Is your PC overpowered?

jimthebob

jimthebob

Gawd
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Mar 23, 2013
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Looking at what I do daily on my PC and the components in it, I have a grossly overpowered PC compared to what I do with it. I have an i7 OC'd to 4.4ghz, 32gb of DDR3, R9 280x, 512gb Samsung Pro SSD, etc (rig in sig). It's great on the occasion I play Cities: Skylines or Doom, but 99% of the time, I browse youtube and surf the net or...that's about it (outside of text editing, remoting into my server, etc). My point is, nothing really taxing. Probably the most appropriate PC I have built in recent history is my i3 server; serves files and serves Plex all while sipping on power and running mostly on passive cooling.

Are you guys the same? Or do you make your PC's earn there keep?
 
Well I run Folding@Home and World Community Grid for the HardForum team on all my rigs. So they get the workout they deserve.
 
The solution is simple.... Play Mo' Games. :)

In all seriousness, how many years of life did you plan for your computer? Five seems about right, and the only things that I would even remotely upgrade is the video card and a larger HD as prices drop and/or performance improves.

32 GB is also a bit overkill.... unless you are doing virtualization or video editing. Ever played around with Virtualbox?
 
ZLoth said:
The solution is simple.... Play Mo' Games. :)

In all seriousness, how many years of life did you plan for your computer? Five seems about right, and the only things that I would even remotely upgrade is the video card and a larger HD as prices drop and/or performance improves.

32 GB is also a bit overkill.... unless you are doing virtualization or video editing. Ever played around with Virtualbox?
Click to expand...

Sorry to steer thread out of wack, you have useful url for VirtualBox? (I mean how to configure it's still snappy while using less ressources)
I've been having awful experience allocating a big 4gb of RAM there, might be the slow 5400RPM drive... of the fact that it's all encrypted ? But it has to have a solution.

Thanks and sorry again since I don't contribute to any solution to OP.
 
I'm no Virtualbox expert, but one thing that you need to check is if Virtualization is enabled in the BIOS. The default is disabled since most people don't use it.
 
Maxime Mitchell said:
Sorry to steer thread out of wack, you have useful url for VirtualBox? (I mean how to configure it's still snappy while using less ressources)
I've been having awful experience allocating a big 4gb of RAM there, might be the slow 5400RPM drive... of the fact that it's all encrypted ? But it has to have a solution.

Thanks and sorry again since I don't contribute to any solution to OP.
Click to expand...

have a separate spinning disk for your VM's always. It's the first place to start.
 
I have two PCs at home, one only for gaming, and one for everything else.

My gaming rig is several years old, i5-4690k at default speeds, 970GTX, 16GB ram, Samsung SSD for game files, Crucial SSD for OS, Asus Sabertooth Z97 Mark 2, 840watt power supply. A few minutes of gaming and I can feel my room getting warm.

My everything else computer is an AM1 5350 on an MSI AM1-I with a Crucial 4GB ram I found in a surveyed pile at work, some power supply from a Dell (HELLO FROM THE OTHER SIIIIDE)

Electricity is becoming a luxury item here where I live so I like having options. Electricity here is 25.7+ cents per kilowatt. The more you use to more you'll pay if you go up the usage bracket.
 
Simplyfun said:
have a separate spinning disk for your VM's always. It's the first place to start.
Click to expand...

Just checked what I configured, the VM partitions runs on a 5400RPM drive and the work folder is on another 5400RPM drive which is heavily used, everything is encrypted which probably slows down.
Do you think adding a spare SSD for the VMs only would speed things up or the work drive will still kill it ?
 
Yes. Definitely yes. These days I don't even turn it on, but when I did use it as my main rig, I didn't really playing anything too highly intensive (was built mainly for gaming).
 
Very much so. I only game about once a week. The rest of the time I surf, watch YouTube, and occasionally rip Blu-Rays. My wife uses it a couple hours a day for work, which is mostly e-mail and web-based apps. The 5820k and 1080Ti are a bit overkill for that.
 
Well, most of the time, YES.

Even though the backbone of my rig is 7 years old, it's still overkill for day-to-day operations etc.

Now, when I game, it's "just about right".

(Bear in mind all I play is Grim Dawn, Overwatch, Skyrim, and Titan Quest)

I also fire up GTA V occasionally and that runs great maxed with Afterburner limiting the fps to 45....

I've said it once and I'll say it again: how well this first gen i5 has held up continues to amaze me!
 
I've probably put this rig to more use than any high powered PC I've ever owned because of VR and 4k gaming. I do run some Linux VMs for educational purposes but not as much as I'd planned. Still would back down from the 64GB though.
 
OP, Yes. Most definitely. It's like one of the most fundamental requirements of being part of the [H] community. You spend all this time, effort, and money to build up an absolute monster of a PC and then you use it to surf and watch YouTube videos. :D Oh and occasionally game on.

I find this trend bleeds over in similar fashion to other hobbies like cars, audio, guns, etc.
 
Most "gaming" PCs have been "grossly overpowered" for anything BUT gaming for most of the last 10-15+ years.
Even mainstream sub-$1000 systems have been generally overpowered for the last 5-10 years.
And bargain systems have been overpowered for the last 3-5.

A lot of the performance bottlenecks in the PC architecture have been bypassed or expanded with newer technology that eventually trickles down.

High-end, high-resolution 3D gaming is ALWAYS going to push the envelope on the PC. But the basic "package" just creeps along, getting incrementally more powerful every couple years.
Eventually, it's going to just hit the "good enough" point.
 
You guys should help the [H] DC team (aka the [H]orde) at placing at least 3rd in this WCG challenge.

We are currently in 4th, but with a few more people added to the mix we might be able to secure 3rd place before the challenge ends on the 30th.

Plus we are working on a rewards program to give free 1 year memberships to the off-topic sub forum here at [H].

WCG Challenge 3
 
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