Looks like it is time to upgrade the computer (already) New SUPER fast NVMe drives incoming.

[Gromett]

Stick with me on this, I do get to the point

In May 2020 I upgraded my computer. This was my first upgrade since 2012 (Thanks mitzimad for taking old one off my hands).
I was fully expecting this one to last a lot longer as I brought this upgrade forward.

I got a Ryzen 3600 which was the sweet spot on price/performance at that point in time.
So I am on PCIe V3 and DDR4.

Since then PCIe V4 and DDR5 came out.

Now PCIe V5 is out. Each generation doubles the transfer speed.

The jump from 3.0 to 5.0 means going from 4GB/s on a PCIe x4 connection to 16GB/s on a PCIe x5 connection.

I didn't bother getting a PCIe4 motherboard when I bought because NVMe drives for PCIe V4 were not a great deal faster, and tech journalists were saying this was because the manufacturers of Flash memory were at the limits of speed for NVMe on PCIe V3 so there wouldn't be much gain on PCIe V4.

Here is the point (finally).

PCIe V5 drives with a transfer rate of 14GB/s could be coming as soon as 2024. By then DDR5 memory should be mainstream and at an acceptable price. (DDR5 is not much faster than DDR4 current and costs a HUGE amount more)

PCIe 5.0 SSDs promising up to 14GB/s of bandwidth will be ready in 2024

Silicon Motion’s PCIe 5.0 controller will show up in plenty of drives.

arstechnica.com

So a PCIe 5 system with DDR5 memory and a new 14GB/s NVME sounds extremely attractive upgrade. So this computer will only have lasted 4 years by the time I upgrade it.

It has been a long time since big jumps in performance from one generation of CPU to the next happened. In the 90's and early 00's your computer was out of date pretty much within weeks of you buying it the pace was that fast.
AMD face planted with it's bulldozer architecture and the pressure was off intel to improve and lower prices. Ryzen has changed all that and the competition is having fantastic results for progress... We are back to having computers that are significantly faster every 2 years or so.
This is brilliant.

 

[Gromett]

HOLY CRAP!!!! I just looked at how much I paid and how much they are now.
Ryzen 3600 I paid £155 for it. Price on Amazon is now £238 and it is not even the most recent generation chip anymore.
Motherboard, I paid £75.99 for it. Price on Amazon is no £109.35 and it is also a generation behind and on the budget B450 Chipset.

In total I paid £231 for them and they would now cost £347 if I wanted to buy today. The chip shortage has really blown the prices up.

Just looked at GFX cards which I do know have shot up in price. I paid £229 for my GTX 1660 Super. Prices now if you can find one are at £433..

I am so glad I bought just before the chip shortage kicked in...

 

[Gellyneck]

HOLY CRAP!!!! I just looked at how much I paid and how much they are now.
Ryzen 3600 I paid £155 for it. Price on Amazon is now £238 and it is not even the most recent generation chip anymore.
Motherboard, I paid £75.99 for it. Price on Amazon is no £109.35 and it is also a generation behind and on the budget B450 Chipset.

In total I paid £231 for them and they would now cost £347 if I wanted to buy today. The chip shortage has really blown the prices up.

Just looked at GFX cards which I do know have shot up in price. I paid £229 for my GTX 1660 Super. Prices now if you can find one are at £433..

I am so glad I bought just before the chip shortage kicked in...

Built my current desktop about four months after yourself but as no requirement for gaming went for some different components.
AMD had just released their "in-built" graphics Ryzen 5 5600G and it's actually come down in price £240 to £200. The trials and tribulation of being an early adopter!
Went for a B550 chipset board and it's gone up from £101 to £164.
2 x 16Gb of DDR4 up from £133 to £164.
Kind of mirrors your thoughts on chip prices.

 

[Gromett]

Built my current desktop about four months after yourself but as no requirement for gaming went for some different components.
AMD had just released their "in-built" graphics Ryzen 5 5600G and it's actually come down in price £240 to £200. The trials and tribulation of being an early adopter!
Went for a B550 chipset board and it's gone up from £101 to £164.
2 x 16Gb of DDR4 up from £133 to £164.
Kind of mirrors your thoughts on chip prices.

I just missed the 5500G. If it had been available at the time I would have gone for so I could virtualise my displays.

