out at 8-16 GB memory, which is serviceable. You are probably missing out on NVME. The PCI version might also be a gotcha if you upgrade your video card, so double check the compatibility.
Finally, your previously-suggested video card may require new power connectors. While you might be able to find adapters, confirm that your are not approaching 80% of your PSU capability and upgrade if you are close. Power supplies degrade over time, so if you are at 65% it’s time to consider an upgrade on a 10yo PSU.
dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world 9 hours ago
Fortunately (?) my PSU let the smoke out about three years after I bought the initial one for that build which had IIRC a pair of 7950GTs in it from my previous machine in SLI. So I had the opportunity to throw a modern-ish Corsair 850w power supply in it which has all the modular plugs I need. That box has had a succession of random graphics cards in it ranging from the pair of 7950GTs running in SLI I ported over from the machine I had before that, and then a GTX680, then finally my current GTX1080Ti.
You can sidestep the NVMe issue as long as you don’t feel you need 100% speed by slapping a PCIe to NVMe adapter board in one of your handy unused x16 slots now that you’re no longer using SLI (if that reminds you of anyone you know). I’m not certain booting off of that is viable and I haven’t bothered to try to figure it out, so the boot drive in that machine is a SATA SSD currently.
On the bright side, that board has ten SATA ports so turning into a drive farm is a trivial prospect if you’re into that kind of thing.
SpikesOtherDog@ani.social 7 hours ago
I can’t say how your firmware will recognize a PCI-e to NVME, but as long as your aren’t chasing boot time records a SATA SSD should be more than sufficient for boot. You could just use the NVME for speed.
Another option would be to set up 6 SATA SSD drives in there with ZFS2. The striping and read-write speeds should significantly fill the SATA buffer of 6gbps. Due to the striping, you might actually avoid filing the read buffer and be about to sustain a longer high write speed.
The drive farm is also super viable. I have a 6-port board and a SAS card installed giving me 10 or 14 ports, I can’t recall. I have a similar strategy as I described, but I’m only using it for a NAS. I looked into getting a 12-port board, but used it was still $350. It makes more sense for me to buy another SAS card instead.