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Thoughts re: Nvidia and a refurbished PC

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manyroads
Posts: 2598
Joined: Sat Jun 30, 2018 6:33 pm

Thoughts re: Nvidia and a refurbished PC

#1 Post by manyroads »

Perhaps someone can offer assistance. I'm looking to purchase a refurbished Workstation/ smaller foot print Desktop with at least 32GB DDR4 Ram and a 1TB SSD. I do not want a mechanical drive. I typically like to use Dell products that are refurbished (so they tend to be about 3 years old as refurbished units... thoroughly burned-in as we used to say when I worked at DEC. :alien: )

What I want to be able to do is
  • crunch large (okay maybe huge) PDF, djvu, ocr conversions
  • I want the resultant conversions, yesterday. :crossfingers:
  • I do not need/want Win on the machine (if it comes with the unit I'll just wipe it off anyway).

Note:I plan to make this an MX18 ---computing beast.

Here's an example of what I'm looking to buy/purchase.
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product. ... C0F88C0263

So here are my questions...
  • Is anyone using something similar?, If yes, I'd like to know what your thoughts are.
  • Will this nvidia card cause me endless hours of grief?
  • Given my small list of needs, should I consider something appreciably different in order to get either more horse-power or a significantly lower cost?
Thanks in advance.
Pax vobiscum,
Mark Rabideau - ManyRoads Genealogy -or- eirenicon llc. (geeky stuff)
i3wm, bspwm, hlwm, dwm, spectrwm ~ Linux #449130
"For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong." -- H. L. Mencken

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Richard
Posts: 1577
Joined: Fri Dec 12, 2008 10:31 am

Re: Thoughts re: Nvidia and a refurbished PC

#2 Post by Richard »

They say it comes with no OS so theoretically Linux shouldn't have any problems.

http://www.nvidia.com/download/driverre ... 8524/en-us
There are drivers for Linux.

Surely someone has one of these?
Thinkpad T430 & Dell Latitude E7450, both with MX-21.3.1
kernal 5.10.0-26-amd64 x86_64; Xfce-4.18.0; 8 GB RAM
Intel Core i5-3380M, Graphics, Audio, Video; & SSDs.

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Eadwine Rose
Administrator
Posts: 11837
Joined: Wed Jul 12, 2006 2:10 am

Re: Thoughts re: Nvidia and a refurbished PC

#3 Post by Eadwine Rose »

There are easier ways for drivers for linux, to be obtained in mxtools.
MX-23.2_x64 July 31 2023 * 6.1.0-18-amd64 ext4 Xfce 4.18.1 * 8core AMD Ryzen 7 2700
Asus TUF B450-Plus Gaming UEFI * Asus GTX 1050 Ti Nvidia 525.147.05 * 2x16Gb DDR4 2666 Kingston HyperX Predator
Samsung 860EVO * Samsung S24D330 & P2250 * HP Envy 5030

User avatar
Richard
Posts: 1577
Joined: Fri Dec 12, 2008 10:31 am

Re: Thoughts re: Nvidia and a refurbished PC

#4 Post by Richard »

And probably better.
I avoid Nvidia so have no recent experience.
Thinkpad T430 & Dell Latitude E7450, both with MX-21.3.1
kernal 5.10.0-26-amd64 x86_64; Xfce-4.18.0; 8 GB RAM
Intel Core i5-3380M, Graphics, Audio, Video; & SSDs.

User avatar
manyroads
Posts: 2598
Joined: Sat Jun 30, 2018 6:33 pm

Re: Thoughts re: Nvidia and a refurbished PC

#5 Post by manyroads »

Richard wrote: Tue Feb 05, 2019 2:35 pm And probably better.
I avoid Nvidia so have no recent experience.
I, also, avoid Nvidia, ergo the question. ;)
Pax vobiscum,
Mark Rabideau - ManyRoads Genealogy -or- eirenicon llc. (geeky stuff)
i3wm, bspwm, hlwm, dwm, spectrwm ~ Linux #449130
"For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong." -- H. L. Mencken

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Davo
Posts: 29
Joined: Sun Jul 30, 2006 12:38 pm

Re: Thoughts re: Nvidia and a refurbished PC

#6 Post by Davo »

You get no SSD with your build, just a basic 1TB HD.

Maybe you do need 32GB RAM (the more the better!) but your CPU and Graphics are very quite outdated, which massively offsets any performance gains there.
I'm all in favor of good quality upper mid-range Dell refurbished stuff, but open box models are very OK too. Most mid to high end models too.

Sweet spot these days might be Intel i5-8400 CPU and the very energy efficient 1050ti Nvidia Graphics (or else the better performing 1060 models).

This model would have your ass (by a factor of 2 or more) in 95% of use cases, bar sheer size of RAM https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product. ... gnorebbr=1

But your 32GB RAM is registered at just 1233 speed, whilst the nominally far smaller 8GB here is factored at 2666 speed, so approx 60% as good, while rest of components could be 250% better ...for same price overall.

caprea
Posts: 146
Joined: Sat Aug 23, 2014 7:01 am

Re: Thoughts re: Nvidia and a refurbished PC

#7 Post by caprea »

At least one member had some trouble with a Dell T5820
viewtopic.php?f=92&t=47921
One was related to a NVME drive, though
viewtopic.php?f=92&t=47967

User avatar
manyroads
Posts: 2598
Joined: Sat Jun 30, 2018 6:33 pm

Re: Thoughts re: Nvidia and a refurbished PC

#8 Post by manyroads »

Davo wrote: Tue Feb 05, 2019 3:23 pm You get no SSD with your build, just a basic 1TB HD.

