Off-Topic Thread

I would like the thoughts of the "Notorious" PC B&U forum please.
So I have been watching and following a BA thread about this HP proliant microserver. Is it good value? what are its main uses? and could you build anything close to it for similar price. I should mention that on top of that price you get €120 back (or £100) and you can use parcel motel.
All thoughts are as always much appreciated.

marco_polo

MRTULES wrote: »

I would like the thoughts of the "Notorious" PC B&U forum please.
So I have been watching and following a BA thread about this HP proliant microserver. Is it good value? what are its main uses? and could you build anything close to it for similar price. I should mention that on top of that price you get €120 back (or £100) and you can use parcel motel.
All thoughts are as always much appreciated.

Its appears to be a fully functional PC so you could use it for anything really, although at the risk of stating the most obvious use, it would probably be as a home server/NAS box

.

Definitely a good deal you're certainly not going to be building anything remotely similar for 130 euros or thereabouts.

Thanks for that. Now my next question is, could I throw an SSD on there with windows 7 and slap in 8gb or ram and get the same performance for browsing and basic stuff as with a cheap i3 3220 build? (circa €400)

MRTULES wrote: »

Thanks for that. Now my next question is, could I throw an SSD on there with windows 7 and slap in 8gb or ram and get the same performance for browsing and basic stuff as with a cheap i3 3220 build? (circa €400)

You won't get the same performance, the CPU (AMD Turion™ II) is considerably slower when compared to a i3.
For example the AMD Turion™ II may struggle to playback 1080 mkv files.

tuxy wrote: »

You won't get the same performance, the CPU (AMD Turion™ II) is considerably slower when compared to a i3.
For example the AMD Turion™ II may struggle to playback 1080 mkv files.

So if that was the case, it's probably not the best idea for downloading/storing movies on to be played later to a rasberryPI or something?

MRTULES wrote: »

So if that was the case, it's probably not the best idea for downloading/storing movies on to be played later to a rasberryPI or something?

Well it would work well for this, file storage and serving requires very little cpu usage.

The raspberryPI is doing the decoding which is something the raspberrypi is good at because of it's GPU which was designed for this job.

marco_polo

MRTULES wrote: »

So if that was the case, it's probably not the best idea for downloading/storing movies on to be played later to a rasberryPI or something?

No it would be perfect for that sort of use as a storage server, as the Pi would be doing the hard work of decoding the media files.

If you want a PC you will use regularly yourself from day to day , you'd probably be better off spending a bit more on something like below (Just add SSD/HDD as required), but if you just need a box for downloading/serving files to other machines the proliant would be perfect.

Item|Price
Zalman T2 Mini Tower - schwarz, ohne Netzteil|€18.95
Corsair VS Serie VS350, Non-Modular, 80+|€29.56
MSI H61M-P31 (G3), Intel H61, mATX|€38.73
4GB Corsair Valueselect DDR3-1333 CL9|€27.26
Intel Celeron Dual-Core G1610 Box , LGA1155|€38.10
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€171.59

Don't forget the raspberry PI can be used to download and store files. Just connect up a usb hard drive.

OK thanks a lot guys. So my last question (for now

) is this:
what sort of Graphics would the PI be comparable with? I mean like intel hd 4000?

MRTULES wrote: »

OK thanks a lot guys. So my last question (for now ) is this:
what sort of Graphics would the PI be comparable with? I mean like intel hd 4000?

You can't really compare them. The intel HD would be much more powerful. But for the tasks it's designed for the raspberry pi does well. However while it can playback most 1080p .avi/.mkv files it can be a pain in the arse to get something like youtube to playback on the device.

I would recommend the raspbery pi as a light weight file server or torrent downloader and also for playing back media files.
However it's not suitable for day to day PC usage that you would be used to with a normal desktop or even laptop.

Serephucus

Tea_Bag wrote: »

what you building?

FT03 Mini WC build.

Lads, im trying out two monitors with just a crappy one for the minute, both of them have VGA ports but my GPU doesnt. My main monitor is using a DVI adapter, and ive still to get an adapter for the second one. Would yous recommend getting a VGA-HDMI or VGA-DP adapter? Theres a second DVI port, but its not the same as the top one, if that makes any sense

DVI ports on a graphics card can send both analogue and digital signals.
Most likely only one of the DVI ports can do both, while the other is only capable of digital. This seems to be the case with most cards.

If you're already using the one that can send digital and analogue signals, then a plain adapter probably wouldn't work on the second port. You'll have to use something to actually convert the signals.

You'd have to be careful which DVI->VGA converter you buy as most of them will only adapt to the the different interface, passing through the analogue signal. If there's no analogue signal, it won't work.

Since most of the products out there for DVI to VGA don't convert and short testing them all, it's hard to know if you are getting the product that you want. It should be a converter from DVI-D to VGA, but even ones labelled as this don't do as they're supposed to, taking a quick look on amazon.

You might be better off with a VGA to Displayport adapter. Displayport is a bit more expensive, but it's starting to lift off now - they're including it in nearly every graphics card and I see Intel have it now too on their latest motherboards. Also, if you have an AMD card, it would be useful to you if you want to have 3 screens. Since displayport is a digital signal already, they have to use a converter to switch it to analogue. They start at around €15 online.

Very informative post, thanks for that!

Reckon any bricks and mortar shops would have them?

Yeah, but not cheap.

peats have a displayport to VGA for €35. PC World have a mini-DP to VGA for €25 (I assume that it's full size displayport that you want?). Maplin have mini-DP adapters too, similar price to PC World.

I suppose if you were in there and saw a VGA to HDMI for cheap, it might be better given your needs. It's €25 for one in peats.

When you're getting to some of those prices, you'd be nearly as well thinking about a new monitor.

Yeh i know, this is only a really old monitor that im trying out the two screens on, but the main monitor im gaming on now is absolutely diabolical, black lines on screen every now and again think its about to give up the ghost. So thinking about a LG IPS monitor..

The LG IPSs look like really good value. Definitely what I'd go for if I was looking at that price range. 'Course if you had more money, there's those Korean 2560x1440 monitors (~€300).

Tinie

Anyone ever use the Sharkoon Drakonia gaming mouse? THis one: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00889SAE8/ref=ox_sc_sfl_title_7?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE

if so, is it worth the dosh, or is there any better gaming mice around for sub ~€30?

I do have more money, but just cant justify spending it on a monitor haha

The IPS monitor went down too ~100 pound a few weeks ago, raging I didnt order then...