"Funktheduck" (funktheduck)
08/07/2019 at 11:50 • Filed to: None
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"Funktheduck" (funktheduck)
08/07/2019 at 11:50 • Filed to: None | 0
| 6 |
So time to build another PC. This one will be a surprise for my gf. We are/were both in the old laptop situation. Mine is 7 years old. Still gets the job done but I’ve wanted to build a gaming pc for years and finally did. She’s a grad student so has a school laptop that’s 6-7 years old and a personal one in the same age range. It gets the job done except when she needs to run models it takes forever. Last time she had to borrow a computer to get the model run in time (about a week out).
So I’m building her a SFFPC. It’ll be small enough she can put it in her backpack and take it to school. I’ve never built a tiny computer so this will be a fun challenge.
https://pcpartpicker.com/list/NdxMJ8
facw
> Funktheduck
08/07/2019 at 12:12 |
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Fun!
The smallest PC I’ve ever built (though built might be a strong term) was this:
I don’t know, is there and AMD NUC equivalent?
ITA97, now with more Jag @ opposite-lock.com
> Funktheduck
08/07/2019 at 12:17 |
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I don’t really know what’s out there for SFF cases, but not having a front panel USB-C port seems like an oversight in 2019. Otherwise, that looks very good.
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Funktheduck
> facw
08/07/2019 at 12:20 |
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Not that I’m aware of but I’m just recently back into the pc building sphere.
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Funktheduck
> ITA97, now with more Jag @ opposite-lock.com
08/07/2019 at 12:25 |
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The way I have it spec’d Is a really common build so I know it works. She’s not big on tech so the lack of USB C isn’t an issue. The only thing I have in the house with that connector is my Switch. She was still happy with her iPhone 5s and only got the SE last year when she switched to Verizon and the 5s wasn’t compatible.
Snuze: Needs another Swede
> Funktheduck
08/07/2019 at 13:28 |
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That looks like a cool little PC. I assume the plan is to hijack a monitor/keyboard/mouse in the school’s computer lab?
Out of curiosity, h ave you talked to her about this? I’m only curious because I forsee some issues. First, what kind of modeling does she do? You mentioned she could take it to school, but being an SFFPC and not a laptop, it has no built in power so it’s less portable. This becomes an issue if she’s using it to model. Usually once you start a model you can’t stop/pause/resume because it’s an iterative process. You said she’s a grad student so I assume she has an office or something to work in where she could leave it running, but if it’s going to be left there a lot maybe SFF isn’t such a necesity. And that brings me to my other question, if she’s doing a lot of modeling, would she benefit from a GPU? I have an old laptop with an nVidia Quadro K2000 mobile workstation GPU in it and it absolutely slays in things like rendering and MatLab (with the right toolkits). A workstation card can be a huge performance boost for rendering and simulation. It could potentially really help her out, but it may not work in an SFF PC.
I haven’t built a system since about 2003-ish, since then I’ve only had laptops. But I’m getting ready for a new one and have been weighing laptop vs. desktop and trying to get caught up on all the latest hardware.
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Funktheduck
> Snuze: Needs another Swede
08/07/2019 at 22:11 |
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To answer the first part: yes. I have those at home and her office has the same.
To answer the second part: kinda. She caught me shopping for parts and got really excited and said “are you building me a computer?!” And then frown-y because she doesn’t like me spending big sums of money on her and said “ you better not”
As far as the modeling stuff goes, it’s statistical stuff. The program she uses is lightly threaded and is mostly single core unless you specifically set it up to use more cores. The last project she did she had to run things in “small” batches throughout the day and do tweaks and then she’d get home and run a longer set over night.
It’s kind of a middle ground stop gap. Her personal laptop and school laptop are both really out of date. This gets her a portable (if needed) system that’s more powerful than what she has now. I could build her an even more powerful computer for not much more but then would have to stay at home.
The other part of it is she’s at the point where she doesn’t have to go in every day but she does 90% of the time because she gets more done.