New business machine baseline

[Mercutio]

My standard business system build for years and years has been an LGA775 G31 motherboard (preferably one with IDE and a parallel port) with a mid-range CPU and 2GB RAM in a decent case with a quality PSU. I usually target $350 - $400 or so for hardware on these boxes.

There are so many different motherboards that meet that spec that even a motherboard replacement is trivial on those machines.

I believe that build is officially too old to contemplate selling at this point, but now I have to pick a new common platform. Ideally I want something that I know I'll be able to get for several years. I'd prefer to get boards that have good support for legacy hardware, including PS/2 and at least the option of getting a parallel port.

1155 is kind of a mess. 1156 is legacy equipment now. AM3/AM3+ is... not Intel.

Where are you guys taking your common business platforms?

 

[CougTek]

Done with the parallel and the PS/2 ports. Computers are designed to last for five years and both these standards have been obsolete for way longer than that. I tell my customers it's time to move on. Windows 7 often don't support anything plug in a parallel port anyway (manufacturers can't be bothered to make a driver for it). About the beloved PS/2 keyboard, I tell the customers that for the time it's been used, it's probably full of germs and represent a health hazard. Better to replace it.

Also : IDE drives. The great majority of those are past five-years-old, so they are accordingly potentially unreliable since they have outlast their expected lifespan. Safer and cheaper to transfer their data to newer SATA drives. They cost less than one hour of my time anyway and you can bet I won't be shy to push on the pencil if you end up being screwed by your vintage IDE drive, against my recommendation.

Legacy interfaces : time to move on. Business platform : H61/67 and Pentium G840 or more.

 

[ddrueding]

I'd have to agree with Coug; I have had a total of one parallel port requirement all year, and USB->PS2 adapters have only been needed twice. It isn't worth compromising your main build for such a niche requirement.

Intel BOXDH55PJ LGA 1156 Intel H55
Intel Core i3-540 Clarkdale 3.06GHz
Crucial 2GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333
OCZ Agility 2 OCZSSD2-2AGTE60G 2.5" 60GB
Antec New Solution VSK2450 Black ATX Mid Tower 450W
SAMSUNG CD/DVD Burner

I know that is over your budget by quite a ways...but it is where I would go. Probably charge about $1k including 7 Home Premium and Office 2010 Home & Student.

The problem with going lower than that is that the OEMs will kill you, and the margins aren't worth the time/hassle. I order at least a dozen of these a month.

 

[time]

What CougTek said.

I guess Dave didn't see your comment about s1156 being legacy equipment.

I do like the idea of 4 cores as a minimum, but that's just not compatible with a low budget. The fact is, for most simple business software, an Intel G620/G850/G850 is going to be near as dammit indistinguishable from a 4-core i5.

Compared to the aged AM3 platform, I find the assorted Intel solutions do not inspire confidence. Even the CPU cooler and mounting method is a POS. In other words, although it takes AMD a long time to refine their drivers, I feel it is a more robust platform than Socket 1155. It's just a shame that their CPUs are not at all competitive, particularly in energy consumption. I do wonder whether Bulldozer might turn out to be quite competitive, because parallelism is obviously the future - even phones now have dual cores.

I really don't think there is the right mix of components available now to build a business machine that isn't years out of date in concept. I believe people will continue to favor laptops and, unfortunately, Apple products. Failing that, are you sure it's still worth the trouble to compete at the low end with Dell, Lenovo and HP?

Basic Intel H61 boards don't have USB 3.0, but you can get it with Gigabyte for $75. Likely to be useful at some stage in a PC's life. I wouldn't be prepared to pay more than a few bucks extra for 6Gb/s SATA though.

 

[time]

It seems topical that NewEgg is now promoting the new AMD FM1 platform. When it's microATX and at least $20 cheaper, it might turn out to be a decent long-term platform (pure conjecture on my part).

 

[time]

In Win BK623 with 300W 80+ PSU $64
Gigabyte GA-H61M-USB3-B3 $75
Intel G620 $78
Kingston 4GB DDR1333 $34
Crucial 64GB M4 SSD $120
Asus DVD-RW $21
TOTAL $392

I don't know if the In Win comes with an 80+ PSU in the US, it does elsewhere. It's an SFX profile, which is pretty easy to get these days. Alternatively, I'd consider a cheap HEC with a 300W Seasonic ATX PSU.

It's an extra $17 to take the CPU from 2.6GHz to 2.9GHz. I'd rather skimp on the CPU than lose the SSD.

 

[time]

Incidentally, mains power draw at idle is well under 40W for that sort of configuration and about 45W for a typical i5. Total secondary side energy consumption is never going to even come close to 100W.

 

[Mercutio]

The Parallel port is close to a deal breaker. I've been telling customers for years that the best personal printers ever made are Laserjet 3s and a lot of them still have those old printers.

IDE is far, far less important, but there's a convenience factor there for dealing with old machines.

