video card for new computer

[Doug]

On 12/17/2017 07:14 PM, Stuart McGraw wrote:
> On 12/17/2017 05:45 AM, Liam Proven wrote:
>> On 14 December 2017 at 09:05, Stuart McGraw <smcg4191 at I > wrote:
>>> Hello all,
>>>
>>> I am looking at buying a replacement for my 10-year old desktop
>>> computer.  In the past I have had machines with integrated Intel
>>> graphics and never had any problems.  The new machine I am thinking
>>> of (HP Z440 workstation) seems to offer only a separate video
>>> card, either Nvidia or AMD Firepro as options.
>> Have you seen these?
>>
>> https://www.morgancomputers.co.uk/c/702/Xeon-Processors/
>>
>> A few years old models, but super high-end at their time and still
>> very credible PCs today.
>>
>> I don't know where in the world you are, but you might be able to find
>> a local vendor of such clearance stock. Myself, I run a Thinkpad X220
>> bought from this company & shipped to the Czech Republic, last
>> January. It's lovely, fast, very stable, and because it's a few years
>> old, all the hardware works flawlessly with Ubuntu.
> I'm in the US and that is exactly what I planned to do.  HP has has
> a web site on which they sell refurbished machines at a discount.
> I bought my last PC there (a DC5800 desktop with Core Duo E8400 cpu)
> and was quite happy with it.  I have always liked HP hardware.  The
> machines there seem somewhat newer than those at morgancomputers
> (eg Z440 vs Z400) and the prices correspondingly higher but a somewhat
> newer machine is fine by me since I seem to keep computers for ~8
> years (looking at my past history) so starting with something more
> than a very few years old may not be optimal.
>
> However most of the workstation machines they sell have Xeon chips,
> some of which has integrated gpus and some not from what I read.
> So if I go that route I will need to figure out which ones do.  And
> nearly all (being workstations) come with a video card which I'll be
> paying for whether I use it or not.
>
> But at this point I'm also thinking about either buying the parts
> and putting something together myself (have never done that before
> but it doesn't sound terrifically hard, albeit with somewhat more risk
> and effort) or buying something from a custom pc builder (ecollege.com
> looked reasonably priced, most of the others I seen so far were out of
> my price range and oriented towards hard-core gamers.)
>
> To keep this vaguely Ubuntu related, I looked at some of the pc builders
> that advertise linux/Ubuntu systems but wasn't impressed: limited hw
> choices, limited info about components, but mostly, other than being
> tested with Ubuntu, there's not much benefit since I would probably
> reinstall the OS when I got it anyway, just to get things the way I
> want them.
>
>
Over the years I have built a number of machines. It's been a while, but 
I'm not in the market right now. Anyway, pick a name-brand board and a 
processor you think you'd like,

then a decent video card--I like NVidia and use the proprietary 
driver--and a reasonably priced case and power supply and one or two SSD 
drives--two is better if you are going to

dual-boot Windows--and Bob's your uncle.  Of course, make sure the board 
you pick and the processor are compatible!  I think any Linux will run 
an any board--I'd be awfully

surprised if that's not the case. I've tried a number of distros on my 
systems and they all work fine.  You may want to make sure your video 
card has a sound decoder also, and an HDMI

output, so you can remote your system to a TV set and watch downloaded 
videos in the comfort of your living room.  You might want to get an 
extra fan to mount in the case just

to have a belt and suspenders. . . .

--doug