Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Consider a Dell Optiplex FX160 Instead of a Raspberry Pi

thesizzle.com.au

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 227 posts

Re: Consider a Dell Optiplex FX160 Instead of a Raspberry Pi

#71

Post by zeroping »

jMyles wrote: post #40

A giant difference between the two, which goes unmentioned here, is that the FX160 runs on AC power at 120 volts. If you have a deployment scenario where you already have 5 volts DC but not 120 volts AC, the pi obviously makes way more sense.

The inverse is also true - the FX160 runs off of 120/240V directly, which is rather convenient if you don't want to use a 5V DC power brick that's larger than the Pi itself. Makes for a rather clean installation if you're shoving it somewhere strange (which seems likely).

Re: Consider a Dell Optiplex FX160 Instead of a Raspberry Pi

#72

Post by l8rlump »

morganvachon wrote: post #22

For anyone who needs it, here's Dell's technical guide: http://www.sayresd.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/PC-Dell-De... There are some Amazon sellers who have put together complete systems running Windows 7 or 10 for around US $100: https://smile.amazon.com/Dell-OptiPlex-FX160-1-6GHz-Windows/... If you're buying one to use as a server this won't matter to you, but if you want a tiny Linux or BSD desktop, you may want…

He said he's running Plex on it. I wonder what the underlying OS is.

Re: Consider a Dell Optiplex FX160 Instead of a Raspberry Pi

#74

Post by [deleted] »

htsh wrote: post #54
gcb0 wrote: post #43

just get an AMD 5350 APU. 4 or 8 cores at 2+ghz plus a very decent gpu. with a high end motherboard you get it for $100! and there is one itx motherboard that cames with a 20V input plug to not even need a psu! best part: mine with a ssd and a hdd streaming movies to the tv in 1080p (supports 4k but i get tearing) de will only consume 35W!

If you have a microcenter near you, you get the cpu / ASRock mini-itx mobo (with dc input) for < $50. I have a couple of these in tiny m350 cases and have been very happy.

[deleted]

Re: Consider a Dell Optiplex FX160 Instead of a Raspberry Pi

#75

Post by skykooler »

askvictor wrote: post #66
agumonkey wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

form factor is a bit annoying, I do this with an old thinkpad and I'm thinking about finding one with a broken LCD to remove the screen assembly altogether and put the base onto a book shelf.

Why not run it closed?

Depending on the particular model, cooling may not work properly.

Re: Consider a Dell Optiplex FX160 Instead of a Raspberry Pi

#76

Post by yellowapple »

morganvachon wrote: post #22

For anyone who needs it, here's Dell's technical guide: http://www.sayresd.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/PC-Dell-De... There are some Amazon sellers who have put together complete systems running Windows 7 or 10 for around US $100: https://smile.amazon.com/Dell-OptiPlex-FX160-1-6GHz-Windows/... If you're buying one to use as a server this won't matter to you, but if you want a tiny Linux or BSD desktop, you may want…

It also has terrible video with Windows in my experience. Good enough for an RDP or XenApp session, sure, but not much else.

Re: Consider a Dell Optiplex FX160 Instead of a Raspberry Pi

#77

Post by candiodari »

throwanem wrote: post #65
agumonkey wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No way to have a GPIO daughter board ?

I've seen USB GPIO breakouts, but not very cheaply, and I suspect driver support might be an issue. Certainly controlling GPIOs via /sys is extremely convenient! Between that and the built-in Ethernet interface, I suspect a Raspberry Pi makes a better GPIO interface for a PC than almost anything else on the market.

Really ? Because this is trivial to make using a microcontroller. Or you can use any FT232 serial interface.

I mean I'd think you'd prefer an arduino for this application over pretty much everything else since you can quickly upload small programs to the arduino that keep the "fast" logic on the arduino.

Re: Consider a Dell Optiplex FX160 Instead of a Raspberry Pi

#78

Post by ezzaf »

A raspberry pi with external HDD running is about 5W. That's 130 kWh less than a FX160 over an always on year, or $27 at average Australian energy prices.

Sure these servers might be handy for some things, but the Pi still has a lot of advantages. For me it's small form factor, low power consumption and GPIO.

Re: Consider a Dell Optiplex FX160 Instead of a Raspberry Pi

#79

Post by ac29 »

wyager wrote: post #28

I've been using a $140 chromebox flashed with Ubuntu as an HTPC and seedbox. It works very well and has very nice IO (lots of USB 3, HDMI, gigabit, etc.). The only minor problem I've run into is that the processor is just slow enough that it chokes on high-entropy 1080p video. 99.5% of the time it's fine, but if there's something on screen with lots of tiny objects moving in lots of different directions (a swarm of l…

Are you using accelerated video decode? 1080P should be no problem for just about any Intel iGPU made in the last 5 years or so when using vaapi.
Post reply on HN