How many PCs is too many? lol

[InfinitusEquitas]

I don't expect huge changes, but I definitely expect some regarding FOV because it can drastically increase immersion. 220 degrees around and ~140 up/down would be ideal.

FOVE is leading the eye tracking race, and I'm sure we'll see it implemented, since it has the potential to drastically reduce the gpu load. With a larger FOV, the periphery really does not require anywhere near as much detail which would be a plus also.

I'm fully expecting VR to become an office and household staple by 2020. The biggest technological hurdle to it will be in providing input for the other senses.

 

[CurtisOliver]

FOV improvement and eye tracking will definitely improve VR in many ways. Good point on the GPU load. That would be a huge plus. I hope we don't have to wait too long. 2020 seems reasonable for the technology to become realised for more of the population.

 

[Chrisbee]

I just recently scrapped 8 way outdated (XP era) desktops + a bin full of parts, but only because I picked up 4 laptops, and 7 desktops from my work that were getting scrapped!

The 4 laptops are complete Lenovo Thinkpad T140s with docking stations and power supplies. And the desktops are all complete Lenovo Thinkcentres (M58 I think).

Just got Win 7 x64 Ultimate installed and updated all the laptops, and will start on the desktops soon. Took longer than I wanted, due to the Win 7 update issues that Microsoft has. After I found the workarounds, it went a lot faster.

 

[icecruncher]

I'm a bit of a retro computer / Apple II person.

When I was down in Texas I had over 200 Apple II computers for a while from school auctions. Since then I've paired it down to less than a dozen.

Plus the half a dozen mac of various flavors.

Some of the old Apple II cards are worth a forture (TranswarpGS, CFFA3000) and there is a thriving community like with many other retro computing models (Amiga, C64, etc)

There are NEW cards and devices still coming out for most retro computers including the Apple II every month or two. I just bought a IIc+ memory card from a2heaven.com that was released in the past month.

It has 1 meg of memory for $69.99 - That will get you a 256gb SDxc card in the current world Funny how things change.

 

[lasersbee]

Lets see....

1 Desktop for the internet connection in the House (XP)
1 Desktop for the internet connection in the Shop (XP) *
1 Desktop for schematic and PCB design (Win ME) *
1 Laptop for the accountant (Win 7) *
1 Laptop for 3D printer and 3D designing (Win 7) *
1 Laptop for testing compatibility with EagleEye (Win 8)
1 Laptop for testing compatibility with EagleEye (Win 10)
Misc Laptops and Desktops running DOS for my Pool Room Customers

Only the computers marked with an
[*] are on all day.

Jerry

 

[EarlBrown]

haha, I got plenty too. But have you guys counted how many 'processors' that you own now? the mind boggles at how many of them is powering everyday life now.

 

[diachi]

haha, I got plenty too. But have you guys counted how many 'processors' that you own now? the mind boggles at how many of them is powering everyday life now.

I've got 9 just sitting on top of the PSU for my SP 163. That's of course not including any that are in computers/phones/other devices. Probably well into the high 10s counting everything.

 

[InfinitusEquitas]

Sadly my main gaming rig has gotten almost zero use this year. Just no time for games somehow even though I have a reasonable range of choices in my steam library, and a few from days gone by that were downloaded elsewhere.

I am thinking about upgrading my work pc though. The i5-4460, 3.2ghz is the bottleneck, and there's little point in upgrading just the cpu given the age of it.

 

[Rivem]

I've got 9 just sitting on top of the PSU for my SP 163. That's of course not including any that are in computers/phones/other devices. Probably well into the high 10s counting everything.

It'd have to be more than that. A common vehicle could easily have over 10 microprocessors running it. Almost any common digitally-controlled device would have at least one processor. Just the AFCI breakers in my house bring it up to 10. At least one for every TV, one for every remote, one for every digital thermostat, every digital watch/clock, etc. Many power supplies have microcontrollers, so there could be one for every wall wart and LED in your house. Your modem and router have some that are even more similar to what you'd expect in a PC or phone. It's really a ridiculous amount of computer processors in our lives.

That said, it's really only ARM and x86 processors that people generally consider, so there are a lot left out when people first think about it.

I am thinking about upgrading my work pc though. The i5-4460, 3.2ghz is the bottleneck, and there's little point in upgrading just the cpu given the age of it.

You could still see almost double performance with an i7 from the same generation that'd be compatible. Improvements haven't been that big since 4th gen, so the money savings could be well worth it vs a new pc.

I swapped an i7-3770 into an old optiplex 7010, and the performance jump was huge. Actually performs slightly better than a skylake i5. Just a bigger TDP.

 

[Keeley Royle]

I've got 3 laptops for my work and for personal use. I've got DELL , Samsung and an Acer but those 3 are already outdated but functioning very well. I've been wanting to upgrade also and try the Mac Book Pro with retina display.

 

[Jombo23]

I have 5 that i use all pretty equally, going from lowend to highend....

