PC Tech Thread

Actually no I didn't know that. What's the go with the £2k limit thing? Does something change over £2k? I don't do my own accounting, I just throw receipts at my peeps.

http://www.silentpcreview.com/NoFan_CR-80EH_CS-60 ?

If I could make it silent I could leave my machine running overnight while guests used the sofa bed (also in the lounge). As it stands I switch it off when people are over because it's quite noisy.

If you're on the flat rate VAT scheme then you can't claim back VAT on individual purchases.

UNLESS - the purchase is over 2k on a single invoice. Then you can claim back VAT.

So a £1999 PC would cost you(r company) £1999
A £2000 PC would cost you £2000 / 1.2 = £1666.67

Check with the accountant of course, but assuming you're on the flat rate VAT scheme and the PC is justifiable work expense etc then you'll be fine.

Yeah, I'll bung them an email. Cheers.

thats why i asked you twat

You posted "Flat Rate VAT?"

It's lacking a vital chunk of information.

You twat.

It's lacking a vital chunk of information.

taps nose

.. for a reason

Assuming 2k, and because I can only justify persuading other people to buy new PCs at the moment. I'd go for

Quiet PC Nofan A490S Skylake Silent Desktop

Configured as follows:
Cooltek UMX3 Zone Black Compact Tower Aluminium Case
Gigabyte GA-Z170X-UD3 LGA1151 ATX Motherboard
Intel 6th Gen Core i7 6700K 4.0GHz 91W HD 530 8MB Quad Core CPU
Corsair DDR4 Vengeance LPX 32GB (2x16GB) 2400MHz Memory Kit
Nofan CR-95C Copper IcePipe 95W Fanless CPU Cooler
Nofan P-500A Silent 500W Fanless 80+ GOLD PSU
Quiet PC IEC C13 UK Mains Power Cord, 1.8m (Type G)
Samsung SM951 512GB M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD
Seagate ST4000DX001 4TB 3.5in Solid State Hybrid Drive
Streacom ST-OB3 Slot-Load Blu-ray Rewriter Optical Drive
Creative Sound Blaster Z PCIe High Performance Sound Card
Intel 7260HMWDTX1.R Wi-Fi/Bluetooth Low Profile PCI-E card
Quiet PC Free Silver Warranty (2 years labour and parts)

Then separately the
Palit Geforce GTX 970 Jetstream 4GB GDDR5 Graphics Card NE5X970H16G2-2043J

£2042 including the 970 GTX (which will run silent 95% of the time)

Have downgraded the full size case to the same range but slightly smaller - unless you particularly plan on packing the thing out with half a dozen HDDs in future?

A 512GB SSD for OS and Apps, a 4TB disk for data
32GB RAM because... well because

And I'd guess you've got a copy of Windows that can be upgraded to Win10 for free.

I'd go larger tower not because of HDD additions but because it's easier to stick stuff on top of it next to my desk (Garmins, phones, etc).

Why downgrade to the SM951 SSD? The 950 is faster.

I'd planned on using the 1TB data drive from my old machine but I'm tossing up throwing another SSD at it instead for da silence and then just using my external 4TB unit that I can turn on/off as needed for infrequent stuff / backup stuff.

I do have Win7 that could be upgraded but I don't plan on doing so, hence the new copy.

Ah, I got the 951 and 950 confused. Thought the 951 was an upgrade. 950 it is.
I only put 4TB as I use mine as a media centre too, so it ends up being a dumping ground for TV series. If I didn't then I could easily get away with SSDs (or 1TB). All extremely easy to upgrade later if need be.
On Win10, since you said earlier that the point of the PC is that it's hassle free compared to building your own, then fair enough getting a fresh copy and having it preinstalled.

I'm a data hoarder so my drive is full of old versions of everything.
I could clean it up but as they've been saying for years - storage is cheap.
What I do want to do is move my source control repository to the faster drive. The lag is noticeable from the 1TB spinner..

This new build will have less installed on it too since I likely won't bother with Office and some Adobe software I no longer use so I'll be ok to grab some space back off the main drive for the source. Music and Photos are the other big storage requirements and will remain on a data drive of some sort. Mmm... second SSD...

I could clone my current SSD onto the old magnetic drive it replaced and leave that in the old machine and then repurpose the old SSD for the data drive in the new machine.

Ah, I've just checked, it's only a 240gb, I thought it was a 512gb for some reason. Forget it.

Get an M2 SSD if the motherboard supports it.

No idea if they're much better than regular SATA ones, but you can find out and let us know. Ta.

It is an M2.

Yes, they should be quicker.

See, now everyones chipped in and ruined your impulse buy you are going to end up with a more and considered purchase that will suit your needs better.
Everyones a winner.

Fun police >>>

I will end up with almost exactly what I specced first time after spending 6 months deliberating about it in a state of constant inner turmoil...

Might end up costing me £200 as well as now I've started looking at how much quicker the newer M2 SSDs are compared to my current SSD and quietly begun justifying it to myself.

Don't worry about it, I once spent a year deliberating what Mac 2 buy, out of a choice of 2.

Oh god, just looked it up, I might be able to do the same.

Before I crammed everything in.

1 Attachment

Used a db meter app on the phone. Sat the phone on my desk above the PC and ran it.

32db when the machine was running.
18db when the machine was hibernated - might've still had one of the fans winding down.

Logarithmic yeah, so quite a bit louder than nothing.

My room isn't that quiet even when nothing is on. 60db all the time, the gift of living next to the M4.

I live in a double-glazed flat down a cul-de-sac in a reasonably old/expensive end of westside.

Nice if you like quiet, not so nice when you want to spin some psytrance at 3am. ;)

Recommendations for dvd burner software, please.

ImgBurn?