Engineering machines

Gregry254 · 16 Sep 2011 at 14:10

I just bought an out of warranty PC from my work for my old man. They charge £30 for the PC, monitor, keyboard, mouse and all wires. I thought to myself "for £30 it will be ok for him to surf the net and go on skype"

I just spoke to the woman that deals with IT here and she said she doesn't know what processor is in it but it has 4GB of RAM and a graphics card.

Now this PC must be about 3 years old! I built my last gaming PC 3 years ago and wasn't 100% sure about putting 4GB of RAM in it then. (I will know the full specs when I pick it up on Monday)

So my question is . . . do PCs used for engineering purposes, like 3D design and such need to be as powerful as a higher end gaming machine?

Reaper 392 · 16 Sep 2011 at 14:12

if your doing really complicated engineering work then i would say its going to be pretty close. however, no matter what card you've got just the 4GB RAM and the existence of the other parts will put its value far above the £30 you paid

i would download CPU-Z and see what youve got in there

logi-cat · 16 Sep 2011 at 14:17

I'm not an expert but i think engineering pc tend to have decent specs, such as huge amount of ram and a quick processors due to the fact they need to carry out simulations etc.

Gregry254 · 16 Sep 2011 at 14:29

I will do on Monday when I pick it up.

Looks like he might get more than he bargained for with his £30 . . . will be a fair upgrade from the 5/6 year old Dell he is using now anyway!

Curriemaster · 16 Sep 2011 at 14:42

It depends on what type of engineering work; I work in laser microengineering and some of our PCs run Labview and thus require a decent amount of RAM + a multi-core processor. Others run Solidworks which require specific graphics cards (not gaming ones - although i think they would still work alright on games) like the nVidia Quadro and ATI FireGL. Finally some run Matlab which wants as much RAM and as fast a processor as you can get. You might even find you have a random PCI card like a NI-DAQ card or something...bonus!

In any case £30 sounds a total bargain. Enjoy!

logi-cat · 16 Sep 2011 at 14:43

Could be looking at a core 2 duo at least. let us know what you get

Gregry254 · 16 Sep 2011 at 15:11

Is it wrong that I am a little excited to see what the luck of the draw gives, even though I will never use the thing?! lol

I am considering taking the monitor and using it as a second monitor so I don't have to minimise games to pay the GF some attention on MSN

logi-cat · 16 Sep 2011 at 15:30

like you said for £30 and your getting all that, it's already a win win situation.

hardkore · 16 Sep 2011 at 17:40

Our auto cad computers at work should be pretty powerful but arn't (tight ghets)

Few of the pc's had old AMD fx single core processors and ATi cards. Either way a bargain at £30 even if it is just used for surfing etc.

olivier renault · 16 Sep 2011 at 20:59

Bargain really. Unless your old man plays crysis

Gregry254 · 20 Sep 2011 at 20:15

I had a look when I got it and it has 2x Xenon processors, 1.6ghz dual core and there is 2 processors with 4gb of RAM so I am sure it will suffice for his web surfing and online poker lol.

The graphics card that was in it was some kind of Nvidea quatro? As I was installing windows on his PC my new one decided to turn off and refuse to play anymore!! so I didn't spend too much time on his PC needless to say!

KelDG · 20 Sep 2011 at 20:52

You sir, have just grabbed yourself a bargain.

ExecutorKevin · 20 Sep 2011 at 21:02

very jealous >_>

logi-cat · 20 Sep 2011 at 21:16

Any chance you can get me one?

Gregry254 · 20 Sep 2011 at 21:41

No can do I am afraid

only one per employee and I only bothered getting one because the old man was moaning about his being old and slow now lol

TheJackal · 20 Sep 2011 at 21:52

That Quadro card will have been a pretty penny when it was new.

Dave · 20 Sep 2011 at 21:54

Gregry254 said:
So my question is . . . do PCs used for engineering purposes, like 3D design and such need to be as powerful as a higher end gaming machine?

Yes and no - if it's properly high end then it will have a Quadro or something in it which is fantastically powerful at rendering and not so useful at gaming

Can't go too wrong for £30 though - even a standard desktop PC with 4gb of RAM in it can't be too shabby!

panyan · 20 Sep 2011 at 22:04

Gregry254 said:
I had a look when I got it and it has 2x Xenon processors, 1.6ghz dual core and there is 2 processors with 4gb of RAM so I am sure it will suffice for his web surfing and online poker lol.

The graphics card that was in it was some kind of Nvidea quatro? As I was installing windows on his PC my new one decided to turn off and refuse to play anymore!! so I didn't spend too much time on his PC needless to say!

very lucky to get components that good!

ExecutorKevin · 20 Sep 2011 at 23:25

get him a £30 pentium 4 off gumtree and that. 2x xenons and that card are going to be thirsty, and that psu will be probably loud including the fans. (check what make and age the psu is)

PhillyDee · 20 Sep 2011 at 23:31

It was £30 because everything has a value to an accountant

. Its seen as reasonable, they don't actually have to day what they sold you, just an 'office pc'.

uck of the draw, you got a decent one for it!