Have hardware prices gone crazy during Covid?

Well, I was looking at a couple of upgrades for a friend's computer. I
built the computer for them several years ago, so it's now time for a
few performance upgrades. The system currently consists of a
Haswell-generation Celeron, and using just Intel graphics. So the idea
is to upgrade that processor to higher end 4th or 5th gen (Haswell or
Broadwell) Core i5 or higher, preferably i7. And also to upgrade that
graphics to a lowest-end graphics card, because they got themselves an
ultrawide monitor.

So I looked at the prices of some of these parts and my eyes popped out
of their sockets! Have they gone crazy? WTF?

CPU's, the prices of the CPU's range from C$89 to C$3316! The cheapest
$89 one was the price of the same Celeron G1840 that they currently have
right now, and it's more expensive than when they first bought it! I'm
going to ignore any of the ones that cost over $1000 (actually some of
the $1000 ones are Core i3's)!!! The cheapest Core i3's range from $281
to $607. The Core i5's range from $400 to $953. The Core i7's range from
$631 to $817, and in some cases the lower end ones cost more than the
higher end ones.

https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/products...ice&X=0,100000

Then I looked at the low-end GPU's, eg. RX 550, something that should be
easily under $75 these days. They're going from between $85 and $252!

https://pcpartpicker.com/products/vi...ort=price&qq=1

I mean, I guess I can go towards used parts, but after seeing these
prices for new parts, I wonder how low used parts would be by comparison?

Yousuf Khan

"Yousuf Khan" wrote in message
...
Well, I was looking at a couple of upgrades for a friend's computer. I
built the computer for them several years ago, so it's now time for a few
performance upgrades. The system currently consists of a
Haswell-generation Celeron, and using just Intel graphics. So the idea is
to upgrade that processor to higher end 4th or 5th gen (Haswell or
Broadwell) Core i5 or higher, preferably i7. And also to upgrade that
graphics to a lowest-end graphics card, because they got themselves an
ultrawide monitor.

So I looked at the prices of some of these parts and my eyes popped out of
their sockets! Have they gone crazy? WTF?

CPU's, the prices of the CPU's range from C$89 to C$3316! The cheapest $89
one was the price of the same Celeron G1840 that they currently have right
now, and it's more expensive than when they first bought it! I'm going to
ignore any of the ones that cost over $1000 (actually some of the $1000
ones are Core i3's)!!! The cheapest Core i3's range from $281 to $607. The
Core i5's range from $400 to $953. The Core i7's range from $631 to $817,
and in some cases the lower end ones cost more than the higher end ones.

https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/products...ice&X=0,100000

Then I looked at the low-end GPU's, eg. RX 550, something that should be
easily under $75 these days. They're going from between $85 and $252!

https://pcpartpicker.com/products/vi...ort=price&qq=1

I mean, I guess I can go towards used parts, but after seeing these prices
for new parts, I wonder how low used parts would be by comparison?

Yousuf Khan

Core i3 - $26 to $563
https://www.newegg.com/p/pl?N=100007...&orde r=PRICE

Core i5 - $50 to $429
https://www.newegg.com/p/pl?N=100007...=3&order=PRICE

Core i7 - $34 to $773
https://www.newegg.com/p/pl?N=100007...96&order=PRICE

These are refurb, used, and new CPU's, and I have no idea what shipping
would be to your neck of the woods, but they seem pretty reasonable here
(although for the high-end ones, not a lot cheaper than what you're seeing).
--

SC Tom

On 28/06/2020 12.17, Yousuf Khan wrote:
Well, I was looking at a couple of upgrades for a friend's computer. I
built the computer for them several years ago, so it's now time for a
few performance upgrades. The system currently consists of a
Haswell-generation Celeron, and using just Intel graphics. So the idea
is to upgrade that processor to higher end 4th or 5th gen (Haswell or
Broadwell) Core i5 or higher, preferably i7. And also to upgrade that
graphics to a lowest-end graphics card, because they got themselves an
ultrawide monitor.

The first thing I look at is the disk. If it is rotating rust, I upgrade
to SSD. That alone improves performance a lot.

--
Cheers, Carlos.

On 6/28/2020 7:47 AM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 28/06/2020 12.17, Yousuf Khan wrote:
Well, I was looking at a couple of upgrades for a friend's computer. I
built the computer for them several years ago, so it's now time for a
few performance upgrades. The system currently consists of a
Haswell-generation Celeron, and using just Intel graphics. So the idea
is to upgrade that processor to higher end 4th or 5th gen (Haswell or
Broadwell) Core i5 or higher, preferably i7. And also to upgrade that
graphics to a lowest-end graphics card, because they got themselves an
ultrawide monitor.

The first thing I look at is the disk. If it is rotating rust, I upgrade
to SSD. That alone improves performance a lot.

The disk is fine, it's actually one of those hybrid SSHD's with a small
SSD caching a 1TB HDD. The important upgrade here is the graphics card,
they really need something that will accommodate their ultrawide
monitor's resolution natively.

