Hello all,

I want your input on what I should buy next.

So right now I have 2 computer's and one I'm using with an Nvidia GTX 960 running windows XP. I have one other PC that has a gtx 460 gpu, but rather not use my gtx 460 anymore as it is outdated.

The thing I'm stuck on is should I get a new PC from 2012 for my gtx 960? New for me but from 2012 so I can use windows XP (3rd gen intel processors). It would have a 3.0 pci-e x16 slot and not a 1st gen like my current ones have. Or should I get another GPU for my PC that's not in use? Both have upgraded power supplies that I have bought but they are 1st gen pci-e x16 slots (both pc's are from (2006-2008)

Any more info about the PC's I'll gladly provide. Thanks.

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Cruncher/Learner in progress.

Hi Logan,

to throw in my two cents... I would recommend getting the PC from 2012 as from your below explanation it is a somewhat modern 1155 board for 3.Gen iCore (=Ivy Bridge CPU) and PCIe3.0 support. And you may want to retire your 10 year old Pentium and Core2 Systems in return.

Intel didn't really improve the speed of their CPUs (aside from the integrated iGPUs) a lot in the last couple of years because of lacking competition. If I may say that, they could have stopped their chip development with Haswell (1150 socket). Their last revolution in my opinion was the 2.Gen Sandy Bridge which is widely and rightly in use as the CPUs (i7-2600, i5-2500K) are still very capable. Ivy Bridge is basically a shrink (1155 socket as well) having more power efficiency and is therefore an acceptable choice (as a second hand unit) for the next 2-3 years despite the age. You may skip Skylake and Kaby Lake (1151) but thereafter I would switch to Cannonlake and let your 1.Gen iCore Systems retire.

The 1155 Ivy Bridge platform will be sufficent to support even mid to high end Maxwell or Pascal GPUs. So in case you decide to sell your old machines (and the old GTX460) and buy a GTX1060 it will work well with Ivy Bridge in my opinion. For now, you could run two of your GTX960 per PCIe3.0x16 (x8 electrical) slots in the Ivy Bridge system.

In regard to the CPU, I would recommend a good mid class i5 to support your GPU. Nothing very fancy (unless you want to run a lot of CPU tasks as well). My suggestion is a i5-3450 or 3470.

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I would love to see HCF1 protein folding and interaction simulations to help my little boy... someday.

One more thought-provoking Impulse.

Your GTX960 have a current value of maybe 120-130€ per unit, depending on the age. If you sell them both, you could buy a new GTX 1060 6G for the money. Why is that an advantage?

First of all, it is a major advantage if you want to play games now and again, aside from crunching. Even if you operate both 960ies by SLI, the 1060 will surpass them because of the much larger 6G memory.

In regard to crunching, two GTX960 yield 2x 2400 GFLOPs(SP) whereas the GTX1060 6G yields 4300GFLOPs. Which means the 1060 is slightly slower ... but wait. The power consumption drops from 2x 100W to 120W! Which means you could choose a highly overclocked GTX1060 to draw near the 2x GTX960 performance again, but still reduce the energy cost.

From that view, you will even save money by the upgrade.

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I would love to see HCF1 protein folding and interaction simulations to help my little boy... someday.

Hello,

Thank you for your input. I do understand what you mean about the gtx 1060, however I'm unsure about getting that because windows XP does not support it. I am also unable to sell any of my computers or gpu's for a lot of personal reasons (wish i could sell them).

I only have 1 gtx 960 right now by the way. I don't know if I worded that wrong or if you meant for me to buy another one.

- Logan

Hello,

Thank you for your input. I do understand what you mean about the gtx 1060, however I'm unsure about getting that because windows XP does not support it. I am also unable to sell any of my computers or gpu's for a lot of personal reasons (wish i could sell them).

I only have 1 gtx 960 right now by the way. I don't know if I worded that wrong or if you meant for me to buy another one.
- Logan

Hi again ... sorry, I just had a look into your computer list and assumed that you own all of them. What is the specification of the PC which hosts the GTX960?

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I would love to see HCF1 protein folding and interaction simulations to help my little boy... someday.

