Best hardware for a replacement desktop?

Tue Jul 30 02:51:01 UTC 2019

Just to make stuff concrete here is what I finally settled on (typing this
reply as my first email sent on the new machine).... I am top posting since
it is not really inline with the PSU debate except for the fact I bought
the one the store recommended (smaller then the one I originally planned
on)...

Item
Price                Comments
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MSI B450 Tomahawk (motherboard)        85                    No complaints
beyond not very clear instructions about what screws to use for what
purpose and the manual has the build order wrong IMO (attach everything
before putting in case).... vmm(4) loads fine have not yet tried bhyve/vbox
yet

AMD Ryzen 5 2600 (6 cores/12 threads) 120                 WOW!!!! Much
better then I hoped (FreeBSD considers each thread to be a separate core so
I have 12 cores for less then I would have paid for a quad core/quad thread
Intel).... make -j 12 DESTDIR=/ world kernel took 30 mins on the dot
(compared to 3 hrs on my old machine)... compiled xfce/firefox and a few
extras in about 2 hrs compared to 10 to 12 on the old machine

Inland 224 GB SSD SATA/3 (OEM)         25                 No complaints

PowerSpec 750W semi-modular PSU   60                  Semi-modular is
annoying due to the build order suggested in MB manual and the case design

Thermaltake V100 Minitower Case        40                    Who ever
designed this piece of crap should be shot for awful case design (almost
nothing is easy to get to inside and the manual is completely useless...
whose bright idea was it to put the drive/PSU bays in a separate caged off
area with solid metal between it and the main bay?!?!?.... hard to snake
cables in and out and very little room for working when putting stuff in)

Crucial DDR4-2666 4GB non-ECC RAM   35                    RAM is RAM

Kept Nvidia GT 710 video card

Starbucks Mocha Cap.                              3
Caffeine makes the world run on time!

Total wo/ tax (and coffee)                    365                   So far
works perfectly with 12.0-RELEASE (AMD64)

On Mon, Jul 29, 2019 at 10:21 PM Paul Pathiakis via freebsd-questions <
freebsd-questions at freebsd.org> wrote:

> Interesting.
>
> Just not into asking for justification just saying it's nonsense?
>
> I use a very simple 'at the wall' draw meter.  Over time, when things used
> to consume a LOT more power.... CPUs could draw 250W, DDR3, etc  As you
> added higher end graphics cards, they would increase the draw further.....
> now, if you've ever done benchmarking, you'd find that you, typically,
> throw out the first 3 runs.  Why?  Heat yields increased resistance.
> Increasing memory, a higher end graphics card, a higher speed clock on the
> same micro-architecture, etc Things are in flux until the machine comes up
> to full operating temperature.
>
> So, depending on the number of peripherals.... maybe a second graphics
> card if you want dual monitors, you have some incredible protein folding
> software that requires gobs of memory.... or a filesystem of ZFS that loves
> more memory, etc.  Add in more memory... more draw...
>
> Do you see a pattern with what I'm saying?
>
> Today, we see that high-energy efficiency is being pushed everywhere....
> the CPU ( TDP dropping from 300 to 180 to 140 to 100 to 65 ), the GPU ( TDP
> dropping from 300W to 250W to 170W) , the memory (in case you didn't notice
> the voltage requirements dropping from 1.75 to 1.5 to 1.35 over the last
> 5-7 years....)
> So, when I know I could potentially plug in second graphics card, fill all
> my memory slots, overclock a CPU (for only temporary reasons... ), my
> observations of the last 10 years or so, even through all these changes,
> was showing a high of about 40-45% over the base to where it is now, about
> 30-35% of the base.
>
> And, again, despite all of this, I still won't overspend for something
> that makes no sense and I will, appropriately, size a PSU to my baseline
> needs while leaving a good amount of headroom for expansion.
>
> I also consider the 80-Plus standards that have been implemented.  I
> really don't want to hit more than 80-85% of my PSU's upper bound as that
> seems to be why the standard was created.... drop off of the efficiency of
> power delivery.  Although the higher standards of gold, platinum and
> titanium tend to push that envelope of efficiency upwards to 90%  The
> efficiency of most modern PSUs hit a peak of efficiency around 60% (that
> may be outdated).  You would really like to have you machine drawing around
> there.  However, as I said, I tend to allow for enough headroom to plug-in
> additional peripherals if needed.
>
> If you read between the lines of the above, you can figure out why you
> DON'T oversize if unnecessary.  If you only draw 300W (there is a doubling
> factor of AC/DC conversion - I haven't checked if that's still viable as I
> don't have time to check all these factors), why buy a 1200W PSU?  Only $50
> more?  If you want to spend that money, sure, whatever.  If you want to be
> at the peak of efficiency and be 'green', you can be at your 'most
> efficient' by being at the peak of your power curve that the PSU
> delivers.... so, at 1200W... you'd need to be drawing what?  720W ??!!
>
> (so... what's that?  3x1070ti, 4x8GB of RAM, some ridiculous high-end
> Intel chip that sucks down 300W at TDP...  Yeah, if you want to spend $5000
> on a machine, then, by all means, spend that $50 on that 1200W PSU)
>
> This was what was meant when someone replied that they have different load
> curves.  (and, no, I really didn't want to have to write this letter....)
>
> Oh... and yeah... I let my little meter calculate my draw after looking at
> the specs and building the machine.... I'm fairly close.  Also, there are a
> TON of PSU calculators out there and a LOT of articles about why you don't
> over-size.
>
> P
>
>     On Monday, July 29, 2019, 7:49:42 PM EDT, Ralf Mardorf via
> freebsd-questions <freebsd-questions at freebsd.org> wrote:
>
>  On Tue, 23 Jul 2019 11:27:03 +0000 (UTC), Paul Pathiakis wrote:
> >Take that and add 33%.
>
> On Tue, 23 Jul 2019 17:31:26 +0200, I wrote:
> >I would be careful when calculating real power consumption. What makes
> >you think that adding 33% is a good value?
>
> On Mon, 29 Jul 2019 14:30:10 +0200, Matthias Fechner wrote:
> >If you under or over 50% you will lose efficiency.
>
> Again, oversized is way better, since calculating a realistic power
> consumption is virtually impossible and it's also virtually impossible
> to know the optimal workload of a power supply. Actually you only could
> use specifications provided by the vendors. In the end you get a rough
> guess on the values.
>
> What are 33% or 50% of rough estimated values? The result is mere
> nonsense.
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-- 
Aryeh M. Friedman, Lead Developer, http://www.PetiteCloud.org