Straight Dope Message Board

[Sicks Ate]

Wife's work gets new machines every few years and sells the old ones to employees. I put in for a couple different ones because they're basically dirt cheap and ended up being randomly selected to purchase one.

Here's all I know about it so far. I actually get my hands on it tomorrow and will have more info then:

Dell Precision T5810 - Intel Xeon Processor, E5-1607 v3, Four Core, 10MB Cache, 3.1 GHz, 8GB, 2x4GB 2133MHz DDR4, RDIMM ECC, 2.5" Intel 360GB SATA Class 20 Solid State Drive, Nvidia 960 Graphics Card, Windows 7 64 Bit

What do we think of this setup, computer people? Other message boards I found discussions on the topic were kind of all over the place on the matter of using a workstation/ECC RAM/Xeon processor etc. for gaming. 1

[Atamasama]

My expectation is that it should be okay. You’ll probably be able to run most games on it but they won’t be at the top settings. The 8GB of RAM also might be a bit of a bottleneck, but not too much of one. (I only recently upgraded to 16GB from 8GB on my gaming desktop.) I’m sure it will take 16 if you need it though and RAM isn’t expensive.

You’ll want to upgrade the OS to Win10. Win7 is dated at this point. I’m seeing a Win10 driver pack for your system so that should be an option.

Usually the big thing to check out if you’re evaluating a machine for how it will play games is the video card. The Nvidia 960 isn’t awful.
https://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA....146738.0.html
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews...60,4038-4.html
The card was released 4-5 years ago so it’s a bit dated. It was a mid-high end card at release so it should be okay today. 2

[Sicks Ate]

Originally Posted by Atamasama

My expectation is that it should be okay. You’ll probably be able to run most games on it but they won’t be at the top settings. The 8GB of RAM also might be a bit of a bottleneck, but not too much of one. (I only recently upgraded to 16GB from 8GB on my gaming desktop.) I’m sure it will take 16 if you need it though and RAM isn’t expensive.

You’ll want to upgrade the OS to Win10. Win7 is dated at this point. I’m seeing a Win10 driver pack for your system so that should be an option.

Usually the big thing to check out if you’re evaluating a machine for how it will play games is the video card. The Nvidia 960 isn’t awful.
https://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA....146738.0.html
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews...60,4038-4.html
The card was released 4-5 years ago so it’s a bit dated. It was a mid-high end card at release so it should be okay today.

Cool thank you! All it needs to be is better than my current gaming machine, which is 10 years old... I figured it'd be a decent improvement so I pounced on it.

I am planning on adding another 8 GB. I think I'll have to check the exact mobo specs, because I'm assuming (and from what I have read) that it depends on the mobo whether I can run non-ECC RAM or not...some may some may not? I considered ditching the ECC and just getting regular stuff if it's supported, but I may decide it doesn't matter, it doesn't look like 8 GB of ECC is that expensive.

I also got a small desktop for pocket change to replace my living room-TV/Netflix computer...which I bought from her work 3 years ago. It's got a I5, 16 GB, and a 128 Gb SSD. I'm hoping there's room to fit a GPU in it, that'd be an ok gaming computer for the kids. I'm liking this arrangement. 3

[Sicks Ate]

Originally Posted by Atamasama

Usually the big thing to check out if you’re evaluating a machine for how it will play games is the video card. The Nvidia 960 isn’t awful.

Now I had another thought. I had figured I'd be happy enough with it since it's a step up from my Radeon R9...buuuuttttt....

14 y/o wants a gaming computer, so everyone is getting him parts to build one for his Christmas presents. I specced a Ryzen CPU with onboard graphics; I'll have him buy a GPU with his own cash so he has skin in the game, and the integrated GPU will get him by until then.

BUT now I'm considering kicking the Nvidia 960 down to him and getting myself something shiny. Considering that since we were able to get this comp and I don't have to spend the $$ I had planned to build one from scratch, I think I can justify it to the authorities 4

[Atamasama]

If you can do it, do it. Make sure the card you want is supported.