And PS/2? Here's what happens with regard to PS/2: I build a system with only one or no PS/2 ports. I take it over to the customer, apologize because their keyboard/mouse doesn't work, try a PS/2 to USB adapter (that works maybe half the time), offer to get a $15 USB keyboard/mouse set for them and then my customer decides to run out to Staples to blow $100 on whatever the fanciest Logitech/Microsoft setup they can find might be. And then somebody makes a snarky comment about the extra $100 that the computer actually cost.

That Gigabyte board time linked actually does have PS/2 ports on it, which I say is a good thing, but I'd still rather not have to buy PCI I/O cards all the damned time.

 

[CougTek]

The Parallel port is close to a deal breaker. I've been telling customers for years that the best personal printers ever made are Laserjet 3s and a lot of them still have those old printers.

Don't blame the industry for moving on if you painted yourself in a corner. You've known for years that parallel ports are vanishing. No matter how good the old HP LaserJet 3 printers were, stop pushing them if you know you won't be able to plug them to PCs you'll sell tomorrow.

 

[Mercutio]

It's not like I know people who are still buying them. It's just that they've had them for 15 or 20 years and the damned things still work and cost (relatively speaking) nothing for consumables. I don't blame anyone for wanting to stuck with them.

They're like the cockroaches of the printing world.

 

[Howell]

Maybe you could sell them on the added benefit of a little print server and get your PP for free.

 

[CougTek]

Or show them the study that measured the airborn particles rejected by old HP laser printers that were equivalent to sitting next to a heavy smoker. Newer laser printers are much better for the health of people working next to them.

 

[Pradeep]

It seems topical that NewEgg is now promoting the new AMD FM1 platform. When it's microATX and at least $20 cheaper, it might turn out to be a decent long-term platform (pure conjecture on my part).

Anandtech has a review up:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4476/amd-a83850-review

Seems like pretty good value, favors graphics (about twice as fast as the Intel solution) over ultimate CPU performance (Intel still has the single thread advantage) for a solid all-round contender. The laptop version is particularly appealing. And then next year they move to Bulldozer cores.

 

[mubs]

I use a parallel port to USB adapter to use my old LJ that only has a parallel port. The adapter is USB-1 only, but I don't print a ton of stuff, so speed is not an issue. I do have a parallel port on the motherboard (it's 5 years old, after all), but don't use it.

 

[Mercutio]

Or show them the study that measured the airborn particles rejected by old HP laser printers that were equivalent to sitting next to a heavy smoker.

Coug, I live in the toxic waste capital of the United States. People who worry about inhaled particulates don't live here to begin with.

I did buy a Gigabyte H61M board over the weekend, just to see how well it will work for my purposes.

And mubs, Parallel to USB and Serial to USB adapters are notoriously inconsistent devices. I'm not sure why it's so hard to do do it right, but it is.

 

[mubs]

I never have had problems with my parallel to USB converter. Mine's made by 'entegra'.

 

[Mercutio]

The Gigabyte H61-USB3 is kind of a half-assed board. It performs well enough when paired with an i3, but I can tell that corners were cut to get to its price point. Even the packaging and manual are weak compared to the usual Gigabyte standards.

And yes I stuck a PCI I/O card in it. It might work fine, but I think I'm going to try the Intel-branded H61.

 

[CougTek]

The GigaByte GA-Z68P-DS3 has both a COM and parallel ports on its back panel. The only video output is an HDMI port though, but you can put a cheap graphic card in the PCI-E16X slot to add more convenient outputs. It's a full ATX board, unfortunately. It should sell for approximately 100$.

You could put it in an Nmedia HTPC-8000 enclosure and sell business machines with a retro style.

 

[time]

No USB 3.0. :razz:

 

[Chewy509]

No USB 3.0. :razz:

IIRC, that's coming with the 70-series of chipsets... (unless you meant that board doesn't use the NEC controller that has been popular recently).

 

[Mercutio]

No USB 3.0. :razz:

For a machine that's just going to sit on some secretary's desk, I don't think that's a deal-breaker.

 

[CougTek]

It's a fulll ATX board so there's plenty of space to add a PCI-E1x USB 3.0 controller card if there's a need for it.

 

[Mercutio]

I think the idea is to not have to add any cards ever.

I sure do buy a lot of parallel port cards these days.

 

[LiamC]

Who uses parallel ports these days? Are there that many LaserJet 4 still kicking around?

I remember configuring LPT ports for use with scanners and ZIP drives, and it was a fun, but painfull after a while. USB (especially 2.0) was mana. The first thing I do with any new machine is disable serial and LPT ports.

 

[Chewy509]

Who uses parallel ports these days? Are there that many LaserJet 4 still kicking around?

Was using them this time last year when I was working...

Many point of sale systems that use parallel based printers still need "real" parallel ports, especially those that use Epson's OPOS environment. (Thankfully most are now migrating to USB).

Also had the occasional hardware security dongle ( http://www.rainbow.com.my/document/SuperPro_DS.pdf
). And yes you can still get parallel versions, even though most are USB now.

