Thinking about a new desktop PC

[Beerislife]

Since travelling to Thailand and Hong Kong is going to be quite a long way off I'm thinking about a new PC. This looks about right! Flightgear should run on this! Of course the first thing to do is wipe the windows virus and install Linux!

AMD Ryzen 5 3400G ( 3.70GHz 2MB )
APU内蔵(AMD Radeon RX Vega 11 グラフィックス)
8.0GB PC4-21300 DDR4 UDIMM 2666MHz
256GB SSD

￥48,884

The Ryzen 3 model is only four beers cheaper so not worth quibbling about.

Lenovo IdeaCentre 510A (AMD)

https://is.gd/JxKjXU

[jglen490]

Build your own

[Beerislife]

I have done so in the past, when I was a little younger and before I had a stroke. I'm fine but I've lost a little dexterity in my left (strong) hand. My patience with fiddly things is also not what it once was! I'll pay Lenovo to send it to me while I sit back and relax with a beer!

[Schwarzer Kater]

If you want to buy a Lenovo, did you consider the SFF-cases of the ThinkCentre series?

They do look quite pleasant, are really quiet, have the same processors to choose from as the IdeaCentre series (should be something like "ThinkCentre M75s" for AMD) and support USB 3.1 Gen. 2.
I don't know about the AMD Radeon RX Vega 11, though - you would have to look this up.

I just say that, because one is in the making for a friend right here beside my desktop now (ThinkCentre M720s) and I like it a lot.

[claydoh]

I just got a Lenovo Flex 15 laptop.
I was looking at AMD systems but in my price range the wait was way too long or the screens were low resolution. Also was considering an upscale i5 Chromebook but those have been out of stock for some time.

10th gen i5 and an m.2 nvme ssd on sale plus a work discount was enough for me though the 15.6 inch unit is really too big. I can live with that tho.

Sent from my LM-V600 using Tapatalk

[jglen490]

I have done so in the past, when I was a little younger and before I had a stroke. I'm fine but I've lost a little dexterity in my left (strong) hand. My patience with fiddly things is also not what it once was! I'll pay Lenovo to send it to me while I sit back and relax with a beer!

I'll drink to that!!

[Beerislife]

I looked at the Small Lenovos but to get anywhere near the same spec I'd have to spend more money and my bank manager (Ahem!) would not be too pleased. I have the space for a regular desktop.

[Beerislife]

I've read that there may be issues with the WiFi adaptor in this machine. It is important that WiFi works because my Brother printer/scanner has no USB connectors at all, it is WiFi only. There's no mention of make or model of the adaptor on the Lenovo site either.

[Schwarzer Kater]

Sorry, I cannot be of any help there: no WiFi in the Lenovo M720s here…
Perhaps just give them a call and speak to a technician to get the info about the make and model?

[oshunluvr]

I haven't bought a PC off the shelf since the late 80's. I always build, and here why: Spend the bucks were it matters to you, not some vendor's scheme to make money.

#1 Retail desktop computers all suffer from one common problem: they're built to make the seller money. They do this primarily by cutting back on parts of the system you probably aren't even thinking about and they won't tell you that up front. You'll get a great CPU then the crappiest GPU they can find. Slow and minimum RAM, slow, low end HD or SSD, etc. And they keyboard and mouse they'll include? Don't get me started!

#2 Not really upgradeable: Oh sure, you can buy upgrades, but at least part of every vendor system I've encountered is designed to prevent you from buying upgrades from other vendors. It's not as bad as it used to be because consumers got wiser over the years, but it's still out there. Not long ago, Dell computers used a non-standard hard drive cable that made it impossible to upgrade the hard drive unless you bought it from them. Once that news got out there, it hurt their consumer market so they stopped. They still use a drive tray system that makes it difficult to add a second drive without buying a $19 plastic trinket from them. I've found cases with motherboard stand-offs that were not industry standard and power supplies are almost always absolute minimum specs and without additional connections to add-on.

#3 Total replacement is rarely necessary: Unless your system was in a fire, it's likely at least some of it is reusable. Cases, power supplies, maybe even an old drive, don't always need to be trashed. You can replace the parts you want to and spend more money on them by not spend money on replacing parts you don't need to.

#4 Fine tune your experience: We all have things that matter to us. Some want a fast CPU but don't need storage. Some have terabytes of video files, but don't gain from unused processor capacity. A self-build means you can focus on you. To me, the PRIMARY thing is the human interface. The minutes I save transcoding a DVD with an awesome CPU don't matter much if my monitor looks like crap and my keyboard and mouse suck.

Honestly, the PRIMARY reason to have a Desktop PC instead of a laptop is so you can control what goes into it. If you're going to let the vendor decide what your PC looks like, why not buy a laptop so you gain portability?

In my world, I tend to upgrade when need arises and technology requires. I upgraded from my Q6600 to an i7-6700K a few years ago. The old quad-core was still pumping, but the energy required and it's heat production had forced me to slow it down to factory speeds and I knew it was on it's last legs. This required a new mobo and RAM to go with the CPU. But the case, video card, power supply, and accessories stayed in place. Then my PSU died, so I replaced it. Over the next couple years I upgraded my drives to SSDs and last thing I bought was a really, really nice monitor. I found a new case I wanted but its in the closet waiting for me. The old case is on it's third set of guts and is giving up the ghost - the door hinges broke and it's too old for convenient or efficient SSD placement. I'm salivating over a new 12 core CPU that I can't justify right now - but I'm watching and waiting!

[Beerislife]

I'd love to have a custom machine but alas I'd need to pay someone with better eyesight than mine and the dexterity to do it for me so I'd be shelling out more money. My days of building my own are past. I mostly use plastic glasses at home when I'm having a beer because there's always that odd moment when it slips out of my hand! Easier to clear up spilled beer than broken glass.

[oshunluvr]

Well, sorry to hear that, but I totally understand. I don't think I can get to Tokyo right now or I'd lend a hand!

[Beerislife]

Took delivery of my Lenovo Ideacentre 510A today. I messed up and setup windwoes in Japanese. No matter, it won't be used. Fired up Kubuntu. Shrank the windwoes partition on the 256Gb SSD by 60Gb and installed Kubuntu 20.04. The 1Tb hard disk I formatted as EXT4 as /home. I didn't touch any of the other windwoes reserved partitions in case I need to restore the system to send back for repair before the warranty expires. It definitely needs another 8G RAM though which is on its way on Monday!

Copied over all my data and config files. Everything was picked up nicely!

Flightgear flies!

Everything works, sound, WiFi, Bluetooth, the lot!

[kc1di]

Congratulations on your new machine

[GreyGeek]

Smart move about keeping the warranty active!