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This. I picked up a Dell T710 with 32 cores and 32GB of DDR3 ECC RAM for $400. I can throw more RAM in it for practically zero cost. It's amazing for batch wor

This. I picked up a Dell T710 with 32 cores and 32GB of DDR3 ECC RAM for $400. I can throw more RAM in it for practically zero cost. It's amazing for batch workloads. For interactive workloads, there's no need to get anything newer than a 4-series Core iX. The single-threaded performance has not improved much over the last five years. My daily driver is an i5-6500; motherboard and CPU, used, were $120.

nickpsecurity 7y ago
I just got a used Thinkpad with an i7. I was eyeballing cheaper stuff with i5. The reason I upgraded is the security problems in CPU's require mitigations that will probably keep slowing them down. I bought a faster core to mitigate those slowdowns a bit. Plus, get security updates for a while longer.
- ggg2 7y ago
  so you gave more money to company with the broken product? why not buy amd?
  - nickpsecurity 7y ago
    I recommend people buying AMD where they can. Vermaden on Lobsters is a BSD expert. I asked them what hardware runs pretty much all BSD's. Vermaden narrowed it down to a few Thinkpads. All of them on eBay from recyclers had Intels. So, Intel just came with the box. If building from parts or doing non-BSD, I'd go with an AMD, POWER, or ARM system.
    - avtar 7y ago
      > I asked them what hardware runs pretty much all BSD's. Vermaden narrowed it down to a few Thinkpads. What were the recommended models?
      - nickpsecurity 7y ago
        Vermaden's comments on that were here: https://lobste.rs/s/szzgjl/cheap_bsd_friendly_notebook https://lobste.rs/s/szzgjl/cheap_bsd_friendly_notebook All the ones I saw in good condition on eBay were Intel's. I got a T420 with Core i7 to mitigate potential slowdowns from future CPU vulnerabilities. I've occasionally had to restart it from suspend/resume issues. Otherwise, it's been great. One more thing: the function key and control key are swapped compared to most laptops. I didn't like that because I'm used to control being far left. duclare told me about a BIOS setting that swaps them back. Everything's fine now. :)

nickpsecurity 7y ago

I just got a used Thinkpad with an i7. I was eyeballing cheaper stuff with i5. The reason I upgraded is the security problems in CPU's require mitigations that will probably keep slowing them down. I bought a faster core to mitigate those slowdowns a bit. Plus, get security updates for a while longer.

ggg2 7y ago
so you gave more money to company with the broken product? why not buy amd?
- nickpsecurity 7y ago
  I recommend people buying AMD where they can. Vermaden on Lobsters is a BSD expert. I asked them what hardware runs pretty much all BSD's. Vermaden narrowed it down to a few Thinkpads. All of them on eBay from recyclers had Intels. So, Intel just came with the box. If building from parts or doing non-BSD, I'd go with an AMD, POWER, or ARM system.
  - avtar 7y ago
    > I asked them what hardware runs pretty much all BSD's. Vermaden narrowed it down to a few Thinkpads. What were the recommended models?
    - nickpsecurity 7y ago
      Vermaden's comments on that were here: https://lobste.rs/s/szzgjl/cheap_bsd_friendly_notebook https://lobste.rs/s/szzgjl/cheap_bsd_friendly_notebook All the ones I saw in good condition on eBay were Intel's. I got a T420 with Core i7 to mitigate potential slowdowns from future CPU vulnerabilities. I've occasionally had to restart it from suspend/resume issues. Otherwise, it's been great. One more thing: the function key and control key are swapped compared to most laptops. I didn't like that because I'm used to control being far left. duclare told me about a BIOS setting that swaps them back. Everything's fine now. :)