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Ask HN: Should I invest in a desktop PC in 2017?

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Ask HN: Should I invest in a desktop PC in 2017?

#1

Post by terminalcommand »

I'm currently using a Thinkpad X201, with a first gen i7 processor, 8GBs of ram and an SSD.

I want to purchase a new computer to own a faster machine.

Currently I'm mostly using the thinkpad on my desk with two external monitors.

On the other hand, the battery life of it is pretty good and I like that it's small and lightweight.

I'm not a gaming person, so I don't need a discrete graphics card. I'm mostly using either Linux or FreeBSD with single-boot, but for Photoshop and school-work I sometimes need to work with windows. If I had two graphics cards I could forward one to QEMU and get near native response times on VMs.

Last but not least, one part of me wants to experience building a desktop.

Calculating the expenses, building a desktop would cost me arround 550 euros. But in the same price range I could buy a low-end 7th gen kaby lake laptop.

I know that desktop processors are much better than their laptop counterparts.

This question has been eating me away for the last 6 months. On one hand, the performance of my current machine is bearable, on the other hand I think I'm missing out on the speed of newer processors and limiting myself.

What would you do,

is desktop still relevant for dev-work in 2017?

Will I experience any difference in day to day use (heavy browsing, emacs, photoshop, occasionally an IDE) if I buy a 7th gen laptop instead of a 7th gen desktop?

Re: Ask HN: Should I invest in a desktop PC in 2017?

#4

Post by mattbrewsbytes »

I suspect your main motivator is to want to build a PC. Chances are that the extra computational power or cores won't actually make your work faster for day to day use.

Building a PC is fun and you will be able to do piece-meal upgrades as you want instead of having to replace an entire laptop because it becomes outdated. Financially it might make sense since you have one time expenses like case, power supply, peripherals and then things you can upgrade at will like motherboard, cpu, ram, and drives. If you future-proof the motherboard purchase (buying best or high-end now) then future CPU updates would just require a new CPU.

The downside of building a PC is that new stuff is coming out every year without much actual progress regarding speed. And mobility is a downside if you need something in class (you mentioned you were in school) or to go somewhere to work on a project collaboratively or if you move a lot.

If you can, keep the laptop and build a PC. Then you can connect to more compute power if you need it, assuming you setup a way to connect to it from the internet.

Re: Ask HN: Should I invest in a desktop PC in 2017?

#5

Post by olegkikin »

As someone who just got a decent desktop for $250, go check out eBay. There are absolutely amazing deals on used workstations. Warning: only buy from the people with good reviews and >50 reviews.

Examples:

Xeon E5-1660 + 16GB RAM = $359 (add your own SSD)

http://www.ebay.com/itm/351956704259

i7-6700 + 16GB DDR4 + 4TB HDD + Radeon R5 340X = $650

http://www.ebay.com/itm/172487064618

Xeon E5-2690 + 32GB RAM + 512GB SSD = $996

http://www.ebay.com/itm/302054600901

These are just examples. There are tons of options. You can even build your own system.

Re: Ask HN: Should I invest in a desktop PC in 2017?

#6

Post by terminalcommand »

mattbrewsbytes wrote: post #4

I suspect your main motivator is to want to build a PC. Chances are that the extra computational power or cores won't actually make your work faster for day to day use. Building a PC is fun and you will be able to do piece-meal upgrades as you want instead of having to replace an entire laptop because it becomes outdated. Financially it might make sense since you have one time expenses like case, power supply, periph…

Thanks for the detailed answer. I had been thinking about this for so long that I've forgetten the actual reason I even wanted to build a desktop. It was to get the experience selecting and putting the pieces together, having control over the hardware.

As for remote connection, I can setup a way to connect to it from the internet as I manage my own VPN on a cheap server.

I definitely want to build a PC and my laptop is going nowhere.

Re: Ask HN: Should I invest in a desktop PC in 2017?

#7

Post by detaro »

For 550€ I personally wouldn't buy a new laptop, I'd either buy a used/refurbished laptop or build a desktop PC, cheap new laptops tend to be not so great.

If your existing laptop is still usable, you'd at least have a laptop even if you went for the desktop PC.

For normal use the experience isn't much different, but a desktop is nicer for tinkering and somewhat better upgradeable (RAM, large disks, adding a GPU if it becomes necessary), and if you do calculation-intensive things most laptops run into their thermal limits pretty quickly, a desktop can maintain its top speed.

Re: Ask HN: Should I invest in a desktop PC in 2017?

#8

Post by terminalcommand »

detaro wrote: post #7

For 550€ I personally wouldn't buy a new laptop, I'd either buy a used/refurbished laptop or build a desktop PC, cheap new laptops tend to be not so great. If your existing laptop is still usable, you'd at least have a laptop even if you went for the desktop PC. For normal use the experience isn't much different, but a desktop is nicer for tinkering and somewhat better upgradeable (RAM, large disks, adding a GPU if i…

My existing laptop is still very usable. I had a lot of trouble with overheating in the past in compiling packages.

As for CPU intensive task, I do video conversion from HEVC to x264 to watch movies on my TV via chromecast. I suspect that would happen really fast.

Like you said, I could tinker more, install couple of disk drives and run multiple OS's without hitting the MBR limit.

Re: Ask HN: Should I invest in a desktop PC in 2017?

#10

Post by xiaoma »

Of course it's relevant. You can get much more power/$ once portability isn't a concern and you can have a huge display instead of a small one (or two huge displays instead of one huge and one small).

If you're running a full-blown IDE or a lot of tests, it's a significant work improvement to have a desktop (even comparing a high end MBP vs iMac).

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