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Preach it Malloric. I have this debate with people on another PC building forum I frequent far too often.
We are not going to need 128GB of RAM in a PC in the next 20 years. I am probably exaggerating on the low side with that, too.
Gamers, the most demanding people, regularly want to put 32GB in their PCs and this is STILL OVERKILL and will be for a few more years yet. 8GB is the most 40% of us could possibly need and 16GB for the gamers. 32GB for people doing high end graphics and CGI. And I mean HIGH END graphics like running Maya... not Photoshop.
Also agree with Mark James. My current PC is 3 years old and still flies. Handles anything I can throw at it. I just upgraded the video card because I wanted to, not because I needed to... I will EASILY get another 3 years out of it before I need to put another penny in it. I spent $1,500 on it.
ESPECIALLY with SSD hard drives today?!? They just do not break. There are no moving parts.
And buying Windows server JUST for backup purposes?!? Crazy man. I get it. I am a server admin. Windows Backup is LEGIT as the kids... probably used to say at this point.
Just to quickly respond to Peregrine's feedback about Windows Server Backup: yes I am aware that it is insufficient for the purposes of backing up things such as say SharePoint, or virtual machines...for those kinds of more advanced and detailed purposes, I also (last year in late 2018), bought a perpetual license of Acronis Backup 12.5, Advanced Edition (a.k.a, Acronis Cyber Backup 12.5, as Acronis has recently rebranded the product). For the most part though, since I am not presently running SharePoint Server on Windows Server (another reason I bought Windows Server was for the ability to run SharePoint natively, and without needing to use a virtual machine on Windows 10, etc.), Windows Server Backup has been able to do the job for the large part thus far to date, also since it is currently -- based on my configuration -- able to backup and restore more quickly that Acronis Backup 12.5 when running a full backup set, at least based on the preliminary comparison testing I have done between them so far...
From around 30 to 10 years ago this would have been required, because hardware was advancing so quickly. Moore’s Law was in full effect.
Now there is incrementalism, I’d argue since Sandy Bridge came out in 2011. Each CPU generation is a handful of % faster than the previous one.
But there’s no way to truly “future proof”.
Thank you for the valuable info -- based on your post above about incrementalism, do you think it might be best for me to stick with the HP Z820 I have now, and return the Z8? My Z820 is running dual 2.5 GHz Xeon E5-xxxx chips (sorry forget the exact processor model number) and 16 GB of RAM (max RAM capacity is 512 GB I believe). Wondering if I could possibly upgrade the RAM to say 32 GB, to improve current performance?
The Z820 was my previous PC intended for long-term usage, prior to obtaining the Z8. The Z820 I believe was first released in 2011-2012, and I acquired one around late-2013 or early-2014. It is still reasonably fast enough for my core computing needs, although since it was issued prior to PCs with modern quick-boot functionality, boot time can take quite a while, I am assuming because it uses both dual UEFI and legacy BIOS approaches. Windows Server 2019 is installed again for Windows Server Backup and native SharePoint OS installation compatibility, although again I am currently using it more or less as a workstation or desktop PC rather than for true server-based purposes. If I continue to use the Z820 though, I will very likely have to arrange for a graphics card upgrade, since iirc, the presently-installed graphics card is an AMD Fire Pro 7100 (a.k.a. V5) card with 2 GB(?) total graphics memory.
You didn't answer the question though. What do you actually do with the computer?
Do you do lots and lots of video transcoding? More cores is the answer, doesn't matter if they're slower as more slower cores beats fewer faster cores.
Do you do lots of modeling? Single core performance, doesn't matter how many cores.
Do you do lots of rendering (CPU) - combination of cores and clock speed.
Do you do lots of rendering (GPU, $$ but much faster than CPU) - lots of expensive GPUs. 4X 2080Tis? Yes, if you can afford it.
Do you do something else?
You didn't answer the question though. What do you actually do with the computer?
Do you do lots and lots of video transcoding? More cores is the answer, doesn't matter if they're slower as more slower cores beats fewer faster cores.
Do you do lots of modeling? Single core performance, doesn't matter how many cores.
Do you do lots of rendering (CPU) - combination of cores and clock speed.
Do you do lots of rendering (GPU, $$ but much faster than CPU) - lots of expensive GPUs. 4X 2080Tis? Yes, if you can afford it.
Do you do something else?
I am currently using it for general-purpose computer needs. The reason why I selected the HP Z820 in late-2013 / early-2014 was because I had originally been hoping to use it as a long-term PC computing platform, similar to what I had been hoping to do with the Z820 in the present. So far I have largely been very pleased with the Z820 since the original purchase, but due to advances in PC hardware since the Z820 was first released around 2011-2012, my objective had been to try to give the Z820 to a family member who needed to replace their existing laptop which is so old that it has slowed down exponentially since it started running Windows 10 (it was was running Windows 8.x before that). They are no longer satisfied with the older laptop's performance, and since they knew I was planning on purchasing the Z8, they had asked if I could give the Z820 to them, once the Z8 arrived.
"I'm using it as a workstation" isn't even remotely helpful.
Why are you running Sharepoint?!?! Are you running a business? Are you trying to learn it?
Correct, trying to learn SharePoint, to become more technologically familiar with it. I am not very familiar with virtual machine technologies, and so had hoped to be able to install and run SharePoint natively, on Windows Server 2019 on the Z8, and before that, on the Z820. I had previously installed SharePoint on the older and now decomissioned HP xw8600 workstation, but have not yet had an opportunity so far to install or reinstall it, on the Z820.
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