Yousuf Khan

In article , Yousuf Khan
wrote:

Well, I was looking at a couple of upgrades for a friend's computer. I
built the computer for them several years ago, so it's now time for a
few performance upgrades. The system currently consists of a
Haswell-generation Celeron, and using just Intel graphics. So the idea
is to upgrade that processor to higher end 4th or 5th gen (Haswell or
Broadwell) Core i5 or higher, preferably i7. And also to upgrade that
graphics to a lowest-end graphics card, because they got themselves an
ultrawide monitor.

The first thing I look at is the disk. If it is rotating rust, I upgrade
to SSD. That alone improves performance a lot.

The disk is fine, it's actually one of those hybrid SSHD's with a small
SSD caching a 1TB HDD.

it may be fine, but an ssd will be a significant improvement, by far
the easiest and most cost effective upgrade.

hybrid drives are only slightly faster than a regular drive except in
the unlikely scenario everything is running from cache.

The important upgrade here is the graphics card,
they really need something that will accommodate their ultrawide
monitor's resolution natively.

how wide is ultrawide?

On 6/28/2020 8:34 AM, nospam wrote:
how wide is ultrawide?

3440 X 1440

Yousuf Khan wrote:
On 6/28/2020 8:34 AM, nospam wrote:
how wide is ultrawide?

3440 X 1440

HDMI 2 or 2.1

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDMI

Perhaps DP 1.2 ?

Tables here are less useful.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DisplayPort

The problem is, the entry level video cards
now are pretty expensive. And even if you
could find an FX5200, it wouldn't have the
output :-)

Paul

On Sun, 28 Jun 2020 13:47:46 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:

On 28/06/2020 12.17, Yousuf Khan wrote:
Well, I was looking at a couple of upgrades for a friend's computer. I
built the computer for them several years ago, so it's now time for a
few performance upgrades. The system currently consists of a
Haswell-generation Celeron, and using just Intel graphics. So the idea
is to upgrade that processor to higher end 4th or 5th gen (Haswell or
Broadwell) Core i5 or higher, preferably i7. And also to upgrade that
graphics to a lowest-end graphics card, because they got themselves an
ultrawide monitor.

The first thing I look at is the disk. If it is rotating rust, I upgrade
to SSD. That alone improves performance a lot.

Second that. In my very limited experience, SSD with slower CPU makes
for a faster experience overall than HDD with faster CPU.

I have a Dell Inspiron with i7 and rotating hard drive, and an Asus
with only i5 but an SSD. When I bought the Asus, after five years
with the Dell, I was amazed at how much faster it was with the slower
processor.

The Asus is much, much faster at opening programs and files, or
saving files to disk -- no surprise there. But it even seems faster
at computational stuff. I imagine that means those operations depend
on virtual memory, and of course virtual memory is just disk
accesses.

--
Stan Brown, Tehachapi, California, USA https://BrownMath.com/
https://OakRoadSystems.com/
Shikata ga nai...

On Sun, 28 Jun 2020 at 07:53:20, Stan Brown
wrote:
On Sun, 28 Jun 2020 13:47:46 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:

On 28/06/2020 12.17, Yousuf Khan wrote:
[]
The first thing I look at is the disk. If it is rotating rust, I upgrade
to SSD. That alone improves performance a lot.

Second that. In my very limited experience, SSD with slower CPU makes
for a faster experience overall than HDD with faster CPU.

OK you guys. I accept (daft not to) that SSDs are faster than HDDs.
(Though I do have of course the nagging feeling that lazy programmers
will soon have eliminated that advantage - but they're going to rule the
roost for everyone anyway, so that's irrelevant.)

My main concern over SSDs is still of sudden and complete failure - more
so than HDDs (which I know - yes, from experience - _can_ go suddenly,
but _tend_ not to). Yes, I know everybody should be backing up their
system, on the hour, every hour, to a remote site, so it - but come on,
some of us want to _use_ our computers.

so: using an SSD, is there anything - either something in the SSD, or
third party software - that will _reliably_ give, say, a month's warning
of failure? (And by "failure" I include go-to-read-only.)

I have a Dell Inspiron with i7 and rotating hard drive, and an Asus
with only i5 but an SSD. When I bought the Asus, after five years
with the Dell, I was amazed at how much faster it was with the slower
processor.

The Asus is much, much faster at opening programs and files, or
saving files to disk -- no surprise there. But it even seems faster
at computational stuff. I imagine that means those operations depend
on virtual memory, and of course virtual memory is just disk
accesses.

