Specs update for DELL XPS 9100 / OS
polycounter lvl 14
Greetings;
First of all lets be clear that;
I understand this sort of thread has been discussed many times here on PC. I understand that there are members who will direct me to the PC's Search engine. I also understand that should this thread fail, it will face a huge number of "oh this thread again," gifs and images.
I have been meaning to post this for a while but I wasnt sure how many of you have the PC setup as mine. Bare with me on this and see if you can help me out fixing my problems.
So I bought this PC for Digital concept arts, Graphics design and animation, gaming and programming over four years ago and I believe its time to upgrade the system as the process of all that is a bit laggy these days especially while using the Zbrush or any CG program.
The PC is Dell XPS 9100 so I am not sure if it is vendor locked in or I can buy the upgrades from different vendor. (This is the main question.)
Specs:
INTEL CORE I7 920 @2.67GHz
6.00 GIGS OF RAM
1.00 TERA OF STORAGE
GeForce GTX 260
Windows 7 64x (which works great especially if you are running VMware.)
Windows 8 64x (that I have on another system) is not viable for VMware and SAN or maybe I havent done enough research to work it out. It gives an MSI error whenever I try to install VMware, I have not tried any CG programs or digital art programs on it as of yet. Also there are no windows installers compatible with windows 8 64x.
I would really appreciate your help on this so I would know how much I need to spend.
(Yes I am asking for specs upgrades and OS recommendations.)
Kind regards.
First of all lets be clear that;
I understand this sort of thread has been discussed many times here on PC. I understand that there are members who will direct me to the PC's Search engine. I also understand that should this thread fail, it will face a huge number of "oh this thread again," gifs and images.
I have been meaning to post this for a while but I wasnt sure how many of you have the PC setup as mine. Bare with me on this and see if you can help me out fixing my problems.
So I bought this PC for Digital concept arts, Graphics design and animation, gaming and programming over four years ago and I believe its time to upgrade the system as the process of all that is a bit laggy these days especially while using the Zbrush or any CG program.
The PC is Dell XPS 9100 so I am not sure if it is vendor locked in or I can buy the upgrades from different vendor. (This is the main question.)
Specs:
INTEL CORE I7 920 @2.67GHz
6.00 GIGS OF RAM
1.00 TERA OF STORAGE
GeForce GTX 260
Windows 7 64x (which works great especially if you are running VMware.)
Windows 8 64x (that I have on another system) is not viable for VMware and SAN or maybe I havent done enough research to work it out. It gives an MSI error whenever I try to install VMware, I have not tried any CG programs or digital art programs on it as of yet. Also there are no windows installers compatible with windows 8 64x.
I would really appreciate your help on this so I would know how much I need to spend.
(Yes I am asking for specs upgrades and OS recommendations.)
Kind regards.
Replies
Vmware - Have you looked for a hotfix or version update? Can say Virtual Box works with no problem in 8.
Easiest thing to do is upgrading the ram, which may give improvements in very ram heavy application (ie: zbrush or mudbox)
Upgrading the GPU is super easy as well
Upgrading the HDD to something like a SSD will boost load times, and file loading/saving and general system responsiveness
Upgrading the CPU... is not worth the effort, it will be very expensive to get a better cpu thats fits your motherboard. Its an LG1366 chipset so you can only upgrade to the early series I7s like the 920, 970, 980, etc, getting one that is significantly faster than yours will cost more than buying a new CPU+MOBO+Ram. So basically, if you want significantly better performance you're looking at re-build more than an upgrade.
Parts seem good only thing that might help is jumping to 8gb of memory you would probably have to swap out all memory and make a total swap. GGPU increase wont help much but in games your I7 already is great.
SO like earthquake said if you wanted to upgrade your looking at a new build, your specs are actually great and should be fine for programs
I am planning to update the Ram mem to about 16-24gb, update the gpu and buy another storage possibly SSD to speed up the system. Hopefully it isnt vender locked in. (That was my main concern.)
This is the motherboard
As for the VMs; VBox is good because you can run different VMs but the disadvantage of it is you cant run multiple VMs at the same time. VMware however resolves that issue so you can test out NAS between different OS while not closing any of them, including the NAS CLI. I have the latest one for studies and working with few different OS. The only problem with this is the host OS windows 8 64x. For some reason I am unable to install VMware 9.0 on windows 8 pro 64x where as it runs perfectly on windows 7 pro 64x. I am not sure if anyone has been using it or found a fix for it.
Bad part is the Windows installer 4.5 that suppose to fix the issue isnt compatible with windows 8 pro 64x.
Which brings me to state the specs for my second system (LAPTOP):
Intel core i7-3630QM @ 2.40GHz
8gigs of RAM mem
GeForce GT 630M
This one has Windows 8 pro 64x and I have been running into problems whenever I try to install something on windows 8. The only thing that I can think of is to use the desktop for programming and laptop for concept arts, cg, animation and rendering. Until I upgrade my desktop.
programming apps can run on this system (I think.) just not VMware, which I am still struggling to install.
Not sure you can get past 12? You are using triple channel? Though sometimes vendors and Intel claim.a.max for a chipset because that's all they had available at that moment. I have run into so many systems that say they only can take up to x memory, yet in reality can take more.
