Workstation Pocket Rocket: Another Ratdude Project?

[Topcat]

Re: Workstation Pocket Rocket: Another Ratdude Project?

[momaka]

Re: Workstation Pocket Rocket: Another Ratdude Project?

I've seen quite a few high-end GPUs do this in the last 5-6 years. Back when I worked in Microcenter in 2016, a 1080TI pulled a nice smoke show just as the tech working on that system was about to walk away. Within those 5-10 seconds it ran, there was a nice orange glow coming from the PCB... and smoke! LOTS of smoke!

From what I've seen so far, modern high-end GPUs made in the last 10 years can't seem to last worth a damn, even if not stressed much (but even less when stressed.) So unless the 3D capabilities really are needed, I'd say go with something more mid-range and lower power. A 750TI with an oversized cooler should last quite a while.

BTW, GTX1080 are about $100 on my local CL, and they are still good performers, if decent gaming capabilities are needed. So if running on a tight budget, I'd go with that over a 2060. Now 2070 is considerably more powerful than the 2060 for the $20 extra. But at almost 2x the price of a 1080... IDK, 1080 seems like a better deal IMO.

[ratdude747]

Re: Workstation Pocket Rocket: Another Ratdude Project?

I've seen quite a few high-end GPUs do this in the last 5-6 years. Back when I worked in Microcenter in 2016, a 1080TI pulled a nice smoke show just as the tech working on that system was about to walk away. Within those 5-10 seconds it ran, there was a nice orange glow coming from the PCB... and smoke! LOTS of smoke!

From what I've seen so far, modern high-end GPUs made in the last 10 years can't seem to last worth a damn, even if not stressed much (but even less when stressed.) So unless the 3D capabilities really are needed, I'd say go with something more mid-range and lower power. A 750TI with an oversized cooler should last quite a while.

BTW, GTX1080 are about $100 on my local CL, and they are still good performers, if decent gaming capabilities are needed. So if running on a tight budget, I'd go with that over a 2060. Now 2070 is considerably more powerful than the 2060 for the $20 extra. But at almost 2x the price of a 1080... IDK, 1080 seems like a better deal IMO.

Don't the 80's run hot and hog a lot of power though? This system doesn't cool the greatest (part of it being a sleeper build). Also, keep in mind I'm running a quasi-custom (again, part of the sleeper build) 600W PSU with twin Xeons. Newer cards have way better performance per watt, which is why I made the decisions I made.

I've only ever had 1 1000 series card (EVGA 1060). And it randomly died on my dad. Based on the number of dead 1060's I saw on eBay, I wasn't feeling said series.

[momaka]

Re: Workstation Pocket Rocket: Another Ratdude Project?

Don't the 80's run hot and hog a lot of power though?

Probably won't see that much of a difference between the 2070 and 1080. The 2070 is rated at 175W TDP and the 1080 is 180W. The 2070 probably won't use as much power, though, due to being newer... but I doubt the difference would be big in terms of heat output inside the case.

In regards to GPU temperatures: yes, the 1080 will likely run hotter due to having a much smaller surface area for its GPU die (~300 mm^2). In contrast, the 2070 has a slightly lower TDP, but spread out over ~450 mm^2... and a better stock (dual-fan) cooler too.

But again, if you're not pushing high-end games with that system, there shouldn't be much of a difference.

Newer cards have way better performance per watt, which is why I made the decisions I made.

Well, they have DLSS and some other upscaling trickery that allows for some power savings.

But if you are pushing it hard with games, find what's the average FPS each game runs at and cap the FPS to about half of that (provided the halved FPS won't come out to some low value, like below 45 FPS.) They you should get some real power savings and a much cooler GPU.

I've only ever had 1 1000 series card (EVGA 1060). And it randomly died on my dad. Based on the number of dead 1060's I saw on eBay, I wasn't feeling said series.