Maybe you do need 32GB RAM (the more the better!) but your CPU and Graphics are very quite outdated, which massively offsets any performance gains there.
I'm all in favor of good quality upper mid-range Dell refurbished stuff, but open box models are very OK too. Most mid to high end models too.

Sweet spot these days might be Intel i5-8400 CPU and the very energy efficient 1050ti Nvidia Graphics (or else the better performing 1060 models).

This model would have your ass (by a factor of 2 or more) in 95% of use cases, bar sheer size of RAM https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product. ... gnorebbr=1

But your 32GB RAM is registered at just 1233 speed, whilst the nominally far smaller 8GB here is factored at 2666 speed, so approx 60% as good, while rest of components could be 250% better ...for same price overall.
@Davo I checked a few benchmark sites and the cpu/system did pretty well (not universally well but then it's a few years old).
Here are some I checked:
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cp ... Hz&id=2389
https://www.userbenchmark.com/System/De ... -5810/7717
https://valid.x86.fr/bench/rg96li/8

I do zero gaming... what I want is a system that can quickly convert djvu files to pdf & vice versa plus ocr them. Those activities are, so far as I can tell, largely memory and cpu pigs. :anispider2: I was thinking that 6-cores with 32GB of DDR4 mem ought to be quite quick with that work.

I always worry about nvidia but it looks to me like the cards are probably of a vintage that seems to now work on debian. At least they claim it does here :confused:
https://www.nvidia.com/download/driverR ... 5161/en-us

It's always a crap shoot though. :eek:
Pax vobiscum,
Mark Rabideau - ManyRoads Genealogy -or- eirenicon llc. (geeky stuff)
i3wm, bspwm, hlwm, dwm, spectrwm ~ Linux #449130
"For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong." -- H. L. Mencken

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Stevo
Developer
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Joined: Fri Dec 15, 2006 8:07 pm

Re: Thoughts re: Nvidia and a refurbished PC

#9 Post by Stevo »

As far as I know, most of the newer Nvidia 1000 series work fine in MX 18 with the Nvidia driver, such as the one in the MSI Optimus laptop:

Code: Select all

$ optirun inxi -Gxxx
Graphics:  Device-1: Intel UHD Graphics 630 vendor: Micro-Star MSI driver: i915 v: kernel bus ID: 00:02.0 chip ID: 8086:3e9b 
           Device-2: NVIDIA GP107M [GeForce GTX 1050 Ti Mobile] vendor: Micro-Star MSI driver: nvidia v: 390.87 
           bus ID: 01:00.0 chip ID: 10de:1c8c 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.19.2 driver: intel compositor: compton v: 0.1~beta2+20150922 
           resolution: 1920x1080~60Hz 
           OpenGL: renderer: GeForce GTX 1050 Ti/PCIe/SSE2 v: 4.6.0 NVIDIA 390.87 direct render: Yes
Have you confirmed that your conversions are taking advantage of all available cores? It would be annoying to get a six core machine and then find out that the conversions are single-threaded.

If the machine also has integrated Intel graphics that can be enabled, I don't know if you really need an discrete card, unless the conversion software can use it via openCL or something.
Last edited by Stevo on Tue Feb 05, 2019 4:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar
manyroads
Posts: 2598
Joined: Sat Jun 30, 2018 6:33 pm

Re: Thoughts re: Nvidia and a refurbished PC

#10 Post by manyroads »

Stevo wrote: Tue Feb 05, 2019 4:35 pm As far as I know, most of the newer Nvidia 1000 series work fine in MX 18 with the Nvidia driver, such as the one in the MSI Optimus laptop:

Code: Select all

$ optirun inxi -Gxxx
Graphics:  Device-1: Intel UHD Graphics 630 vendor: Micro-Star MSI driver: i915 v: kernel bus ID: 00:02.0 chip ID: 8086:3e9b 
           Device-2: NVIDIA GP107M [GeForce GTX 1050 Ti Mobile] vendor: Micro-Star MSI driver: nvidia v: 390.87 
           bus ID: 01:00.0 chip ID: 10de:1c8c 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.19.2 driver: intel compositor: compton v: 0.1~beta2+20150922 
           resolution: 1920x1080~60Hz 
           OpenGL: renderer: GeForce GTX 1050 Ti/PCIe/SSE2 v: 4.6.0 NVIDIA 390.87 direct render: Yes
Have you confirmed that your conversions are taking advantage of all available cores? It would be annoying to get a six core machine and then find out that the conversions are single-threaded.
They throw my 4-core laptop to 100% use on all 4-cores... I hope they can use a few extra cores. :crossfingers: I, also, am hoping going from 8GB with 4-cores to 32GB with 6-cores will make things happen quicker. :snail:
Pax vobiscum,
Mark Rabideau - ManyRoads Genealogy -or- eirenicon llc. (geeky stuff)
i3wm, bspwm, hlwm, dwm, spectrwm ~ Linux #449130
"For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong." -- H. L. Mencken

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