PC Tech Thread

No, more monitors, less context switching, everything you need for a given task can have its own space at the same time.

Serious question - when you WFH, do you chance into your work clothes?

I WFH a lot but it’s only ever been freelance and I wear my PJ... but feel like I ought to change into my work clothes with my contract job...

Jeans / t-shirt most the time (which isn't that different to work clothes).

Although sometimes I'll sit in my running kit for 2 hours whilst I find everything else to do except go out for a run.

If I check my work email on the way back from making my wife a cup of tea or attempting to nag my daughter to get up then I can end up sitting at my desk for 30 minutes in boxer shorts first thing, but then I get shouted at by wife and/or daughter to stop being a slob.

@ExTra What he said! try and be consistent is what I have found works, anything to drive the right mindset.

Well I disagree. For me, more stuff to look at at once = more distractions = less productive.

All my word clothes are in the office so that ain't happening.

when you WFH, do you chance into your work clothes?

Normally, I don't need to be too lucky to manage to get into them. :)

(Check (good) typo.)

All my word clothes

more stuff to look at at once = more distractions = less productive

More productive about distractions.

What's a good price for 4x8Gb DDR3 memory? Seems like it should be cheap as pretty old tech.

Not without halfing my productivity, anyway.

I've ordered an in-stock gaming machine. My personal and work laptops aren't cutting it for what I am now running at home in this time of isolation.

What I've ordered: https://store.hp.com/UKStore/Merch/Product.aspx?id=8PM99EA&opt=ABU&sel=DTP&p=c-hp-omen-obelisk

• Intel® Core™ i7-9700K (3.6 GHz base frequency, up to 4.9 GHz with Intel® Turbo Boost Technology, 12 MB cache, 8 cores)
  
• NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 2080 Super™ (8 GB GDDR6 dedicated)
  
• 16 GB HyperX® memory; 512 GB PCIe® NVMe™ M.2 SSD + 2 TB HDD storage
  
• Liquid cooling solution; Glass side panel; RGB lighting; Tool-less access
  
  

Is it a great machine? No... it's above average with some weird ports (lots of USB-A, single USB-C).

But it's in stock, discounted, affordable to me, delivery in 48 hours.

Why buy it? Streaming everything was really hurting the CPU of my laptops, and the things were constantly pegging their CPUs. Result? I really struggled to open heavy grafana dashboards and maintaining all of the chat, whilst also streaming meetings. Additionally in the evenings I was gaming on my laptops, it's always been a barely sufficient experience for once in a while... but I'm now gaming more.

So this is a: This machine is affordable enough, instantly available, and will make working from home and playing basic games (Dota, Counter Strike) a thousand times better during isolation.

Pretty much the second-best CPU and GPU for gaming. It's nowhere near average!

Oh. That's fortunate.

Certainly wasn't planned... the reviews were not shining but were for bottom and mid-range models. I just up'd the specs a fraction and hit the buy button.

The air flow and motherboard look bad, but are solvable enough or liveable with.

Dota, Counter Strike

2080 Super

that's going to crush those games, you could run 6 versions at once. Download Apex Legends too, it's free and fun.

Yeah, that'll be quick. I bought similar last year
Dell/Alienware R7 with an i7 8700K and 1080Ti. Not found anything that'll stress it yet really unless I try to put the very latest games on ultra graphics settings on 4k.

Very similar to the custom build I got end of last year. It is great specs!

Very similar to my home machine, I've definitely accidentally run two games at once without noticing <60fps. That said, 4k with everything on max might struggle on newer games (But Dota/Counter strike will run at crazy fps)

Any suggestions for cheap HDMI switchers?

I'm already bored of plugging and unplugging cables to switch my monitors between home PC and work laptop

Are you quite strict about not using your home machine for work? I was like this for years but since the WFH start this week and since we don't know how long this is going to last... I have given up... So Teams chat and cheating (quick google on stuff when doing screenshare training) on work laptop. Everything else on home machine...

I've only one computer environment, so I treat time as the modal between work and pleasure rather then the desk, monitor, keyboard or machine.

I prefer to keep them separate. Partly as work stuff on my home machine would breach a variety of NDAs, partly as I don't want to set up work accounts on my home machine and partly as I'd have to use workarounds for some of the software on my work machine.

I'm trying to buy a few peripherals to improve remote life but struggling to find everything on the list in stock from single retailer. Tried Scan, Ebuyer, Aria, Argos, Currys and Overclockers - where else (excluding Amazon) should I be looking?

Novatech? What are you looking for?

Also with the "What are you looking for?".

The things I've picked up recently have all been direct from manufacturer website (i.e. the HP gaming machine, and elgato.com for the lighting, https://www.keyboardco.com/ for keyboards if that's what you're looking for).

It's not entirely great on the delivery front, a few days rather than next day. But I'm pretty sure Amazon aren't quite doing next day at the moment anyway.

Manufacturers have more stock than anyone is my assumption.