Finding a workstation
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It looks like I'm getting a promotion and new responsibilities at work, and I'd like to ask for a new workstation to use. Where can I find "older" models? I don't mean used, necessarily. But I don't need the latest and greatest hardware -- just better than a low end business machine. Here's the sort of thing I'm looking for:
- 4-8 cores, at 2.5 GHz or so, with virtualization support (so super old Core 2s might be out, even though their performance is otherwise good enough for my needs)
- 8-16 gb ram
- 100 gb ssd
- dual (or more) monitor support
I'd get a server and put a video card in, but I don't want the noise in my office. The price for a "server" that meets my needs is pretty attractive though. 350 for the machine, and another 35 for the video card and another 80ish for an ssd.
So I don't want to spend more than about 450 for the thing, whatever it is. What can you suggest?
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eBay - HP XW#### Series (older, some are shit but there's a lot of Core2 Quads for <$200), or you could go for an HP Z200 series (Z200, Z220, Z230) or Z400 series. Just punch it into eBay, there are tons of them. I've bought several for home use.
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I was happy with my last desktop system from eBuyer
Description of what I got:
Zoostorm Desktop PC AMD A10-7850K Quad Core CPU 16GB Ram & 2TB HDD A78 Chipset mATX Case with DVDRW No OS
£316.65.
Exact match no longer available, but start here:
(Not sure about dual+ monitor support, but could be added I suppose.)
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Not sure about dual+ monitor support
All the AMD desktop APUs will support at least two monitors, and the back of the case of this model shows a VGA and a DVI port. For other models you'd have to look--there's an HP that looks like it's only got one VGA, which is lame.
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This is the sort of thing I'm looking for, but I'm in the US.
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I ended up getting
http://www.ebay.com/itm/191790055783
Not bad. 2 quad core Xeons, and plenty of ram, for 220 (including shipping).
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Nice score! There's some really good deals to be had on eBay. Don't forget to check the SMART status of the drive to see how old it is/if it's failing.
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Yeah, I'm pretty excited. It's realistically half as fast per core as an i5 or whatever, but with twice as many cores, and half the price.
I wasn't intending on using the drive anyway. I'll check it out, but I'd almost rather just transfer the big drive out of my old computer (but this drive is probably faster than my WD Green).
Desktop PCs | Cheap Desktop Deals | Ebuyer.com