Btw sometimes on ebay you can find used cpus for a decent price.
Like in the properties clicking run as admin and windows xp and all? Yes I know and have done it. Doesnt work. I dont ask questions unless I am really stuck.
Yeah but even then its not really economical.
He can pick up a used (no warranty, may have been OC'd/abused, who knows) I7 970 for around $350-400, which will give a decent boost:
920 - 5011
970 - 8527
However, for $319 brand new with warranty he can get an even faster 4770, once you add in the price of a new motherboard and ram(less than $200 total) you're spending a little more, but you get new components with proper warranties, not to mention faster, and running the latest tech like USB3 and SATA3 and better power consumption.
4770 - 10137
So yeah again, if you want a new CPU, it makes more sense to go new CPU+Mobo+RAM. If the OP is considering upgrading CPU and Ram its a no brainer to do a mobo swap too.
When you buy from a manufacturer you never really know what you're in for or how they hobble the upgrade process. They might have struck a deal with Nvidia to provide cards that have a slightly different configuration making it hard to get an upgrade in there unless you go through them and suffer a horrible markup. Same performance 2-3 times the price, wee...
When you crack open the manufactured machines you find all kinds of one off things that they do to make it a pain in the ass to upgrade. Hard drives that fit only their custom built bracketing system, main board slots that don't have enough room for upgrades. Making their cases very unfriendly to work with, or using odd screws to lock air ducts in place and then routing the duct over the open ram slots. It's just their way of helping you to come to the conclusion that you need to throw everything out and buy new, preferably on their payment plan where they tack on $2-300 more in finance charges.
I do agree with them, you should buy new, but buy all new pieces from reputable manufacturers and build your own for 2/3rds of the cost. Then when it comes time to upgrade it won't be such a pain in the ass.
Not that it matters to most here, but this constant push to replace versus upgrade isn't helping out our global environment in any way/shape or form.
Or buy some power tools, anything will fit in an old Dell case once you get an angle grinder involved! I used to brute force extra drive bays into Dell XPS boxes.
They try to strip the precious metals out of electronics by burning or boiling it in acid. Which is great for the environment and the people who don't know any better...
"Woot I made .05 cents in copper today, oh... but I'm coughing up blood"
I personally don't throw away that many electronics, I tend to hoard and repurpose and I buy with that in mind. It's why I have a mini-render farm at home and why I have a media PC sitting next to my TV. My family and friends also benefit from my upgrading and the parts stay in service for a really long time, often going to friends of family when they get upgrades. They last for a really long time because I don't buy junk.
So no I don't support just casually tossing out stuff, even if that is what the PC manufacturers want you to do. Which is why its even more important to build quality that will last, not crap that is designed to go tits up 6mo after you buy it.
Build a spare parts computer and give to a family member as an upgrade.
Use as HTPC/media center/file server/etc.
Sell spare parts on ebay so someone else can use them.
3d workstations need stable, reliable parts. I would never recommend buying used CPUs, RAM or HD's for a workstation. Its just a bad idea.
Besides, its a moot point Oxy, if you're replacing you're replacing whether that's with new or used parts, you still have to get rid of the old parts, though it is of course good to think about where those parts go and how they can be used. I don't think guilting/shaming people is a good way to get your point across, try to suggest some positive things people can do with old parts instead.
You can dedicate the old PC to a Storage Area Netowork and or Network Attached storage for networking between your systems and different OSes, for Web development, Testing different OSes and applications on it using VMs(Ya I think I got it now that no one here ever heard of VMware so I'll stop bringing that into this discussion,) and dedicating it to sound recording of any sort, etc; Although you do need a good amount of space for all (Which I dont have at the moment,) but I'll see what good I can do with it.
EDIT: Buying a used CPU is not really worth it unless you need them for...well I used to be a music composer and we bought a used CPU for recordings only, We upgraded Sound card and hooked it up with FirePro ( that hooks into a Mixer.) So please dont go completely against the Used crap.
Summing up from this discussion; You mean that it will be a pain in the ass to upgrade the motherboard that I currently have along with the rest of the parts since they are possibly Vendor locked in and/or compatible to Vendor's specifics only (Thats...fucked.) So it is best for me to start from scratch and build a new PC.
For now I can just use my Laptop for CG if things get worst with PC.
Actually look at that link. Its an organization that specifically certifies recycled who recycle where they are. Not going to third world countries.
We use one of the certified ones here for our old machinery at work.
No. If you replace the motherboard you are pretty much making a custom built PC. Just see what form factor that motherboard is and replace it with a comparable. This isn't Apple we are talking about here. As far as the guy who.couldn't use a 660, that could be anything from needing a pcie 3.0 slot, bios upgrade, to power supply. The stock Dell give juuuust enough to power what the stock system requires. I have a optiplex at work that was giving me issues with a 7850hd and it turned out the card was bad even though it would work correctly in other machines.
Also there is a site called bios mod that sometimes will create a custom bios to unlock enhances biases if requested from enough people. I have used theirs in the past with.no issue. Hell, I even tried mod one it on my own with limited success. Fwiw HP servers are not friendly for upgrades from their bios.