SpyderTracks
We love you Ukraine
We do have a few regulars who could advise on that.
Specifying for minimal quiescent power while using W10 Task Scheduler
- Thread starter GidRea
- Start date
2060 cards: I hadn't twigged before it's ASUS versus Nvidia as suppliers of the card. That's why I couldn't "compare" them before. Although still the companies' websites fall short in giving full information.
Anyhow, the big difference I can see is the Asus takes 2.7 slots, the nVidia only 2. The Asus may offer more choice of DP/HDMI monitor connection, nVidia adds USB-C.
Any idea if the 2.7 width is likely to be a significant disadvantage on this motherboard?
Anyhow, the big difference I can see is the Asus takes 2.7 slots, the nVidia only 2. The Asus may offer more choice of DP/HDMI monitor connection, nVidia adds USB-C.
Any idea if the 2.7 width is likely to be a significant disadvantage on this motherboard?
Detail: This is-it-the-same-thing review implies "Dual" relates to having two fans (and says it is huge). Also clearly visible, it has two HDMI and two DP as well as DVI. That's not saying they can all be used at once. No USB.
https://www.trustedreviews.com/reviews/nvidia-rtx-2060-super (confusingly, web address refers to the GPU not the reviewed card)
Looking at Asus website, the specification tab comes up blank, but they do say it's 2.7 slots deep, and one can just see that as per that review, what looks like 2xDP, 2xHDMI, DVI.
Looking at nVidia's website (now I realise it's them), there's less useful pictures, but they say theirs is is 2 slots deep, and supports HDMI, DP, DVI, USB and four monitors (PCS say 3), but there's no picture of the outside edge, so I guess it has one each of those. So one monitor uses each of HDMI & DP.
So the only downside of the Asus, which may be significant, is that it takes up more space (I guess it potentially covers over a slot on the motherboard that the nVidia might permit to be used). And can't do USB. But it may well let me choose between DP & HDMI for both monitors.
SpyderTracks
We love you Ukraine
Ah, you're getting confused.
NVidia do make one line of graphics card model called the Founders Edition but other than that, they don't make any cards, they just make the actual GPU chip like Intel just make the CPU, not the entire motherboard that holds it.
But all GPU's are either NVidia or AMD, that's the architecture of the GPU which is just the single silicon chip that's used, much like a CPU.
When it states NVidia RTX 2060, it's just stating it's an nvidia architecture of the 2060 model. The manufacturer is pot luck, could be gigabyte, Palit, Zotac, or any others that are currently available. They all perform very much the same as they're using the same GPU chip, the only difference is the board design and cooling.
The Asus cards are listed separately as any Asus model has a premium just for the Asus branding. The fact it's cheaper now is simply down to supply and demand, GPU prices are crazy at the moment, they fluctuate hugely on a daily basis.
The height of the card has no impact on the motherboard really, or certainly not any worth concerning yourself about, it's more about the case, but that case will be fine with it, it's a superb case despite the low cost. A lot of top range cards which that motherboard is fully designed to fit would be a 3 slot height.
The USB slot on the 2000 series cards was dropped after that range, it's purely for VR headsets, doesn't have much use outside that.
NVidia do make one line of graphics card model called the Founders Edition but other than that, they don't make any cards, they just make the actual GPU chip like Intel just make the CPU, not the entire motherboard that holds it.
But all GPU's are either NVidia or AMD, that's the architecture of the GPU which is just the single silicon chip that's used, much like a CPU.
When it states NVidia RTX 2060, it's just stating it's an nvidia architecture of the 2060 model. The manufacturer is pot luck, could be gigabyte, Palit, Zotac, or any others that are currently available. They all perform very much the same as they're using the same GPU chip, the only difference is the board design and cooling.
The Asus cards are listed separately as any Asus model has a premium just for the Asus branding. The fact it's cheaper now is simply down to supply and demand, GPU prices are crazy at the moment, they fluctuate hugely on a daily basis.
The height of the card has no impact on the motherboard really, or certainly not any worth concerning yourself about, it's more about the case, but that case will be fine with it, it's a superb case despite the low cost. A lot of top range cards which that motherboard is fully designed to fit would be a 3 slot height.
The USB slot on the 2000 series cards was dropped after that range, it's purely for VR headsets, doesn't have much use outside that.
Ok, I'll order it then. Fingers crossed.
I'm hoping that by the time it arrives I can do a clean install of W11 on it, I think I've got three licenses I can legitimately recycle.
I might top it up to the budget with a speedier boot SSD, or 32GB RAM (I gather Photoshop appreciates that, although I'm far from sure it will be PS as such that's used, given the cost).
