IT's Equipment - What shall I get?

[1TF0rward]

So i've been thinking... I've currently got a HP Compaq Elite8300 i5 4GB RAM. I have only just upgraded to a 240GB SSD.

 

Is that enough to do my job? Am I allowed to get something better and how much would be a reasonable price? Also is there a spec that I should go for?

 

Desktop or Laptop or both!?!

 

I like the Stone Cloud Books, I'm currently trialing one and want a Business Book but I think £600 is a bit too much?

 

Any advice would be appreciated!

Edited July 4, 2019 by 1TF0rward

[LTurner3692]

dont be silly! £600 pretty much what i spend on machines!

 

i normally get an I5, 8GB, 240SSD. There has to be a very good reason to need more than that. unless its only a few quid more at the time of purchase to buy better.

[1TF0rward]

dont be silly! £600 pretty much what i spend on machines!

 

i normally get an I5, 8GB, 240SSD. There has to be a very good reason to need more than that. unless its only a few quid more at the time of purchase to buy better.

 

That is the exact spec I've been quoted. It's £586.50, which budget would this come out of? I wouldn't mind it not coming out of mine. My whole budget is pretty much licenses!!

[elsiegee40]

No you may not “treat yourself” if you are spending public money... EVER. Be careful with your choice of language.

 

Funds are too tight for luxuries in every education establishment and Best Value needs to be ensured.

 

If there’s there a strong business case for you needing more than you have at the moment then you may be able to justify spending the money and £600 isn’t an unreasonable amount. However, @ICTDirect_Dave can probably sell you something amazing as a refurb with a 3 year warranty and for less money.

 

If your current kit is doing the job without problems then I can’t see why you would spend out yet.

Edited July 4, 2019 by elsiegee40

[1TF0rward]

No you may not “treat yourself” if you are spending public money... EVER. Be careful with your choice of language.

 

Funds are too tight in every education establishment and Best Value needs to be ensured.

 

If there’s there a strong business case for you needing more than you have at the moment then you may be able to justify spending the money and £600 isn’t an unreasonable amount. However, @ICTDirect_Dave can probably sell you something amazing as a refurb with a 3 year warranty and for less money.

 

If your current kit is doing the job without problems then I can’t see why you would spend out yet.

The wording was a joke title to draw people in, call it clickbate.

 

Just wanted to see what other peoples opinions are. I hardly ever use my desktop as it is pretty poor. As I am in the move i prefer to use a laptop for its ease of use.

 

My current one is an alright spec but screen is very dim, it's very small so doesn't help.

 

I can cope with it but just makes working slightly more difficult.

[elsiegee40]

The wording was a joke title to draw people in, call it clickbate.

 

.

As I said, be careful with your choice of language. School finances are no joking matter.

 

People are more than happy to give advice on here in answer to a sensibly titled thread. You don’t need to create clickbait.

[CHiLL]

My boss and I recently purchased the components for our replacement PCs and built them ourselves, with it all totalling around £1000. We were running 2013 era Dell XPS systems, which were fine, however they kept crashing when working on multiple projects. We had to justify to the Head that our old machines were not up to the job of our workload and promise to re-deploy those workstations elsewhere if needed, for less demanding workloads (which they'd still be perfectly fine at).

 

If you prefer using a laptop for mobility, have you thought about buying a dock and using a monitor for when you're in the office? All the benefits of the desktop size and laptop mobility.

Edited July 4, 2019 by CHiLL

[1TF0rward]

As I said, be careful with your choice of language. School finances are no joking matter.

 

People are more than happy to give advice on here in answer to a sensibly titled thread. You don’t need to create clickbait.

As this was the general chat I'd thought this would be a less formal chat.

 

Will rename, apologies.

[elsiegee40]

As this was the general chat I'd thought this would be a less formal chat.

 

Will rename, apologies.

 

General Chat is one of the appropriate forums for humour, but humour and school finances do not sit well together. This is a professional forum and we can be judged by what we post here. Hence, the need for care when discussing our working environment.

 

I have moved your thread to the Hardware forum which is a more appropriate place for it.

