[Discuss] I need a recommendation for a Linux-compatible high-end PC builder

[Alan W. Irwin]

On 2018-01-10 19:06-0800 pw wrote:

>
> The Dell non-standard PC parts thing is a very good point.
>
> But if you're going for another ten years:
>
> http://www.dell.com/en-ca/shop/desktops/alienware-area-51-threadripper-edition/spd/alienware-area51-r3

The shape of those boxes is just wrong.  The SPCRB (Society for the
prevention of cruelty to rectangular boxes) has become concerned with
this case.  :-)

> That price looks steep but that's ~$450 per year for ten years.

Our experience with the same Linux box as the principal computer for
both of us for 10+ straight years has been a good one.  To keep it
going during that time I replaced the memory once (I did not buy
enough in the initial purchase), replaced the HDD twice (it would have
been once only, but I made a bad buy for one of those), replaced the
MB battery once, and replaced (with Andrew Williard's help) the power
supply once during that time.  All these replacement costs were
relatively trivial compared to the initial cost, and, of course, much
smaller than if I had done the more typical new computer buy every 3
years or so.  And I very much like the huge reduction of electronic
trash implied if most people went for a long-lived computer solution.
The only downside of such long-term computer solutions is you might
feel a little underpowered during the last couple of years before you
buy a new box, but that is not a huge factor these days with PC's
improving relatively little from year to year in this era compared to
the "Moore's Law" years.

The two keys to making the long-lived computer idea work, of course,
are Linux (still relatively kind to old equipment) and a long-lived
MB.  Murray did mention previously in this thread there were "long
support life expectancy" MB's out there and also mentioned high-end
ASUS in that same sentence. But my google attempts to discover more,
did not find anything other than an old article on that topic which
reminded me yet again that likely the biggest enemy of long-life for
MB's is bad power spikes.  I think I am relatively careful about that
issue since both my powerbar and the APC Back-UPS that plugs into it
has some protection against power spikes, and I always electronically
isolate the computer (unplug the computer AND cable modem) whenever I
hear thunder.  So it may be the combination of that care and general
ASUS MB quality has gotten us through the 10 years with relatively few
issues.

> Most people spend over $1000 per year just on their network connection.

Good point.  That's substantially bigger than the power cost per year
issue I brought up earlier, although I still like "Green"
relatively low-performance computer cores because of that power cost
advantage, the reduced cost of the necessary cooler required, and
especially the implied reduction in fan noise.

> If you got your own components....
>
> The Ryzen 16 core TR processor is $1250  (from newegg).

A relatively low-end (8 cores) AMD Ryzen was the basis for the ~$2000
ZaReason design I put together. Those AMD 16-core solutions also look
interesting to me. There does appear to be some discussion concerning
how easy it is to overclock Ryzen processors, and AMD apparently
includes software to facilitate that.  This implies to me the Ryzen
default setup is relatively underclocked which should be a good fit
for my Green/low power/low noise preferences.  I plan to look further
at the whole Ryzen line for their actual default power consumption
numbers compared to other AMD and Intel processors.

>
> A motherboard for that ranges from $450 - $800,
> (apparently depending on what kind of special effects
> light show you want... )

I will take longevity over cool light effects every time....

>
> The MSI boards handle DDR4 which will set you back at least another
> $1200 + for 64GB of Corsair. You could go as high as 128GB with some of
> the newer boards.
>
> CPU Cooler (heat sink etc. ) $200.
>
> Video card ~$250.
>
> Power supply another $200.
>
> A box to put it all in ~$150.
>
>
> Total $3700-ish

I don't have the skills to assemble a PC, but a comparison of the
total price of components with the price of assembled PC's with
equivalent components implies the box makers are charging relatively
little for the work they do these days to assemble a high-end PC.

>
> That price is do-able if we just:
>
> - eat once a week
> - shower in the rain without soap
> - turn off the power and heat (except Saturdays)
> - sell the furniture
> - sleep on the floor
> - sell the house
> - then sleep in the woods and hunt feral cats for food

Computers are important so all those steps seem reasonable to me
except maybe the last one. :-)

Seriously, rats were a huge problem in our vegetable garden last year
so I plan to encourage feral cats from now on....

[...]
> Try not to get carried away.

Exactly.  I don't plan to go much over $2000.  That cost can
economically be justified because that computer will play
a strong role in both our lives.  Also, we don't plan to
spend that sort of money on a computer every few years, and
ideally this computer will last another 10 years (e.g., if
we continue to be careful with power spikes).

As retirees we do have to be careful with spending, but that is not a
big issue for us because we actually do enjoy living with a frugal,
Green, life style.  So, for example, instead of traveling all over the
world like some retirees do, we do that with Wikipedia, and we are
still enjoying driving our '83 Toyota Tercel!  In sum, we think it
makes a lot of economic sense for us and Green sense in general to buy
products that tend to have long life expectancy rather than
in-your-face, planned obsolescence!

Alan
__________________________
Alan W. Irwin

Astronomical research affiliation with Department of Physics and Astronomy,
University of Victoria (astrowww.phys.uvic.ca).

Programming affiliations with the FreeEOS equation-of-state
implementation for stellar interiors (freeeos.sf.net); the Time
Ephemerides project (timeephem.sf.net); PLplot scientific plotting
software package (plplot.sf.net); the libLASi project
(unifont.org/lasi); the Loads of Linux Links project (loll.sf.net);
and the Linux Brochure Project (lbproject.sf.net).
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Linux-powered Science
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