** What I mean by "real" is a parallel port that still uses IO Port 0x378 - 0x37f, not an add-on card that uses a PCI assigned IO Port, or some fancy-dancy USB->Parallel port adapter.

 

[Mercutio]

Basically, what's happened is this: Somebody in an office needs a personal printer. They've had some creaky but indestructible Laserjet 3 or something since the first Clinton Administration, but they get tired of it or they suddenly want to print color or something, so they go buy some newer thing.
The new thing will be a laser printer. It'll almost always be an HP, and it'll be made to the same standards of quality we've come to associate with post-Carly Fiorina HP. That printer will die a year or two after they get it. Or the toner cartridge will only last a third as long. OR it will jam paper every time you look at it funny. Whatever.
My customer will wander back over the closet where they stuck their old Laserjet, pull it out and plug it in, and that printer will print flawlessly until the next time they get the idea that they need to buy another new printer.
And that's when the cycle repeats.

 

[CougTek]

Actually, HP printers' quality declined during Carly Fiorina era at HP. They were very good printer back in Lew Platt's days.

 

[BingBangBop]

Rather than requiring MB support for archaic parallel or serial ports, wouldn't it be easier to deal with in those few situations by just stocking a standard wireless/wired print server with parallel/serial/usb ports.

 

[BingBangBop]

PS I love my HP 5 (Duplexer; dual 500 sheet trays; and JetDirect card) that I cheaply bought used. It may be a bit bulky, uncolorful, and slow (compared to what is possible) for a personal printer but it just goes and goes and goes.

 

[BingBangBop]

I also wonder if it isn't getting to the point that mini-ITX systems are getting to be mainstream business capable.

 

[ddrueding]

I have built perfectly good dual-core atom machines with healthy amounts of RAM and SSDs to good effect. Very quiet, very low power consumption, very small. Depending on the video options, it could hold it's own.

I don't know what the current winner is in the low-power CPU, but I think it is AMD?

 

[LunarMist]

I also wonder if it isn't getting to the point that mini-ITX systems are getting to be mainstream business capable.

But are they economical? If the format is not popular the prices are not the lowest.

 

[CougTek]

You have to be careful with miniITX systems. Gigabyte, for instance, only covers its miniITX boards with a 15 months warranty, compared to 3 years for its conventional boards. Asus covers them for 3 years and I'm not aware about Zotac and Intel (I suppose they both cover their miniITX boards for 3 years). You also better be sure what will be the future needs of the systems too, because there's virtually no place for add-ons. One PCI-E 16X slot is all you get to add stuff. If you need wireless network, you better chose a board that has a mini-PCIE wireless card integrated (like the H67 from Zotac and the P8H67-I Deluxe from Asus). With the P8H67-I (not Deluxe) from Asus, you have 4 SATA plugs, but most if not all the others have only 2.

Regarding the efficiency of the PSU fitting in small enclosures built especially for miniITX boards, you're limited to Silverstone's enclosures for 80Plus units. AFAIK, Antec's ISK cases don't have 80Plus power supplies. The In Win case that Time likes so much (Mt. Jade) is made for a µATX motherboard. Like most larger enclosures, it accepts miniITX boards, but it's larger than something made especially for a miniITX board, like a Silverstone SG05 for instance. Lian-Li also makes smallish enclosures for miniITX board (the V354 IIRC), but they don't come with a power supply and therefore become quite expensive when used in a build.

MiniITX, been there and came back. Too limiting most of the time. Unless space is extremely limited, it's easier to opt for a slightly bigger µATX case. The Silverstone Temjin TJ08, to name one, is only slightly bigger and much more versatile.

 

[CougTek]

You could put it in an Nmedia HTPC-8000 enclosure and sell business machines with a retro style.

Anyone used that enclosure? I've seen positive and negative comments about it. I'd like to use it eventually to put one of my X58 motherboards (Asus Sabertooth X58 ). I have a tower heatsink that I plan to use (re-use in fact, because it was assembled many months ago before I sold the CPU) on this motherboard. Some people on the Net wrote that because of the hard drive rack, height of the heatsink can be limited. I need 160mm.

Also, the included 140mm exhaust fan would be replaced by an Antec True Quiet 140. I don't care if there is no front USB 3.0 ports because the motherboard doesn't have internal 20pins front USB 3.0 connector. I can get it for 105$ shipped and the color fits with my Teck wood librairy in the living room.

[...]

F-word, F-word, F-word. I've just read a review mentionning that a Zalman CNPS9900LED was a tad too tall to fit under the HD rack. A Zalman CNPS9900LED is 158.5mm tall. So I'll either have to buy something like a Noctua NH-C14 or forget about that enclosure.

F-word again. What does the world have against me? F-word.

 

[ddrueding]

It isn't against you, it just wants you to get a NH-C14. It is a great cooler.

 

[Mercutio]

That would thing is butt ass ugly. I like wooden cases. Just not that one.