Hmm, sorry I didn't specify about that. I have used the same 960 in multiple computers.

The main computer I'm using now is my latest one on my list (the core 2 duo one).

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Cruncher/Learner in progress.

It's a dell optiplex 755 desktop

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Cruncher/Learner in progress.

Here is a comparison of Benchmarks between your E6550 and the cheapest i5 Ivy Bridge (3.Gen) CPU. That picture paints a thousand words. (c)Cpuboss.

Yes, I think an upgrade to 1155/PCIe3.0 is a good idea. Even the cheapest Ivy Bridge Pentium G2010 is much faster than the E6550. Which CPU do you have in mind?

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I would love to see HCF1 protein folding and interaction simulations to help my little boy... someday.

I'd prefer a cheaper CPU to save some money but I'm not sure at this point, as the i5 3rd gen looks really good.

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Cruncher/Learner in progress.

The G2010 is PCIE2.0 only, as are all the Pentium G2000 Series processors. You would want to future proof better than that.

A 14nm dual core Pentium G4520 (3.6GHz), or the G4500 (3.5GHz) would be a better choice for a basic system with a single GPU; they support PCIE3.0, DDR4 and are reasonable value at around $90. It would be capable of supporting a decent GPU for a good few years.

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I would agree if Logan asked for a general purchase recommendation ... but Logan aimed particularly at a 1155 system in order to run Windows XP on it. Not sure if new Skylake boards will support that old OS fully in regard to drivers.

Yes, the G2010 doesn't support PCIe3 but the i5 CPUs which I recommended below do support it. i5-3330, 3450 or 3470 are available second hand from favorable 60€ (=$65). That is at least what local second hand marketplaces in Austria list it for.

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I would love to see HCF1 protein folding and interaction simulations to help my little boy... someday.

I do not think skylake can support windows XP.

Okay so I'm seeing a computer I'm thinking about buying:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/252613758839?_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

How does this look for my gtx 960? I already have a power supply I can replace the 265 watt one with.

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Cruncher/Learner in progress.

Be careful... the Dell Optiplex have special power supplies, special mainboards and special control panels. If you want to exchange the power supply with a regular ATX it won't fit.

So all you could do is contacting the dealer and asking for an alternative model with a better power supply. I would choose 400W or stronger. Also keep in mind that those Dell supplies usually don't provide 6pin GPU (and sometimes not even Molex) connectors. But you need that for your GTX960 by all means.

Also you are very limited in regard to Windows drivers. I did not find XP drivers on the Dell website for this old model yet.

Well, those all-in-one offers look good at a first view... but can cause a lot of problems if you want to upgrade them.

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I would love to see HCF1 protein folding and interaction simulations to help my little boy... someday.

If I may ask the question ... why do you want to run WinXP by all means? It is no longer supported by Microsoft, no longer patched and therefore a bit of a safety risk.

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I would love to see HCF1 protein folding and interaction simulations to help my little boy... someday.

You're right about Skylake, the chipset drivers don't work for XP, at least not without a workaround, but that doesn't make old kit the right path forward.
As pointed out, XP is the anchor in this discussion and makes no sense; it's vulnerable security ways, won't work with lots of newish peripheral components (printers, external drives) and might not work with some internal kit, it isn't Pascal capable so limits you to using yesteryear hardware. Sticking with XP would mean you are upgrading a bit but preventing further upgrades. You just can't future proof a system running XP.
If you want a new-ish system just for crunching/web browsing, Ubuntu x64 16.04 LTS is the better solution; it's not impacted by the W7+ (Vista also not supported by Cuda 8) WDDM overhead, it's free, it's more secure, it's Pascal capable and will likely be upgradable/re-installable to make Volta usable in a couple of years time. Tying yourself down to a defunct OS isn't the answer and will only result in a flawed solution. Also, selling your old kit to help fund your new kit is the correct route. What's the point in keeping the 460, if it's yours? Also, if you're keeping the old XP system, why would your new system need to be XP too?

BTW. The only Pascal performance upgrade to the 960 is a 1060-3GB (or higher), which is a big jump in performance, but the Pascal's are still quite expensive IMO. The 1050Ti would only roughly match the 960, so it's not really an upgrade in terms of performance, just newer technology & better performance/Watt.

