Upgrading my machine - P cores and E cores?

[TheWaterbug]

Migration nearly complete! This i7-12700 box idles at about the same ~20%-ish, but doesn't redline when I scrub.

Took me awhile to get all the little settings and utilities replicated on the new box, and I'm 95% there, except for getting my Docker Wyze Bridge to launch automatically at boot. I had it set up properly on my old box, but I can't remember exactly what I did, and I didn't write it down

I just had to configure auto-login for Windows 11, and now Docker starts at boot, and all is good.

I had to drag the box back to my bench anyway, because you don't have access to all login options over RDP, so I took the opportunity to take some comparative photos between the old Optiplex 7040 (bottom) and the Lenovo Thinkcenter Neo 50s G4:







You probably couldn't find two more similar PCs from different manufacturers if you tried.

But the internals are at probably 6-8 years different, and I bought them for roughly the same price. I bought the Optiplex for $364 in 2021, and that model was released in 2015, so it was probably 5-6 years old at the time. I bought the Thinkcentre last month for $372, and it was released in 2023, so less than 2 years old.

 

[TheWaterbug]

Interesting! Searching Amazon for "renewed PC i7-12700" reveals this Lenovo Thinkcentre Neo 50S G4 SFF PC Core i7-12700 16GB RAM 256GB SSD W11P (Renewed) for $355 after coupon.

Ugh. That model doesn't seem to be available anymore, either at amazon or at any other reputable refurb retailer. It was just too good to be true. I was thinking of buying 2 more, to replace older i7-6700 Dells that I could then hand-me-down for other, less-demanding applications when Win10 goes EOL later this year.

Anyone find a comparable model at a comparable price out there?

Or, even better, what's out there from a Tier 1 OEM that will house 2 or more 3.5" HDDs? My dalliance with a Synology Diskstation and a bunch of old disks did not work out well, so I'm thinking of just JBODing a couple of larger drives in a tower.

 

[sdkid]

Ugh. That model doesn't seem to be available anymore, either at amazon or at any other reputable refurb retailer. It was just too good to be true. I was thinking of buying 2 more, to replace older i7-6700 Dells that I could then hand-me-down for other, less-demanding applications when Win10 goes EOL later this year.

Anyone find a comparable model at a comparable price out there?

Or, even better, what's out there from a Tier 1 OEM that will house 2 or more 3.5" HDDs? My dalliance with a Synology Diskstation and a bunch of old disks did not work out well, so I'm thinking of just JBODing a couple of larger drives in a tower.

Check ebay.

I really like the HP Z2 towers. several M.2 slots and lots of room inside them for Purple drives.

I replaced my old 4th gen i5 machine in April of 24 with a Z2-G4 8th gen i5 tower...



I also did an install for an organization with 36 cameras, running BI in a New HP Z2-G9 tower that I put four 18Tb Purple drives in. Love those HP full tower cases!

 

[TheWaterbug]

Ugh. That model doesn't seem to be available anymore, either at amazon or at any other reputable refurb retailer. It was just too good to be true. I was thinking of buying 2 more, to replace older i7-6700 Dells that I could then hand-me-down for other, less-demanding applications when Win10 goes EOL later this year.

Anyone find a comparable model at a comparable price out there?

Or, even better, what's out there from a Tier 1 OEM that will house 2 or more 3.5" HDDs? My dalliance with a Synology Diskstation and a bunch of old disks did not work out well, so I'm thinking of just JBODing a couple of larger drives in a tower.

It's available again, for $505, which is actually quite reasonable given today's RAM prices. This makes an excellent BI machine, out of the box, without any additional upgrades other than storage.

 

[Flintstone61]

I think the Dell Precision with 3 x 3.5" HDD bays, and the on board M.2 NVME 2280 C:\ drive slot makes a good BI machine.
Actually my daily driver with Blue Iris running in the background.
the 3640 has newer processor support like 10th or 11th gen Intel.
my 3630 can go to 9th Gen. It has a very capable i7-8700 6 core 12 thread processor.
two drives go on the bottom of the chassis and one goes up in front behind the Dell logo.
I'm only running 2x 8TB right now.
And they run a bit warm. like 48C to 50 C with my new front case fan setup, now they are down to 45 and 39C