If you're using virtual memory for more than very occasional peaks, then
I'd say you haven't enough RAM. This may be less definite with SSDs, but
I suspect your old Dell with the spinner _does_ have that problem. Have
you _looked_ (at what it is using) lately? Memory consumption has, like
everything else, been creeping up steadily: I'd say more web "pages"
(really programs) in the last four or five years than anything else.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

"To YOU I'm an atheist; to God, I'm the Loyal Opposition." - Woody Allen

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:


so: using an SSD, is there anything - either something in the SSD, or
third party software - that will _reliably_ give, say, a month's warning
of failure? (And by "failure" I include go-to-read-only.)

A RAID1 mirror consisting of a multiplicity of
different brands/models of SSD. Mirrors can have
more than two drives as far as I know.

When one drive fails, the array runs in "degraded" mode.

You could use, say, a couple WDC Blue 1TB drives and one
(good) Samsung Pro-class drive. The WDC ones are $100 each.

The reason for mixing up the drive brands, is so failures
don't correlate (precisely). If you used all Samsung drives,
maybe they all wear out on the same day.

Paul

In article , Paul
wrote:

The reason for mixing up the drive brands, is so failures
don't correlate (precisely). If you used all Samsung drives,
maybe they all wear out on the same day.

it's best to *not* mix brands (and may not even work).

however, it *is* a good idea to get the same drives from a different
manufacturing *batch*.

don't buy the drives at the same time from the same vendor. buy one
each from different vendors and/or different times. unfortunately, it
might be more expensive that way.

and raid doesn't answer the original question about ssds.

On Sun, 28 Jun 2020 at 14:47:14, Paul wrote:
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:

so: using an SSD, is there anything - either something in the SSD,
or third party software - that will _reliably_ give, say, a month's
warning of failure? (And by "failure" I include go-to-read-only.)

A RAID1 mirror consisting of a multiplicity of
[]
Sorry, I should have specified "in a laptop, or SFF desktop, with room
for only one 'drive'". Something that might persuade me to switch to an
SSD - "an" being the operative word - without my sudden-failure fear.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

"To YOU I'm an atheist; to God, I'm the Loyal Opposition." - Woody Allen

In article , J. P. Gilliver (John)
wrote:


My main concern over SSDs is still of sudden and complete failure - more
so than HDDs (which I know - yes, from experience - _can_ go suddenly,
but _tend_ not to).

ssds are significantly more reliable than hard drives, but if they do
fail, they generally give warning (via smart) and often fail read-only,
which means you can still access your data.

Yes, I know everybody should be backing up their
system, on the hour, every hour, to a remote site, so it - but come on,
some of us want to _use_ our computers.

backups can happen in the background.

backups can also be scheduled to run in the middle of the night when
you *aren't* using your computer.

better yet, do both, to two different targets.

so: using an SSD, is there anything - either something in the SSD, or
third party software - that will _reliably_ give, say, a month's warning
of failure? (And by "failure" I include go-to-read-only.)

yes, via smart. you can also run a diagnostic every so often.

or just not worry about it since ssds fail a *lot* less than hard
drives do.

On 6/28/2020 3:04 PM, nospam wrote:
ssds are significantly more reliable than hard drives, but if they do
fail, they generally give warning (via smart) and often fail read-only,
which means you can still access your data.

In general, I'd agree, except I discovered the world's worst batch of
SSD's which not only fail, they fail so that they can't even be read.
They're from Adata the SU630 through to the SU800 model range of 500 GB
SSD's. Stay away from them. They overheat inside their own cases, even
if there is adequate case cooling for HDD's and other SSD's.

Yousuf Khan

On 28/06/2020 20.37, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
On Sun, 28 Jun 2020 at 07:53:20, Stan Brown
wrote:
On Sun, 28 Jun 2020 13:47:46 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:

On 28/06/2020 12.17, Yousuf Khan wrote:
[]
The first thing I look at is the disk. If it is rotating rust, I upgrade
to SSD. That alone improves performance a lot.

Second that. In my very limited experience, SSD with slower CPU makes
for a faster experience overall than HDD with faster CPU.

OK you guys. I accept (daft not to) that SSDs are faster than HDDs.
(Though I do have of course the nagging feeling that lazy programmers
will soon have eliminated that advantage - but they're going to rule the
roost for everyone anyway, so that's irrelevant.)

No, programmers will not eliminate that advantage. On the contrary, they
will make use of it and expect that everybody has an SSD. Same as today
they expect people to have 16 GB of RAM or more, fast processors and
fast video. Because they have it.

I have seen database code that is slow as molasses when using a hard
disk, almost a decade ago. It was designed for SSD, back then.



My main concern over SSDs is still of sudden and complete failure - more
so than HDDs (which I know - yes, from experience - _can_ go suddenly,
but _tend_ not to). Yes, I know everybody should be backing up their
system, on the hour, every hour, to a remote site, so it - but come on,
some of us want to _use_ our computers.

Backup to hard disk instead of remote.



so: using an SSD, is there anything - either something in the SSD, or
third party software - that will _reliably_ give, say, a month's warning
of failure? (And by "failure" I include go-to-read-only.)

Maybe. Use SMART.




--
Cheers, Carlos.