I'm hoping that by the time it arrives I can do a clean install of W11 on it, I think I've got three licenses I can legitimately recycle.
I might top it up to the budget with a speedier boot SSD, or 32GB RAM (I gather Photoshop appreciates that, although I'm far from sure it will be PS as such that's used, given the cost).
SpyderTracks
We love you Ukraine
Both those upgrades would give a positive impact.
If the budget doesn't reach for both now, I'd suggest upping the SSD to a Samsung 980 Pro (just lovely drives) and then you can always add an addition 2 x 8Gb RAM at a later date yourself, it's very easy as I'm sure you're aware.
Mmm, yes, with the 500GB boot SSD, and the cheaper GFX card, compared to your original, even adding your cheapest 256GB scratch SSD - the budget would just allow me to change the boot SSD from Intel 670p to Samsung 980, doubling & tripling the R and W speeds of the boot disk.
That leaves the scratch SSD as the obvious laggard. There's a huge difference in (at least nominal) speed between that cheapest 256GB (1900/1100) and all the faster drives. Is speeding up scratch useful - you suggested it could even be SATA, suggesting not? When you wrote "scratch" is that OS/Application nominated workspace, or somewhere for users to drag files off the NAS to work on them?
The budget would just about let me make both SSDs 250GB Samsung 980s, but is 250GB too small for the boot, wanting a long life?
Or both 500GB Samsung 970s (about half nominal speed of 980s). There aren't many 250GB options.
The budget creep option is £1531 giving a 500GB 980 for boot and a 250GB 970 for scratch. If that's useful.
That leaves the scratch SSD as the obvious laggard. There's a huge difference in (at least nominal) speed between that cheapest 256GB (1900/1100) and all the faster drives. Is speeding up scratch useful - you suggested it could even be SATA, suggesting not? When you wrote "scratch" is that OS/Application nominated workspace, or somewhere for users to drag files off the NAS to work on them?
The budget would just about let me make both SSDs 250GB Samsung 980s, but is 250GB too small for the boot, wanting a long life?
Or both 500GB Samsung 970s (about half nominal speed of 980s). There aren't many 250GB options.
The budget creep option is £1531 giving a 500GB 980 for boot and a 250GB 970 for scratch. If that's useful.
SpyderTracks
We love you Ukraine
As in the links, the scratch drive is generally used for offloading cache when RAM reaches capacity and for the media cache which temporarily stores music file and scrubbing data that's used in the workflow and speeds up general performance.
You may find that the intel m2 is around the same cost as a basic SATA SSD anyway, if so go for the m2
250Gb would be too small as an OS drive. 512 really is the minimum these days.
Oops! I'd misunderstood you originally about scratch. I didn't see any SATA SSD in drop down (because it's the M2 drop down, doh! I'd assumed it was drop down for all the SSDs). So my "laggard" was already your cheapest M2 256GB SSD. That's in budget.
Now I see the SATA SSDs under the correct drop down - and yes, they're half the speed again of your slowest/cheapest M2 SSD.
If scratch speed is really beneficial, I guess that could be a good place to creep the budget.
If scratch size was useful (nobody's suggested that), it could stay slow-M2 and go to 512GB Intel 660 for £17 over budget.
Now I see the SATA SSDs under the correct drop down - and yes, they're half the speed again of your slowest/cheapest M2 SSD.
£23 for SATA 250GB SSD.
£27 for own-brand basic M2 250GB SSD that's ~2x the SATA speed. £1 over budget, pedantically 
.
.£57 for Samsung 970 250GB that's ~4x the SATA speed. £30 over budget.
£65 for Samsung 980 250GB that's ~8x the SATA speed. £38 over budget.
I don't know how the nominal R/W speeds relate to useful performance - somewhat I imagine.
If scratch speed is really beneficial, I guess that could be a good place to creep the budget.
If scratch size was useful (nobody's suggested that), it could stay slow-M2 and go to 512GB Intel 660 for £17 over budget.
Martinr36
MOST VALUED CONTRIBUTOR
Also look at the intel 670p, probably between the 970 and the PCSOops! I'd misunderstood you originally about scratch. I didn't see any SATA SSD in drop down (because it's the M2 drop down, doh! I'd assumed it was drop down for all the SSDs). So my "laggard" was already your cheapest M2 256GB SSD. That's in budget.
Now I see the SATA SSDs under the correct drop down - and yes, they're half the speed again of your slowest/cheapest M2 SSD.
