Uses for an old system?? Asus Z77 / 2600k

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Nov 23, 2021
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I upgraded my main system this year. I have my old primary system sitting idle. Its a 2600k with 16gb ram on an Asus Maximus V Extreme, Corsair 900D (HUYGE!) and a 1080TI FTW3. Really good system for its time but it is legit 7-8 years old. Only thing is that I don't mine, I already have an NAS and home automation server and I'm not really into benchmarking. I ready about LN2 cooling and whatnot and it sounds interesting but I think its a thing I'd do once then be bored with.

Any ideas for something useful I could use it for? All I've been able to come up with is to keep the GPU as a backup and donate the system. Any thoughts?
 
I mean if nothing else, you could sell/donate the parts like you said. I figured it would be a nice NAS, but you already have one of those.
 
A couple suggestions:

Backup Computer. It's always nice to have a backup system ready to go, potentially setup with a KVM to use your same monitor, keyboard, and mouse, and able to switch back and forth with the press of a button. I have a backup system on a KVM and I like to switch to it when I do work on my main computer so that I can take my time. I also play online games where we play on certain nights at certain times. It's nice to know that if I show up to play and my computer has an issue, I can just switch to the backup and not miss the game.

File Server. Sell the 1080 and just use the integrated video in the 2600k. Set it up as a dedicated file-server with all of your spinning-disk drives. Higher-end Intel motherboards from this era usually came with at least 6 SATA ports, usually most or all of them from a nice Intel SATA controller. They usually also have many PCIe slots including 2 or even 3 16x (physical) slots. You can use those to add a dual or quad-port gigabit adapter to take advantage of multi-path SMB, add a SATA raid card, or a SAS card to buy some cheap used SAS drives, etc. It's nice to be able to have a large amount of storage without having tons of drives in your main computer. It's nice to be able to turn off my main computer while keeping the file-server on, so I can always access the media from the TV. You said that you already have a NAS but an actual file server is just so much more flexible. Like for example, I run my bittorrent client directly on my file server, and because of that I have some files that have been seeding 24/7 for over a decade. Makes it easier to maintain your ratio on private trackers, that's for sure. I don't know how many NAS devices support multi-path SMB either, meaning you are stuck with gigabit speeds or forced to buy expensive 10GbE / 2.5GbE equipment.
 
Emby/plex/jellyfin media server.

RIP your DVDs and house them there. The 1080ti can re-encode them on the fly for different bandwidths...like for a computer on a mobile connection, etc. Heck, I use a 1050ti and it can do like four streams at once.
 
Emby/plex/jellyfin media server.

RIP your DVDs and house them there. The 1080ti can re-encode them on the fly for different bandwidths...like for a computer on a mobile connection, etc. Heck, I use a 1050ti and it can do like four streams at once.

Depending on the NAS he has, it might already do that for him. My Synology does on the fly transcoding using quicksync.
 
My suggestion is to sell the 1080 Ti, and get yourself something like a GT 1030 to replace it, and use that as a backup non-gaming PC. You see, there are absolutely no official Windows 10 or Windows 11 drivers at all for the integrated Intel graphics in the 2nd-Gen CPUs. Official support stopped at Windows 8.1 for that IGP. And Windows 8.1 now has only a little over one year remaining in its support, officially ending on January 10, 2023. You will need to disable the IGP, and only use a discrete GPU, in order to even run Windows 10 at all on that 10-year-old CPU.
 
Thanks for the ideas. I do already have a file server on a dual E5-2620v2 (which includes NAS/domain controller/pihole/DNS//Emby/NAS/IP cams/etc on a handful of virtual machines). The 2600k really can't do any of those workloads better than the xeons unfortunately. Looks like sell/donate is the way to go. Who wants to pay $200 to ship this 100lb big arse case to their house lol
 
My suggestion is to sell the 1080 Ti, and get yourself something like a GT 1030 to replace it, and use that as a backup non-gaming PC. You see, there are absolutely no official Windows 10 or Windows 11 drivers at all for the integrated Intel graphics in the 2nd-Gen CPUs. Official support stopped at Windows 8.1 for that IGP. And Windows 8.1 now has only a little over one year remaining in its support, officially ending on January 10, 2023. You will need to disable the IGP, and only use a discrete GPU, in order to even run Windows 10 at all on that 10-year-old CPU.

Very true, though if push came to shove I have successfully modified the drivers in the past to work with windows 10 and we had no issues at all. though that might have been for a 3rd gen CPU, I forget.

Thanks for the ideas. I do already have a file server on a dual E5-2620v2 (which includes NAS/domain controller/pihole/DNS//Emby/NAS/IP cams/etc on a handful of virtual machines). The 2600k really can't do any of those workloads better than the xeons unfortunately. Looks like sell/donate is the way to go. Who wants to pay $200 to ship this 100lb big arse case to their house lol

Do you have buddies that come over to game? Maybe keep the machine setup as a spare/guest/LAN rig, you could also throw some emulators on it and stream it to your TV and make it a sort of arcade box. You could probobly get away with underclocking it as well to save on heat/electricity. Any interest in home networking? You could put a hypervisor on it and run a pfsense/OPNSense VM for your firewall, maybe some servers/services like a wiki, I bet per core the 2600K is a good bit faster than the 2620v2, even without an OC.
 
Very true, though if push came to shove I have successfully modified the drivers in the past to work with windows 10 and we had no issues at all. though that might have been for a 3rd gen CPU, I forget.



Do you have buddies that come over to game? Maybe keep the machine setup as a spare/guest/LAN rig, you could also throw some emulators on it and stream it to your TV and make it a sort of arcade box. You could probobly get away with underclocking it as well to save on heat/electricity. Any interest in home networking? You could put a hypervisor on it and run a pfsense/OPNSense VM for your firewall, maybe some servers/services like a wiki, I bet per core the 2600K is a good bit faster than the 2620v2, even without an OC.

I have a dedicated firewall box.. Supermicro A1SRI-2558F-O running IPFire. Overkill but does the job really well.


Legacy console arcade box is not a bad idea at all, don't need a 1080 TI for that either :)

Maybe a free standing Nintendo emulator? I guess really I could get fancy and do playstation or multi console? I know nothing about this.. will need to dig into it. I already have a dedicated HTPC for contemporary couch gaming.
 
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I have a dedicated firewall box.. Supermicro A1SRI-2558F-O running IPFire. Overkill but does the job really well.


Legacy console arcade box is not a bad idea at all, don't need a 1080 TI for that either :)

Maybe a free standing Nintendo emulator? I guess really I could get fancy and do playstation or multi console? I know nothing about this.. will need to dig into it. I already have a dedicated HTPC for contemporary couch gaming.

Definitely, you could sell the 1080Ti and buy a 1050ti and still have enough power to play some regular games too. Nintendo and playstation seem to have really stable emulators. I use PCSX/PCSX2 for playstation, and Dolphin/Project64 for nintendo.
 
Definitely, you could sell the 1080Ti and buy a 1050ti and still have enough power to play some regular games too. Nintendo and playstation seem to have really stable emulators. I use PCSX/PCSX2 for playstation, and Dolphin/Project64 for nintendo.

Project 64 is poopy. You should use Mupen.
 
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