kennysarmy Posted July 9, 2015 Posted July 9, 2015 The recent PC's we've bought were : MSI Micro ATX H81M-P33 Intel Core i5-4460 12 Gb RAM 250 GB SSD drives. Wondering what others are spec'ing up for PC's that are expected to be used for the whole of their 5 year warranty period...should I be increasing the RAM to 16 GB for next years (from Sept.) purchases?
difinity Posted July 9, 2015 Posted July 9, 2015 12Gb ? seems an odd number. An 8Gb and a 4Gb stick ?
mrbios Posted July 9, 2015 Posted July 9, 2015 (edited) As of next summer i'll have got 5 years comfortable out of the following: Intel G620T 4GB ram 120GB SSD Corsair CS430M PSU Asus H61I Motherboards Less than £200 per base unit minus the MS license. They're still coping with kodu, visual studio 2013, movie maker etc. without an issue, i've not heard them get called slow yet either We could never afford i5s and 12gb+ of ram on our budget. I've got myself told off here before for saying it, but being a bit more political about it this time..... i'd say that in our school in particular anything above an i3 is a waste of money anyway. Very very few areas equating to roughly 25 PCs out of our 600 or so that would make use of it. SSDs and a 4gb ram minimum everywhere have been the biggest boost to longevity of PCs i've found. We've recently purchased: Asus H81I-Plus motherboards Intel Pentium G3420 cpus 120gb ssd Corsair CX430M PSUs 4GB ram studetns and 8gb ram staff £171 each for the hardware, bargain! Highly expect they'll last 5 years too. Edited July 9, 2015 by mrbios
Michael Posted July 9, 2015 Posted July 9, 2015 I guess it depends what it's being used for, but I suspect 4GB is plenty for most users (on a desktop), more common to see 8GB or 16GB on servers, or more if they're virtualised.
PotNoodleTech Posted July 9, 2015 Posted July 9, 2015 IMHO nice spec if you can afford it, but total overkill. Purchasing high spec PCS with "future proofing" in mind is ALWAYS a false economy. You'd be better off purchasing PCs that cost half the price and replacing them every 3 years instead. That way you increase reliability because you're never running the PCs longer than 3 years whereas 5 year old "high spec" pcs might still break in year 4 or 5?
Michael Posted July 9, 2015 Posted July 9, 2015 You'll generally find you'll pay more for memory included 'as standard', so probably 4GB would be cost effective now, but then you could upgrade them a few years down the line (if required).
kennysarmy Posted July 9, 2015 Author Posted July 9, 2015 IMHO nice spec if you can afford it, but total overkill. Purchasing high spec PCS with "future proofing" in mind is ALWAYS a false economy. You'd be better off purchasing PCs that cost half the price and replacing them every 3 years instead. That way you increase reliability because you're never running the PCs longer than 3 years whereas 5 year old "high spec" pcs might still break in year 4 or 5? But our PC's come with an on-site 5 year warranty - so if they break in years 4 and 5 they are repaired as part of the initial price...it works out at about £80 per year for us. - - - Updated - - - You'll generally find you'll pay more for memory included 'as standard', so probably 4GB would be cost effective now, but then you could upgrade them a few years down the line (if required). Good point...
mrbios Posted July 9, 2015 Posted July 9, 2015 What are you actually using the PCs for? Are these replacements for "anywhere" or a room of specific purpose (Such as Art, or IT suite)?
kennysarmy Posted July 9, 2015 Author Posted July 9, 2015 What are you actually using the PCs for? Are these replacements for "anywhere" or a room of specific purpose (Such as Art, or IT suite)? Art rooms x 36 - all running CS6 photoshop etc Computers suite x 30 - running all sorts of IT related software
fiza Posted July 9, 2015 Posted July 9, 2015 The recent PC's we've bought were : MSI Micro ATX H81M-P33 Intel Core i5-4460 12 Gb RAM 250 GB SSD drives. Wondering what others are spec'ing up for PC's that are expected to be used for the whole of their 5 year warranty period...should I be increasing the RAM to 16 GB for next years (from Sept.) purchases? I've got the same spec but with 8GB RAM. Staff love the speed. Distinct improvement over their old machines. 3 IT Suites are getting the same this summer. 5 years warranty so no need to worry over that period. 1
clockend25 Posted July 9, 2015 Posted July 9, 2015 If I was looking now it would be for a pretty standard i3/4GB/120GB SSD spec, with an i5/8GB option for the couple of suites that are used by Media Studies and engineering. I couldn't envisage needing anything chunkier than that, and I focus more on the robustness of the units and the standard of support on offer.
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