£23 for SATA 250GB SSD.£27 for own-brand basic M2 250GB SSD that's ~2x the SATA speed. £1 over budget, pedantically£57 for Samsung 970 250GB that's ~4x the SATA speed. £30 over budget.£65 for Samsung 980 250GB that's ~8x the SATA speed. £38 over budget.I don't know how the nominal R/W speeds relate to useful performance - somewhat I imagine.
If scratch speed is really beneficial, I guess that could be a good place to creep the budget.
If scratch size was useful (nobody's suggested that), it could stay slow-M2 and go to 512GB Intel 660 for £17 over budget.
RichLan564
Bright Spark
If you did indeed want to be virtuous about CO2 and other crap you wouldn't even be on the internet!
Take it from somebody with industry experience that your few kWh is a miniscule drop in a rather vast ocean compared to what's sat behind this very site and the rest of the internet!
You would make more difference by stopping eating meat one day a week than worrying about how much energy your PC uses in its dormant state
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SpyderTracks
We love you Ukraine
This forum is powered entirely by pixie dustIf you did indeed want to be virtuous about CO2 and other crap you wouldn't even be on the internet!
Take it from somebody with industry experience that your few kWh is a miniscule drop in a rather vast ocean compared to what's sat behind this very site and the rest of the internet!
You would make more difference by stopping eating meat one day a week than worrying about how much energy your PC uses in its dormant state
True story.
RichLan564
Bright Spark
Oh yes, i don't doubt that!
If you have never been inside a 60MW data centre it's pretty hard to comprehend the infrastructure required by some of the social media giants to power a little blue thumbs up button!
TonyCarter
VALUED CONTRIBUTOR
But have you seen the price of pixie dust lately - it's shot up dramatically due to a pixie shortage 😤
I'm going completely green...I've got a leprechaun locked up in the basement
RichLan564
Bright Spark
Apologies, wasn't intended to make fun.
Well, there's some points. Most of my development career was spent with customers acutely sensitive to cost (bills), or, whose product performance relied in part on minimising power. Remarkable the difference in an industry where profits are high enough to not care. Although I imagine data centre managers go to some lengths to avoid capacity being idle, since that's also not earning.
Perhaps energy is too cheap. I'm sure the UK's current fuel hilarity could be cured at a stroke by adding 50p to the price of a litre....
Good job the spec part of this thread is, I hope, resolved now. Degeneration is allowed.
Perhaps energy is too cheap. I'm sure the UK's current fuel hilarity could be cured at a stroke by adding 50p to the price of a litre....
Good job the spec part of this thread is, I hope, resolved now. Degeneration is allowed.
SpyderTracks
We love you Ukraine
Apologies, absolutely didn't intend any offence at all.
I am still of the opinion that requiring a pc on 24/7 to serve the NAS is unnecessary in the first instance so the power problems are moot anyway to a certain degree.
SpyderTracks
We love you Ukraine
I work for an MSP serving about 20,000 clients on about 20 different domains. We rent space in a huge data center, and our entire infrastructure takes up quite frankly a tiny cage in their warehouse, the size of a small bedroom.If you did indeed want to be virtuous about CO2 and other crap you wouldn't even be on the internet!
Take it from somebody with industry experience that your few kWh is a miniscule drop in a rather vast ocean compared to what's sat behind this very site and the rest of the internet!
You would make more difference by stopping eating meat one day a week than worrying about how much energy your PC uses in its dormant state
The data center itself though is absolutely vast, the size of several football fields and on multiple levels.
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RichLan564
Bright Spark
Getting off topic slightly but which provider do you use ?
ubuysa
The BSOD Doctor
Times have certainly changed, and rightly so. From the late 1980s until the early 2000s I was the senior system programmer in a large IBM mainframe data centre. We had a small sub-station outside to power the two mainframes and their related kit. I've no idea what the power draw was but I do know that about 75% of the power we put into the hardware just created heat - so we poured another shed load of power into a big cooling system to dump that waste heat into the atmosphere. We didn't know any better back then I guess, we certainly never thought about the impact of our power use - nor did any other large data centre. We didn't even use the waste heat from the machine room to heat the building in winter!
BTW. The PC on which I type this has a much more powerful spec than the biggest of the two mainframes we had. The IBM 3082 we had boasted a dual core CPU and 2GB of RAM. Our DASD farm (DASD = Direct Access Storage Device - AKA disk drive) was somewhat less than a terrabyte - and it was considered huge at the time. What was advanced was the IBM operating system (MVS, then OS/390 and later z/OS - but all basically the same technology) which enabled that one mainframe to support sub-second transactions from close on 5,000 concurrent users. Even with the additional power my PC has, Windows couldn't do that.....
Also off topic, sorry. But it does show how rapidly we've come to apreciate the impact of our energy use and how to get the most out of what we do use.