Last year I finally saw a decent price for an Nvidia GTX 1070 Ti on a big Black Friday deal, and the card alone let me go from being able to have decent settings in games to maxing them out and having no drop in frame rates. Yes, it was still not cheap but it was like having a totally new computer. 5

[Jet Jaguar]

My old laptop has a Nvidia 960M, which is the mobile version of the 960 and therefore is less powerful (so it draws fewer watts), and it's still perfectly adequate to play any game I've tried, albeit not necessarily at the highest graphics settings. I still use it to play Overwatch and FFXIV, for some examples. So, that video card should still be serviceable. 6

[Sicks Ate]

Originally Posted by Jet Jaguar

My old laptop has a Nvidia 960M, which is the mobile version of the 960 and therefore is less powerful (so it draws fewer watts), and it's still perfectly adequate to play any game I've tried, albeit not necessarily at the highest graphics settings. I still use it to play Overwatch and FFXIV, for some examples. So, that video card should still be serviceable.

Good to know! I'll have a few weeks to play with it until I decide whether or not to hand it down. My modest goal with my potential new build was >60 fps @ 1080p on pretty high settings for current games. Currently playing Outer Worlds, so that will be the first test, but Borderlands 3 is also on the menu. Right now running OW on a mix of medium/low and high settings and dipping to ~30 fps at times, but I suck at video games and I'm playing on story mode, so the performance hit is worth the pretties.

[QUOTE=Atamasama;22005117
Last year I finally saw a decent price for an Nvidia GTX 1070 Ti on a big Black Friday deal, and the card alone let me go from being able to have decent settings in games to maxing them out and having no drop in frame rates. Yes, it was still not cheap but it was like having a totally new computer.[/QUOTE]

Garsh! No matter what, that's still gonna be outside of my price range 7

[Gray Ghost]

How much do you want to spend on the shiny?

Per the "Entry Tier" chart at logical increments, and the oft-mentioned Tom's Graphics Card Hierarchy, the 960 is going to be around as powerful as an Xbox One. Good for 1080p gaming, if you turn things down some. They mention the RX 560 as their card in this tier, and as roughly equivalent to a GTX 1050 or the 960 you have. For the RX 560, they mention frame rates of 150, 35, 25, depending on if you're playing League of Legends, Fortnite, or Witcher 3 respectively.

If the kid is a Fortnite junkie, 35 FPS is going to be meh. Then again, he can get a job and buy his own computer...

I finally ended up getting a 5700XT, with some heavy discounting, and couldn't be happier so far. ~$300 after tax and rebate. It's not a 2080 Ti, (hell, it's not a 1080 Ti), but I also didn't have to drop a grand plus on it either. Logical Increments is a great site for parsing these kinds of questions.

Oh, use Pcpartpicker.com to make sure the thing'll fit, have enough power supplied, and is otherwise compatible. The card I bought is a two fan model. I didn't set out to choose that, it just happened that way. I'm glad I did though, because despite my preconceptions, no way a long 3 fan card would've fit in my case. So measure how much room you have, then do it again. I had to do surgery on my case to get the CPU cooler to fit. 8

[Sicks Ate]

Originally Posted by Gray Ghost

How much do you want to spend on the shiny?

I was thinking mebbe two fitty-three? Depends on how this bad boy runs the games I play; if it's ok, I won't upgrade for now.

I'm posting from my new machine. I ran a couple benchmarks on the old one and have to install a couple Windows updates before I can run it on this one. Then I'll run them, install Outer Worlds overnight, and see how that plays.

Initial reactions:

1) As soon as I got it, of course I opened it up. So. Much. Cooling. The heat sink on the processor takes up the entire width of the case, for one thing, 600-something watt power supply has 2 fans, then there are other fans, fans on the GPU, ducting etc. My old machine literally heated the room a little, so it will be interesting to see how much this one puts out under a load. It's also very quiet. I was a little worried the first time I hit the power button because I was accustomed to hearing something

2) Noticeable difference in speed opening programs etc. Haven't refreshed my old machine for a couple years, so that may contribute however.

