General > General Technical Chat
New PC
rdl:
For the consumer versions of Windows 10, I doubt Microsoft really cares anymore if the install is "legal" or not. Selling the OS is not how they plan to make money. Office may be a different story. There's always Libre Office as an alternative, which I have used for many years now.
bd139:
Yep. Getting you to pay up for Office 365 is the cash cow. They don't care about the OS.
And quite honestly O365 is excellent now. 55 quid for a year. That works across 5 people with 5 devices each and gives 1TB storage each and works on mac, windows, ios, android, the lot.
grumpydoc:
--- Quote from: rrinker on June 18, 2020, 06:54:09 pm ---Don't worry about Windows 10.
--- End quote ---
I'm not, especially - W10 activation keys can be had for a few quid. I know they are not exactly legit but the original OS and upgrades have all been paid for and kosher so I'm not too worried abut that.
--- Quote from: rdl on June 18, 2020, 08:27:14 pm ---For the consumer versions of Windows 10, I doubt Microsoft really cares anymore if the install is "legal" or not. Selling the OS is not how they plan to make money.
--- End quote ---
It was always said that M$ didn't really care about individual piracy at all beyond token gestures - they recognised that someone who pirates a copy of Windows was unlikely to ever pay, nor worth suing and just keeping an alternative OS off that particular seat was worth it to them.
Corporate piracy was always different, of course, they tended to be pretty unforgiving if they found you were running multiple seats without paying.
--- Quote ---Office may be a different story. There's always Libre Office as an alternative, which I have used for many years now.
--- End quote ---
Yes, LO is used on the Linux boxes, plus one VM that is running W10 which doesn't need a copy of Office but could do with being able to edit Word files occasionally.
--- Quote from: bd139 on June 18, 2020, 08:30:11 pm ---Yep. Getting you to pay up for Office 365 is the cash cow. They don't care about the OS.
And quite honestly O365 is excellent now. 55 quid for a year. That works across 5 people with 5 devices each and gives 1TB storage each and works on mac, windows, ios, android, the lot.
--- End quote ---
Everyone who is anyone is moving to subscription models - as you say it is the gift that keeps giving.
Which is why all my copies of Office have been one-off licences.
And the only cloud storage that I trust is that which is under my sole control.
No, it's not Windows - it's Office (2013 I think, on this installation), it's my ancient copy of Photoshop CS5 which still does everything I want - at least I think I still have the install files and keys for that, other stuff I've paid for and use occasionally enough to be useful but not frequently enough to feel obliged to spend more money on and just the simple hassle of reinstalling everything - even if free.
I'm rapidly going off the MSI board though.
Out of the box it won't boot from "legacy" partitioning, even if the disk is otherwise set for UEFI boot. This now seems to fall under an UEFI module called the CSM which isn't there in the stock BIOS. An upgrade is available which includes/implements the CSM and it does, indeed, boot a non-GPT disk (actually USB stick, I'm stiff trying to figure out if the board is a "keeper") but it then becomes impossible to get back into the BIOS to do any setup - hitting DEL during boot stops it booting but it does not go into setup, removing all the boot devices (which normally makes it drop into the BIOS setup and it just hangs with a blank screen (probably a single bug preventing it getting to the setup screen in both scenarios). The only way back is the clear CMOS button.
Of course the disk has a normal DOS style partition table and boots from the MBR so I can't boot the old disk. Fortunately it is a dual-boot setup with Windows actually chain-loaded by Grub so if I can update the partition table to GPT and update Grub to UEFI I might still be able to boot Windows (but I have a horrible feeling I've been here before and W10 needs to be installed on a GPT partition table to work on a GPT partition table and even if nothing moves it breaks if you go from the DOS scheme to GPT).
Plus it has an RTL8125 2.5Gbps Ethernet chip - great, Linux has had support for this chip for almost a year - just not this variant of it.
Thankfully there is a vendor driver with source code which looks as though it supports this revision (and a MAC driver derived from it) so I should be able to compile that - or hack the changes into the standard driver.
So, probably not insurmountable, and probably I'd hit the same issues with other boards (or even Ryzen) but definitely not the drop-in replacement I'd hoped for.
VK3DRB:
My old i5-3570K PC needed replacing a few months ago. It had a motherboard issue (USB3 ports dead, intermittent boot issue), and the PSU died. Could no be bothered fixing the problems, as the old PC was relatively slow.
I use Altium a lot, which is somewhat demanding from a CAD perspective. I don't waste my time on games. I did my homework. Here is what I got for the best bang per buck:
1. AMD Ryzen 5 2600 CPU.
2. Gigabyte motherboard B450M DS3H.
3. 32GB DDR4 RAM.
4. GeForce GT 1030.
5. An Aizo KB506 keyboard.
6. Intel 512GB SSD for O/S and program files.
7. VG3448 ultrawide 3440 x 1440 monitor.
8. Reused a G2420HD 1920 x 1080 monitor as a second monitor.
7. Reused a 120GB SSD for design files.
8. Reused a Seagate 2TB HDD for general file storage.
9. Reused the trusty Coolermaster case from 2004 (for the third time). Very good EMC shielding.
10. Reused the DVD/CDROM drive.
11. Reused the Windows 10 license.
12. Reused a power supply off another old PC (after modifying the connectors).
The Ryzen is an excellent CPU. Relatively low power too. AMD used to be lousy with power consumption, but they have improved greatly. I was cautious about moving from Intel, but I am glad I did.
The Gigabyte motherboard is a fair price for good performance and features. The 32GB DDR4 is a must for complex Altium designs and a host of other concurrent applications running.
Now the graphics card was selected because it HAS NO FAN and provided more than the performance I need. Most graphics cards cheap out on their fans, using phosphor bronze bearings which eventually fail by buzzing, rattling or seizing. And you can often not get replacement fans.
The keyboard is brilliant. Almost impossible to get. Sold out in Australia. In the USA there is limited stock and a relative wanted one so he had to import it from the USA at a higher cost. The COVID-19 has halted supply from Aizo in the PRC. I love this big-character back-lit keyboard. Tactile, comfortable, well designed, and easy to read. A good keyboard is like a bed. False economy if you get a lousy one, because you spend much of your life using it. This keyboard cost me $40 USD delivered.
For an SSD, I only trust Intel. The widescreen monitor is terrific.
Total upgrade cost $1100 AUD which is around $700 USD at the time. Enjoyed building it up, getting all the drivers working, reinstalling all my applications, and the endless Windows updates upon installation. Spent the time with cable ties making a neat installation inside the machine.
The machine works a treat. The Altium DRC on a complex PCBA I was working on used to take 50 seconds. It now takes about 10 seconds. That is a phenomenal improvement.
bd139:
Just a point: if you want silent graphics cards which have a bit of grunt there are plenty which have idle fan speeds at 0 rpm. I've got a fairly hefty Geforce 1660 and it sits there at 0rpm most of the day. If I want some grunt it's barely audible as well.
Also 8 core Ryzen 7 3700X (65W) actually runs cooler and faster than the Ryzen 5 2600X (105W).
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