Edited July 4, 2019 by elsiegee40

[dhicks]

If you prefer using a laptop for mobility, have you thought about buying a dock and using a monitor for when you're in the office? All the benefits of the desktop size and laptop mobility.

 

For replacement fixed workstations for our staffroom and IT office, we're currently looking at NUCs - 8GB of RAM, 256GB SSD, should be capable of handling most stuff, around £400 without a monitor. For classroom workstations, VeryPCs all-in-ones of a similar specification are just over £500, which is pretty good for something that includes a monitor. Both options are very compact and reduce the amount of cables around the workstation.

 

For my setup in my office, I have a laptop that connects to a monitor. There's no need to get a separate (and generally over-priced) docking station, I have a simple stand (a bit of wood with a hole in) that allows a laptop to stand upright when closed, then I have that connected to a monitor. With a suitibly modern laptop you can probably connect everything up via USB C, so there's only one cable to plug in when you put your laptop in the stand.

[localzuk]

I run a VeryPC workstation with an i7, 16GB RAM and SSD. It runs 3 monitors off that. Will be in place probably for 3-5 years. Cost us about £1000. Makes a huge difference when someone comes down to ask for something and I can do it near instantly as I don't have to wait for software to open up etc...

[DrBeaker]

One school the logic was that IT should have the best high-end kit as they were the ones supporting the staff etc.

 

And I agree.

 

If I'm waiting a few minutes for the IT person to load up the AD etc that's wasted time I'm going to easily recoup that back in productivity v the initial expenditure. The IT computers could easily be passed down the chain later on when it no longer meets the needs of the IT team.

 

I don't think 2-3 monitors or more is a strech considering what we have to do all day, RDP, server monitoring etc etc etc.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

I run a VeryPC workstation with an i7, 16GB RAM and SSD. It runs 3 monitors off that. Will be in place probably for 3-5 years. Cost us about £1000. Makes a huge difference when someone comes down to ask for something and I can do it near instantly as I don't have to wait for software to open up etc...

 

What sort of graphics do you have to run 3-screens?

[localzuk]

What sort of graphics do you have to run 3-screens?

Nvidia Quadro P400.

[Norphy]

 

 

What sort of graphics do you have to run 3-screens?

 

My laptop with integrated Intel graphics runs three screens; its own screen plus two external ones. You don't need anything special to do that these days.

[TechMonkey]

I run a VeryPC workstation with an i7, 16GB RAM and SSD. It runs 3 monitors off that. Will be in place probably for 3-5 years. Cost us about £1000. Makes a huge difference when someone comes down to ask for something and I can do it near instantly as I don't have to wait for software to open up etc...

 

I completely agree with this, and have done roughly the same but went the Flex route. Considering we could end up having VMs running, video converting or editing, as well a multitude of tabs open to cover what we are working on and research I don't think it is a 'luxury' or a 'treat' to be able to do the job effectively and in a timely manner.

[siuko]

I tried to balance performance with cost (as finance are always on at me about it lol)

 

So went with a refurbished computer from ICT Direct

 

i7, 16gb ram, 240Gb SSD and an NV300 graphics card all for a very reasonable £330 at the time

 

Lovely build and has run faultlessly since I got it in 2016

[localzuk]

I completely agree with this, and have done roughly the same but went the Flex route. Considering we could end up having VMs running, video converting or editing, as well a multitude of tabs open to cover what we are working on and research I don't think it is a 'luxury' or a 'treat' to be able to do the job effectively and in a timely manner.

One of the reasons I went for this form factor was the 3 DisplayPort ports (wow that looks weird to write), and the ability to have a card reader and DVD writer built in. Covers all the bases I know I'll get asked to deal with, without having to scatter a bunch of USB devices all over my desk.

[k-strider]

dont be silly! £600 pretty much what i spend on machines!

 

i normally get an I5, 8GB, 240SSD. There has to be a very good reason to need more than that. unless its only a few quid more at the time of purchase to buy better.

 

Me too for classrooms and Offices... usually get i5 NUC with 8 Gig and 240 SSD

 

my workstation though is i7 16Gig and 512 SSD as like others have said we get asked to do stuff like reprocess video... and i sometimes spin up VMs to test stuff...

