Setting up a new suite

[Jobos]

6 years ago the then HT got rid of the IT suite in favour of laptops. Now there's a new HT and he's thinking about restoring the suite again, perhaps in a different room but for now I'm looking for advice on what PCs to use. The school is a primary.

 

As always, lack of budget is hampering the planning and the HT hasn't got the figures through yet so I don't know what I have to work with but there's a good chance we will be using refurbished kit. A quick look at ICT Direct shows the Dell Optiplex 9020 8GB with a 4th gen i5 3.2Ghz at a reasonable price. Would this spec of PC do and last say 5 years?

[Jawloms]

http://www.edugeek.net/forums/our-advertisers/213952-price-drop-alert.html ?

[mavhc]

Depends what they'll be used for. Are you doing 3d graphics, eg new Blender requires a more modern GPU to even run.

[3s-gtech]

I wouldn't buy 4th gen Intel Core kit now, for that sort of lifespan. As above, you'll want Skylake (6th gen) onwards (or AMD equivalents, if available). These should handle most workloads in a primary for a good few years.

[chazzy2501]

The 4th Gen devices whilst certainly powerful enough (with 8gb ram and SSD) are already 5 years old. A new PC can be had for similar costs but have a longer implied lifespan.

 

Here is an example of what I'm looking at: https://www.ebuyer.com/937248-lenovo-v55t-15api-twr-ryzen-3-4gb-ram-128gb-ssd-vega-8-win10-11cc0002uk

 

This is NOT a recommendation btw £250ex VAT.

[hallb15]

That HP that @Jawloms linked to above looks like a decent spec for the money. 6th Gen i5 at 3.3GHz should last you 5 years or more if your usage is similar to ours.

Our ICT Suite is running fine, largely on 3rd gen i3 CPUs which are nearly 8 years old now. Mainly used for things like PurpleMash, Education City, MS Office, Audacity, so typical primary school applications.

 

SLT were planning on replacing our ICT suite with mobile devices when the current PCs become unusable but they just keep on going.

[mavhc]

Apart from 3d rendering our i5-2400s are fine for Secondary use, it's really just the built in GPU that's improved since then. Could put GPUs in them, but half height with VGA out is rare.

[DaveTheTech]

Apart from 3d rendering our i5-2400s are fine for Secondary use, it's really just the built in GPU that's improved since then. Could put GPUs in them, but half height with VGA out is rare.

If its just 3d rendering, couldnt you use a dedicated machine for that?

[mavhc]

Not in my lessons teaching Blender, the new version uses the gpu a lot more, doesn't even run on the i5-2400 because the gpu is too old

[Jobos]

Thanks all. It's for a primary so basic stuff like Office and PurpleMash but I've got the answers I was after. The school has bought too cheap before and has to replace sooner than expected so I'll advise the HT accordingly

[mavhc]

As long as it's not a celeron or something, and has 4GB ram and an SSD should be fine

[StoneGroup_JackW]

Hi all

 

we have good stocks of both 4th gen and 5th gen PCs at competitive rates feel free to pm me for a price!!