Work 1, Biostar g41 chipset based motherboard, core2quad q8300 @~2.6ghz, 4gb of random ddr2, shitty internal graphics.

Work 2:

Asrock extreme 7 gen 3 z68 based motherboard
32gb of gskill ripjaws 1600mhz, 6-7-6-18 ram
radeon hd 3850, 512mb
random toshiba 120gb ssd
antec 520 watt psu

n64 dev computer
intel dg41mj mini itx board (last chipset with real lpt)
pentium dual core e6700, socket 775, 3.2ghz
2gb of random kingston ddr2 ram

Home computer.

Asrock x99 taichi socket 2011 board
8x Gskill ripjaws 4gb ddr4 3200mhz ram
i7-6850k@4.8ghz
Cooler master seidon 120m liquid cooler
Samsung 950 pro 256gb m.2 nvme ssd (boot)
2x wd blue 7200rpm 1tb drives in raid 0 (main data)
samsung 840 evo 250gb ssd (games 1)
samsung 850 evo 1tb ssd (games 2)
wd velociraptor 10krpm 500gb drive (misc ((old drive)) )
2x sapphire radeon hd 7970 ghz editions in crossfire (soon to be a liquid cooled rx vega)
Corsair cx750m 750w modular power supply
creative soundblaster x-fi titanium

asus u50f laptop, updgraded to a random toshiba ssd

i3 330m, 2.13ghz
integrated graphics
4 gigs of some ram

 

[madskaizer]

1 PC with windows as work station
1 laptop as sidekick
1 PC with linux as test / boinc slave

Seems like a bare minimum by now

 

[InfinitusEquitas]

So I did end up upgrading my work PC with a different video card, a refurb nvidia GTX460. A long long time ago, I had planned to SLI two 460's together, but that never panned out, and with the spare on hand, decided, heh, why not. The upgrade is a step up, no question about it, in terms of how it performs as a workstation, with two 1920x1080 monitors.

For the live of me I can't figure out why I'm getting such crappy benchmark results from the video card though. Can't have everything I guess.

Currently running the GTX1080 at home, paired with a 4th gen I7... so I'll hold out for another year, maybe two, before upgrading again.

Here are the stats for work pc;

UserBenchmarks: Game 23%, Desk 60%, Work 36%
CPU: Intel Core i5-4460 - 71.1%
GPU: Nvidia GTX 460 - 15.6%
SSD: OCZ Vertex 3 120GB - 60.5%
HDD: Seagate Wireless Plus 2TB - 70.6%
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 7200.14 1TB - 99%
RAM: Hynix HMT451U6BFR8C-PB 2x4GB - 58.6%
MBD: Dell Inspiron 3847

 

[DashApple]

Just moved my PC over to a Fractal Mini C , Really like the space and options .

i7 - 5820K @ 4.2Ghz
ASRock x99 ITX/Ac
8GB 2400Mhz DDR4 ( Team group 4GB DDR4 Sticks )
Radeon Pro Duo GPU
OS Windows 10
OS Drive - 120GB samsung NVM PCIe
Storage Drive 1 2x 1TB WD Black 2.5" 7200RPM Drives Raid 0 ( 1.8TB Storage , Read test was 270MB/s , Write 250MB/s )
Storage Drive 2 2x 1TB WD Black 2.5" 7200RPM Drives Raid 0 ( 1.8TB Storage , Read test was 270MB/s , Write 250MB/s )

P1010251 by TwirlyWhirly555, on Flickr

 

[diachi]

Just moved my PC over to a Fractal Mini C , Really like the space and options .

i7 - 5820K @ 4.2Ghz
ASRock x99 ITX/Ac
8GB 2400Mhz DDR4 ( Team group 4GB DDR4 Sticks )
Radeon Pro Duo GPU
OS Windows 10
OS Drive - 120GB samsung NVM PCIe
Storage Drive 1 2x 1TB WD Black 2.5" 7200RPM Drives Raid 0 ( 1.8TB Storage , Read test was 270MB/s , Write 250MB/s )
Storage Drive 2 2x 1TB WD Black 2.5" 7200RPM Drives Raid 0 ( 1.8TB Storage , Read test was 270MB/s , Write 250MB/s )

P1010251 by TwirlyWhirly555, on Flickr

Looks like a good build. Nice and clean! :beer:

 

[Steppenwolf]

1 - I have my mini laptop MSI Windbook with an "Atom" moble processor

2 - I have my First-generation 17-inch MacBook Pro "duel book" with an Intel Core 2 Duo processor

3 - I have my little HP Pavilion p6330f with a Core i3 530 2.93 GHz processor

4 - And then I have my main computer which is an LGA775 Socket based desktop with a water cooled Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9770 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor, A Nivida GTX Titan

Kind of old school by today's standards but it does excel in the storage area with a Raid-0 4 SSD as the OS Drive, It's blazing fast!