 

[Minxy]

Ask yourself ... do you REALLY need the 'extra' that comes with a new one or does what you have meet your needs?

Same as phones ... do you really need one with a mahoooosive pixel capacity photo taking facility which you'll end up continually resizing to be able to post on forums etc and you'd only notice the actual difference in quality if you blew the image up to the size of a double decker bus?

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[Lenny HB]

Ask yourself ... do you REALLY need the 'extra' that comes with a new one or does what you have meet your needs?

Same as phones ... do you really need one with a mahoooosive pixel capacity photo taking facility which you'll end up continually resizing to be able to post on forums etc and you'd only notice the actual difference in quality if you blew the image up to the size of a double decker bus?

Men do.

 

[Gellyneck]

Men do.

A bit like wummin!

Why do they need more than one pair of diamond earrings when they've only got two lugs?

 

[Gromett]

Ask yourself ... do you REALLY need the 'extra' that comes with a new one or does what you have meet your needs?

Same as phones ... do you really need one with a mahoooosive pixel capacity photo taking facility which you'll end up continually resizing to be able to post on forums etc and you'd only notice the actual difference in quality if you blew the image up to the size of a double decker bus?

You are talking to someone who's last computer lasted him 8+ years and it is what I make my living from. This computer is the first one with an NVME drive years after they became available.
That said from a tax point of view I should be replacing them every 3 years because that is how long it takes for my company to depreciate them for tax purposes.

The reason for an upgrade for me would be for practical reasons.
1) I would go for a 5600G CPU (or next generation equivalent) As this would give me 2 GPU's in my system allowing me to virtualise one of the GPU's. This means I could get rid of my dual boot, this would be big for me.
2) This new faster drive would improve the speed at which I could work, It is a work thing. Currently when compiling code it is disk speed that limits me not CPU speed.
3) With PCI5 I could use bifurcation without impacting performance. This would allow me to say split my x16 PCIe v3 into 4 x x4 PCI v5 slots and not lose any performance. I could then have say a network card that has direct to CPU lanes rather than going through the bridge.

On phones. I am with you on that. I bought my last phone a Galaxy Note 2 on May 3rd 2013. This phone an Honor 7c I bought on the 23rd Nov 2018. So that Galaxy lasted me 5½ years. I only 'upgraded' because I wanted to donate my Note 2 to my mum who couldn't afford a new phone to replace her old one. The Honor 7c phone is still fantastic and I love it and it only cost me £150. I can't believe I paid touching £500 for my Note 2... I will be sticking with my Honor 7c until it breaks.

 

[Tombola]

The Honor 7c phone is still fantastic and I love it and it only cost me £150

same with me on the phones...gone are the days I pay samsung or the apple thieves the money the ask.
Im on the blackview range, ive dropped it more time than Ive had hot dinners, my lads car tyre went over it and is still going strong. £150.00

thanks for the info on the PC speeds Im a speed freak, cant be doing with slow pcs, this laptop I have now goes well

 

[Gromett]

In case anyone is wondering why I am after virtualisation of my GPU... (probably not)

Currently my main boot drive boots up to Linux for work where I spend 99% of my time. Occasionally usually during public holidays I get together with family and friends and play World of Warcraft (Wow). I have been doing this practically since the game launched.
Wow requires Windows. I currently dual boot. However, if I get a work call out it means dropping out of the game and rebooting, only to find a 10 seconds fix for the client then reboot back into wow to find I am behind my friends and family.

Virtualisation would be the best answer, however to do this you need two GPU's as the regular GTX graphics cards don't allow you split them up like you can with a CPU.

With an upgrade to a 5600G for instance which has a gpu in it. I could use the 5600G CPU for my Linux desktop and use PCIe passthrough on my GTX 1660 Super into a Windows Virtual machine giving that windows machine full access to the hardware graphics card rather than a virtualised one.
Then I could use a tool called Looking Glass which copies the framebuffer of the physical (but virtualised) GTX into the framebuffer of the 5600G built in GPU. This would make Windows applications and games look like they were running natively in Linux. No dual boot, no switching monitor channels or any other messing around.

Then when I am playing Wow and a ticket comes in, I can simply ALT+TAB to my linux desktop, give the necessary response and ALT+TAB back.

It would also be useful for when client call and say they are getting some weird results in say the Edge browser, currently I can't replicate that.

Many other reasons, but it would make my life easier.

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