[hardtailstar]

Firstly I'd speak to your line manger and finance department and see what they say the budget will stretch to.

 

From that you can see what you can get for the money.

[TechMonkey]

One of the reasons I went for this form factor was the 3 DisplayPort ports (wow that looks weird to write), and the ability to have a card reader and DVD writer built in. Covers all the bases I know I'll get asked to deal with, without having to scatter a bunch of USB devices all over my desk.

 

They may have changed but Flex have internal Optical drive and card readers. 3 Display ports would be nice though. I think I'm using a VGA, DVI and HDMI across 2 different cards! I went for Flex as it can be converted to an AIO, I have a dislike for a base unit taking up space or being stuck under a desk. But base unit choices are like cars, everyone has a preferred style and everyone else will have an opinion on that choice

[ICTDirect_Dave]

So i've been thinking... I've currently got a HP Compaq Elite8300 i5 4GB RAM. I have only just upgraded to a 240GB SSD.

I hardly ever use my desktop as it is pretty poor. As I am in the move i prefer to use a laptop for its ease of use.

If you've got the i5 version of the 8300, then you have a good system. The 3.2GHz 3470 is a cracking quad core even to this day.

However, you're short on memory which will impact performance. Up yourself to 16GB and with that SSD you'll have no problems at all.

The 8300 SFF will do multi-monitor natively so long as you have the correct intel drivers. But, if you wanted something a little better then you can fit a low-profile GTX 1050ti into these.

I know as we've used them at BETT to run Elite Dangerous and other games.

 

Should you need a laptop, drop me a line, I've got loads of nice ones. One of My HP Probooks was used from the podium at the Edit Conference this year and didn't skip a beat

[Roberto]

So i've been thinking... I've currently got a HP Compaq Elite8300 i5 4GB RAM. I have only just upgraded to a 240GB SSD.

 

Is that enough to do my job? Am I allowed to get something better and how much would be a reasonable price? Also is there a spec that I should go for?

 

Desktop or Laptop or both!?!

 

I like the Stone Cloud Books, I'm currently trialing one and want a Business Book but I think £600 is a bit too much?

 

Any advice would be appreciated!

 

Wry much depends on why you need. I’m running a Lenovo X390 laptop with a Thunderbolt / USB C dock with 2 screens for work and I love veg it. It’s quite powerful, but I’m running some heavy dev stuff and building reports in excel, power BI and the like side by side so it’s money well spent.

[saggu]

No you may not “treat yourself” if you are spending public money... EVER. Be careful with your choice of language.

 

Funds are too tight for luxuries in every education establishment and Best Value needs to be ensured.

 

If there’s there a strong business case for you needing more than you have at the moment then you may be able to justify spending the money and £600 isn’t an unreasonable amount. However, @ICTDirect_Dave can probably sell you something amazing as a refurb with a 3 year warranty and for less money.

 

If your current kit is doing the job without problems then I can’t see why you would spend out yet.

 

True that all schools have a tight budget but will it be called a luxury if SLT wants to get high spec device even though what they need to do is completely working fine?

[markwilfan]

Lenovo x250 i5 8gb ram 250gb SSD with docking station running 3 monitors. Perfect for my needs

[mikeprice]

I would say that upgrading is OK as long as you can justify it. If the speed of your current system is causing genuine problems then that is a good reason

 

Personally - I would think that the most important feature of an IT Tech system should be highish memory and multiple monitors. I tended to have several things running at one time - stuff I am working on, monitors, other etc etc (and one on Edugeek - of course)

 

This allows for those times when you have your head deep in a task and an 'emergency' crops up - if I can work on the problem on a different screen it helps me get back to where I was after I fixed the problem

 

I also like multiple screen for when I need to work on a problem - and do research at the same time

 

And - having a setup like that lets people see the concept - a lot of school staff (including teachers) could benefit from this but won't use them for 'reasons' - seeing the concept allows you to talk about it and can make them think about doing it - e.g. SIMS on one screen - teaching stuff on another - possibly another connected to IWB