Ok ok, continuing to play with it and see what I can accomplish tonight! 9

[Gray Ghost]

Originally Posted by Sicks Ate

I was thinking mebbe two fitty-three? Depends on how this bad boy runs the games I play; if it's ok, I won't upgrade for now...

Newegg has a EVGA (usually very good brand) GTX 1660 Ti OC for $280 after rebate. That's going to be comparable to a 1070. And cheaper. Both should crush any 1080p gaming you had in mind. Witcher 3 at 75 fps. Even the kid won't scoff. I only went with the card I did because I wanted to dabble in VR and maybe 4k gaming.

RX 590'll be close (~20 percent) to the pace, for a 100 bucks cheaper. Sapphire's supposed to have great QC and service.

The Xeon is probably going to bottleneck things more than the GPU at that point.

I'm tickled you got your new system. It's fun seeing it and putting it through it's paces.

Oh. Make sure your mobo is set up with the right PCI 3 slots to run a new graphics card, and is otherwise compatible. 10

[thelurkinghorror]

I think the ones at work are 5810 and they indeed take ECC RAM. 11

[Sicks Ate]

[QUOTE=Gray Ghost;22007460]
The Xeon is probably going to bottleneck things more than the GPU at that point.

Originally Posted by thelurkinghorror

I think the ones at work are 5810 and they indeed take ECC RAM.

So here's a question, re: the RAM. It has 2133 mhz RAM installed, but if I'm looking at the processor specs on Intel's page correctly the processor only supports 1333/1600/1866. So that means my RAM is probably only running that one of those speeds, correct? I didn't have time to look in to that more. Should tell me somewhere....BIOS?

If that is the case, I poked around just a little and think there are compatible processors that would support the 2133...would it be worth upgrading the processor in order to take advantage of that or no.....

Oh, and I played around with the UNIGINE Heaven benchmarker a little bit last night. Depending on the settings, I'm getting 10-20 fps more with the new comp. Got Outer Worlds loaded up but had something else come up so didn't get to compare much there. I do know that on old comp, auto-detect settings were low and on new one they're medium, so that's good. 12

[Sicks Ate]

For example, it looks like I can get my hands on one of these processors for under $100, and gain full access to the RAM capability and add 2 cores in the deal. 13

[thelurkinghorror]

Originally Posted by Sicks Ate

So here's a question, re: the RAM. It has 2133 mhz RAM installed, but if I'm looking at the processor specs on Intel's page correctly the processor only supports 1333/1600/1866. So that means my RAM is probably only running that one of those speeds, correct? I didn't have time to look in to that more. Should tell me somewhere....BIOS?

According to my BIOS, it has 2133 MHz DDR4, and I know that's both the original RAM and extra we bought. Dell service tag lookup backs me up. Their upgrade tool also suggests 2122, 2400, and 2666. FWIW, I looked at Intel's page and it says 2133 is okay. This is for the v3.

It sounds like you might know this, but buying higher clock speed RAM is fine (i.e. won't hurt your system), it will lower to the maximum allowed. 14

[Sicks Ate]

Well, one game I was looking forward to when all of us (wife, me, 14 and 9) had comps is Warframe....

The small tower I got for the living room can run it on low just fine, and I also have a modest 1GB Radeon 5450 I picked up on EBay for $15 on the way, so that'll be totally playable.

On my new machine, with everything maxed out and refresh locked on 60, I never dip below that. So that's fun. 15

[Palooka]

If that's $253, that's a great deal. I'd take one. It's basically a mid-range system from three years ago. 16

[Sicks Ate]

Originally Posted by Palooka

If that's $253, that's a great deal. I'd take one. It's basically a mid-range system from three years ago.

It was less When she forwarded me the e-mail and said "Do we want any of these?" my response was "FUCK YES!!!!!!!"

Then I remembered I needed to send another reply to tell her exactly which ones... 17

[Atamasama]

Originally Posted by Sicks Ate

Well, one game I was looking forward to when all of us (wife, me, 14 and 9) had comps is Warframe....

I haven’t played that in forever but it was fun. It would probably be even better if I’d run it with people I knew rather than soloing most of the time.

Rhino all day! 18