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Yes, the XP is the crux of the matter. Seems that both skgiven and I have reservations in regard to keeping the old operating system. The difference in opinion is maybe that I recommend staying with Windows as the familiarization with Linux takes a while and Linux is not everyones cup of tea.

If you have intended to take your old harddisk out of your old PC, plug into the Dell and run it right away, that was a misbelief as I already wrote. The data transfer will require some more effort I am afraid. With that said, you could just as well move on to a modern operating system and set-up entirely new.

So if you can reconcile with the idea of buying a somewhat new PC I suggest installing Windows 7 which is very similar to XP from the user interface. You will like it. Also the Win7/32 Bit variant will give you the opportunity to run some older software with 16 Bit code embedded, if that is what you need. Otherwise, of course Windows 10/64Bit is the more forward looking OS, if you want to take the chance.

Don't get me wrong, I would anytime prefer Windows 10. But I know from practice that users have their own settled habits and admins therefore have to be mindful of them. You could get a Win7 as a Win10 downgrade so that you can upgrade later anytime when needed.

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I would love to see HCF1 protein folding and interaction simulations to help my little boy... someday.

The cuda 8.0 app is x64 only, so if anyone has the x86 version of W7 and wants to use a Pascal, it's not going to happen straight out of the box.

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FAQ's

HOW TO:
- Opt out of Beta Tests
- Ask for Help

The cuda 8.0 app is x64 only, so if anyone has the x86 version of W7 and wants to use a Pascal, it's not going to happen straight out of the box.

No opposition.
But from the below discussion and information I think the initial question

Should I get a new pc or a 2nd gpu?

can be answered. In my opinion Logan needs a new PC first ... as the GTX960 is still a fairly capable mid-class GPU, whereas you get nowhere with the old E6550 processor. Purchasing a Pascal GPU is probably the question after next.

Starting from the XP requirement, the 1155 Ivy Bridge platform is OK in terms of speed. But as mentioned earlier, XP is obsolete, risky and you will not get around upgrading. The Dell you have mentioned is unsuitable anyway as it does not even have 6/8pin GPU power and a much too weak (special) PSU.

From this perspective, keep your GTX960, spend a little more money on the PC and get a new Skylake(1151) + Win7 or Win10 system from a local dealer. For supporting your GTX960, a common Pentium G4400 should do.

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I would love to see HCF1 protein folding and interaction simulations to help my little boy... someday.

I basically wanted to put windows XP on my system so there's no WDDM overhead. My plan was to at least have XP until I get a newer 10 series GPU and then I was going to use linux.

In reguards to security updates, I am not concerned about Windows XP whatsoever because I have avast! antivirus installed as well as I only crunch on the computer and rarely go on a web browser.

JoergF,

I'm looking not at the desktop but the minitower of the optiplex 3010. I thought my power supply would fit in that just fine?

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Cruncher/Learner in progress.

The cuda 8.0 app is x64 only, so if anyone has the x86 version of W7 and wants to use a Pascal, it's not going to happen straight out of the box.

No opposition.
But from the below discussion and information I think the initial question

Should I get a new pc or a 2nd gpu?

can be answered. In my opinion Logan needs a new PC first ... as the GTX960 is still a fairly capable mid-class GPU, whereas you get nowhere with the old E6550 processor. Purchasing a Pascal GPU is probably the question after next.

Starting from the XP requirement, the 1155 Ivy Bridge platform is OK in terms of speed. But as mentioned earlier, XP is obsolete, risky and you will not get around upgrading. The Dell you have mentioned is unsuitable anyway as it does not even have 6/8pin GPU power and a much too weak (special) PSU.

From this perspective, keep your GTX960, spend a little more money on the PC and get a new Skylake(1151) + Win7 or Win10 system from a local dealer. For supporting your GTX960, a common Pentium G4400 should do.

My power supply has the connector for my GPU.

I guess my only concern is that if A. my power supply can fit in the minitower and B. If there's a 24pin ATX power connector (which I believe there are on all newer models)

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Cruncher/Learner in progress.