Some of the 1000's series were affected by unreliable RAM, and IIRC the 1060's had it the worst. But in terms of failure rates, I'd say the 1000 series was on par with the 900 series and the 2000 series aren't too far apart from that. If you look in the GPU subsection of this forum, there are lots of threads for dead 1000, 2000, and 3000 series nVidia cards. The 1000 are the oldest from that bunch, so no surprise they are starting to fail en-masse now. Team red doesn't seem to be doing any better either, though.

With that said, I don't expect most new GPUs to regularly last over 5-7 years, if even that. I think the average life of new GPUs should be expected around 5 years.. Some will hold on a little longer, but most probably won't, especially if they are gamed on or pushed hard with 3D apps. But even then, it's not 100% certain.

For that reason, I refuse to invest $$ into any new-gen GPUs. I might grab a Ryzen with built-in graphics sometime in the future... though I'm still debating that. As much as I like my dual-CPU T7500 workstation, it wastes too much power in the summer and makes a hot house even hotter.

[ratdude747]

Re: Workstation Pocket Rocket: Another Ratdude Project?

Due to my hellish work schedule and some technical difficulties I finally got it back to running condition. Posting this from it; I'll edit in some pics in a bit.

Edit- Pic attached. Yes I am still running 7200RPM spinners. Yes I am ashamed. I wonder if the LSI 8708EM2 would play well with SSDs... or maybe a PCIe SSD? This is my only workstation that doesn't run SAS drives...

[momaka]

Re: Workstation Pocket Rocket: Another Ratdude Project?

Edit- Pic attached. Yes I am still running 7200RPM spinners. Yes I am ashamed. I wonder if the LSI 8708EM2 would play well with SSDs... or maybe a PCIe SSD? This is my only workstation that doesn't run SAS drives...

Nothing wrong with 7k2 HDDs... so long as you're still running Windows 7 and not 10 or 11.

I run 7 even on quite a few machines with 5k4 2.5" spinners, and it's still plenty fast. The slowest thing is Firefox Quantum (now Quantum ESR due to dropped Win 7 support) on a cold boot or after an update.

On the other hand, Win 10/11 on a rust spinner is agonizing at best. Ironically, my T7500 is running 10 off of one... and I hate it. It was only meant to be a test install of 10, but ended up being one of those permanent "temporary" things, lol. Funniest part: it's only an eval. copy of 10 Home, so I get the "unregistered" watermark on the lower-right of the screen on top of everything. Doesn't bother me, though.

I see you put the RTX in. Cool.
Then I went and re-read the thread to refresh my memory on the system's specs. It's still a nice workstation! However, those CPUs would be a major bottleneck for the GPU in any modern (and even not-so-modern now) games. If that's not anyone's cup of tea on this system, then fine. Either way, it still lives up to the hype of being an overbuilt sleeper. I mean, who'd expect an RTX 2070 in an Emachines case from the early 2000's anyways.

[ratdude747]

Re: Workstation Pocket Rocket: Another Ratdude Project?

Nothing wrong with 7k2 HDDs... so long as you're still running Windows 7 and not 10 or 11.

I run 7 even on quite a few machines with 5k4 2.5" spinners, and it's still plenty fast. The slowest thing is Firefox Quantum (now Quantum ESR due to dropped Win 7 support) on a cold boot or after an update.

On the other hand, Win 10/11 on a rust spinner is agonizing at best. Ironically, my T7500 is running 10 off of one... and I hate it. It was only meant to be a test install of 10, but ended up being one of those permanent "temporary" things, lol. Funniest part: it's only an eval. copy of 10 Home, so I get the "unregistered" watermark on the lower-right of the screen on top of everything. Doesn't bother me, though.

I see you put the RTX in. Cool.
Then I went and re-read the thread to refresh my memory on the system's specs. It's still a nice workstation! However, those CPUs would be a major bottleneck for the GPU in any modern (and even not-so-modern now) games. If that's not anyone's cup of tea on this system, then fine. Either way, it still lives up to the hype of being an overbuilt sleeper. I mean, who'd expect an RTX 2070 in an Emachines case from the early 2000's anyways.

