Re: Raspberry Pi5 versus other cheap Intel based boxes for general computing

On 03/04/2024 16:54, John Larkin wrote:

On Wed, 3 Apr 2024 17:38:29 +0200, Jeroen Belleman
<jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
 

On 4/3/24 16:57, John Larkin wrote:

On Wed, 03 Apr 2024 05:21:26 GMT, Jan Panteltje <alien@comet.invalid>
wrote:
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What somone learned when he replaced a cheap Pi 5 PC with a no-name Amazon mini desktop
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/04/what-i-learned-when-i-replaced-my-cheap-pi-5-pc-with-a-no-name-amazon-mini-desktop/
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All that said, I post this from a Pi4 8GB, it is sometimes really slow,
but I like and use the GPIO port.
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Considering how important a computer is to our professional and
personal lives, why do people go to great effort to save a few
dollars?
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If a cheap PC fails, it will take days of your time, or more likely
weeks, to recover.
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If an expensive one fails, it takes just a much.

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It is sometimes worth paying a premium to have a machine that is fast
enough for your immediate project needs (even if cheaper ones are more
easily available). You pay quite a high premium for that last bit of
performance when it is still very new.

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Jeroen Belleman

 
Presumably it fails less often. Cheap electrolytics, cheap fans,
under-cooled parts will fail.

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Some of the best designed PCs are from the gaming community suppliers.
If you remove the graphics card entirely the main CPU graphics system is
more than good enough for all 2D design and some 3D rendering work.
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They perform incredibly well and have huge slow fans so under ordinary
heavy loads they remain very quiet. Ones intended for corporate office
workers tend to have inadequate power supplies and small noisy fans
reflecting their typical workload and noisy environment.
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I just bought four new identical tower PCs, for work, home, cabin, and
a spare. Once my main box was set up, we cloned the SS drives to the
other three. So if my work PC dies, I have three others available.

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Your choice but owning several machines of the same vintage leaves you
exposed to any glitches in the new machines or their OS's. MS has been
known to brick portables on Win10/11 from time to time - not fun at all.
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They have identical monitors too, so my desktop won't go crazy if the
video resolution changes. I hate when that happens.

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That is a bit OCD.