It runs 10. All my workstations in active service run 10... the ones that couldn't all were retired and are sitting.

[momaka]

Re: Workstation Pocket Rocket: Another Ratdude Project?

It runs 10.

Oh.
Though I'm sure you did the same as TC and are running a Pro or better version with updates disabled? If not, I don't know how you'd stand it for daily use. The only W10 machine is my T7500 workstation, which I actually use only for gaming, and only for two games that I don't really play that often. The constant updates (both Windows and occasionally the games) drives me nuts... but I just turn that system on a few hours ahead every time before I intend to use it and just let it do its thing. If I had to use this on a daily basis, I'd have pulled all of my hair out already (and I don't have much to begin with either... not anymore.)

But yeah, just get an SSD and be done with it. I personally wouldn't bother with RAID either. A fast SSD will be lightyears ahead in terms of speed. Not even sure if RAID-0 or similar would bring that much (noticeable) performance boost for 2 SSDs vs 1 in regular SATA mode. For benchmarks... yeah, probably. But who cares about benchmarks, it's all about how well a system works for the task(s) you need it. I also prefer standard IDE or SATA setups simply because I can take any HDD from any of my systems, plop it into another one, and get / backup / copy any files I need, should the OS (or rather updates, considering W10) hose itself and become unbootable.

Well, that's my inflated $0.02 worth of opinion, anyways.

[Dan81]

Re: Workstation Pocket Rocket: Another Ratdude Project?

Meanwhile there's me being brave enough to run 11 on a mechanical drive

[momaka]

Re: Workstation Pocket Rocket: Another Ratdude Project?

Meanwhile there's me being brave enough to run 11 on a mechanical drive

You mean to say you're a masochist?
And here I am laughing away at you while using a P4 machine & trying to browse the internet.
Jokes aside, I imagine a mechanical HDD could (should?) hold up a lot longer to W/R abuse from W10/11 updates compared to an SSD.

[Dan81]

Re: Workstation Pocket Rocket: Another Ratdude Project?

Nah, that's the least masochistic one can be.

Running 95 on a 386SX w/ 4MB of RAM however is a whole 'nother level of masochism. I mean it.

[Topcat]

Re: Workstation Pocket Rocket: Another Ratdude Project?

Meanwhile there's me being brave enough to run 11 on a mechanical drive

10 is fine on a 15K RPM SAS stripe array....I imagine 11 would be as well. Anything consumer-grade and spinning.....

[Dan81]

Re: Workstation Pocket Rocket: Another Ratdude Project?

5400RPM 2.5 inch drive. I think it was a 500GB off a HP G62.

[lti]

Re: Workstation Pocket Rocket: Another Ratdude Project?

The constant updates (both Windows and occasionally the games) drives me nuts... but I just turn that system on a few hours ahead every time before I intend to use it and just let it do its thing. If I had to use this on a daily basis, I'd have pulled all of my hair out already (and I don't have much to begin with either... not anymore.)

That's what I have to do with my laptop, but it's because I have to wait for the updates to download (and I really need to uninstall Lenovo Vantage - I get into the situation where both it and Windows Update are trying to update the same drivers at the same time).

5400RPM 2.5 inch drive. I think it was a 500GB off a HP G62.

I ran Windows 7 off one of those until about three years ago. In the end, I had the same problem with having to wait a few hours before I could use it, but I "fixed" that by turning off all automatic updates and antivirus/malware scans (Malwarebytes would start a scan every day immediately after booting, and Chrome would scan for malicious browser extensions on boot as well). That computer had such a slow CPU that the drive really didn't matter, even though disk performance degraded for some reason that I never figured out (the drive was much faster in a different computer).

[TechGeek]

Re: Workstation Pocket Rocket: Another Ratdude Project?

Probably an old SATA 1 interface that didn't support NCQ. That seems to wreak havoc on the performance of anything SATA II or better.

[lti]

Re: Workstation Pocket Rocket: Another Ratdude Project?

If you're replying to my post, that computer had SATA 3 (6Gb/s), and it got slower over time.