[deep_bang]

Originally Posted by Everlearner

Regarding using existing HDD for data, since the HDD is old, I'm wary that it might give up and I may lose data. What do you think?

When I check Amazon/Flipkart, Crucial BX500 series are costing lesser than MX500 series. Ex: for 500GB, the diff is ~Rs.800. Is it worth going for MX500 series?

SSDs usually are considered less reliable than HDDs. The reason is that they have a limited write cycles. The difference usually between the MX and BX and similarly in the case of WD green Vs WD blue is the number of write cycles that the manufacturer assures. Generally, the MX/WD blue type of drives are more resilient. However, for home use, to upgrade an already old PC, I would simply suggest to buy the crucial BX or WD green.

As I said, HDDs are very very reliable. Don't go by just the age. For basic usage, HDDs last over 10 years. Even if you buy a new disk there is always a chance of drives going bad. So ALWAYS have a backup of everything important and I would suggest to continue to use your old HDD as a storage drive but maintain a backup. Use the SSD as your windows drive and where the OS resides.

[Aroy]

Originally Posted by deep_bang

..........................

As I said, HDDs are very very reliable. Don't go by just the age. For basic usage, HDDs last over 10 years. Even if you buy a new disk there is always a chance of drives going bad. So ALWAYS have a backup of everything important and I would suggest to continue to use your old HDD as a storage drive but maintain a backup. Use the SSD as your windows drive and where the OS resides.

I can vouch for that. I have had desktops since before 1990. Most of my older IDE disks are still there. I have recently copied them to other old SATA disks. Barring a few SATA disks that have failed due to the board, all my decades old disks are fine.

Now that I have switched from a Desktop workstation to a laptop, I use the older HDD (20GB, 80GB, 160GB, 300GB, 750GB, 1TB and 2TB) for long term backup.

So do not give up the older HDD, just use them for archival storage. With good care they will last decades, which no SSD can match.

[Prowler]

I have a dire situation:
I have been working with AI for over a couple of decades - mostly using ancient Intel CPUs running Perl.

But the arrival of ChatGpt has forced us to develop using 'modern' technology or close down the business. Any deep learning module requires GPU and high end CPUs now.

I have a 10 year old Mac mini with 16 GB RAM and 500 GB SSD drive ( I have upgraded over a period of time) - but most software need the current Mac OS and not my Catalina OS. Besides they need M1/M2 chips and not Intel i5.

To cut a long story short, I am looking at a new Mac Mini with M2 Processor costing about 58k with just 8 GB RAM or go for a Windows Laptop with I7 processor with a decent affordable GPU like RTX 3050 costing around 70k.

Please suggest a good, powerful Laptop within 70k tops.

[Samfromindia]

Originally Posted by Prowler

Please suggest a good, powerful Laptop within 70k tops.

You will get the best laptop deals during the BBD sale on September / October. Wait for that sale window. I got my laptop for almost 50% discount during that time.

https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/gadge...your-rigs.html (The Computer setup show-off thread. Let's see your rigs!)

in 70K you are supposed to get a midrange CPU + GPU combo.

[Aroy]

Originally Posted by Prowler

I have a dire situation:
I have been working with AI for over a couple of decades - mostly using ancient Intel CPUs running Perl.

............................

To cut a long story short, I am looking at a new Mac Mini with M2 Processor costing about 58k with just 8 GB RAM or go for a Windows Laptop with I7 processor with a decent affordable GPU like RTX 3050 costing around 70k.

Please suggest a good, powerful Laptop within 70k tops.

I have migrated from Intel dual Xeon (10+ years old) to Ryzen 5000 series Laptop with AMD Radeon graphics - Lenovo Thinkpad E14 with 24GB RAM and 512GB SSD.

As far as computing power the Laptop is faster than the old Xeon in upto 4 threads. Where Xeon beats the Laptop is in 8 threads (vs 6). In my old system I had 2 graphics cards but the laptop graphics is faster.

If you do not need the computing power of I7, then Ryzen 5500/5600 is enough. Further the Thinkpads are much better built and display is superior to the run of the mill laptops at 50-80K. So it is your call.

By the way I have two external monitors - 4K and HD attached to give me 3 screens. I also have USBC hub so that I can use 3 external HDD. For legacy I have a SATA hub that caters to legacy SATA drives.

[NetfreakBombay]

Originally Posted by Prowler

I have a dire situation:
I have been working with AI ......
To cut a long story short, I am looking at a new Mac Mini with M2 Processor costing about 58k with just 8 GB RAM or go for a Windows Laptop with I7 processor with a decent affordable GPU like RTX 3050 costing around 70k.

For AI, laptops are not ideal. Even a desktop CPU might do better as compared to RTX in Laptop. Max amount of memory you will get in GPU will be 4 - 6 GB in laptop. This is not sufficient for practical projects since weights for even a simple LSTM will be > 6 GB (beyond getting-started tutorials) .

On desktop, you can add a GPU with 8 GB / 16 GB if needed.

[Prowler]

Originally Posted by NetfreakBombay

For AI, laptops are not ideal. Even a desktop CPU might do better as compared to RTX in Laptop. Max amount of memory you will get in GPU will be 4 - 6 GB in laptop. This is not sufficient for practical projects since weights for even a simple LSTM will be > 6 GB (beyond getting-started tutorials) .

On desktop, you can add a GPU with 8 GB / 16 GB if needed.

Thanks. Can you suggest some GPU for a desk top configuration ? I actually opted for laptop which will allow me portability. I am working on a LLM which specifies a minimum of 4 GB with at least Intel i7 processor or an Apple M2. A Windows laptop will also allow me to edit 4k Video without breaking into a sweat.

[Everlearner]

Originally Posted by Everlearner

Thank you everyone for your valuable inputs.

True, 500GB SSD is costing ~2-2.5k and 1TH ~5-5.5k. I don't want to spend too much on an old laptop, so thinking of the 500GB one.

Agree completely on reducing ewaste, but as said above, I'm just wary that it might completely give up soon. Is there a way to check this.

When I check Amazon/Flipkart, Crucial BX500 series are costing lesser than MX500 series. Ex: for 500GB, the diff is ~Rs.800. Is it worth going for MX500 series?

Originally Posted by deep_bang

As I said, HDDs are very very reliable. Don't go by just the age. For basic usage, HDDs last over 10 years.

So ALWAYS have a backup of everything important and I would suggest to continue to use your old HDD as a storage drive but maintain a backup. Use the SSD as your windows drive and where the OS resides.

Thanks for the suggestions. I thought about going for BX series, but went ahead and ordered the Crucial MX series 500 GB one since it seems to have a longer warranty and better life.
Also, when I checked with a local laptop repair guy, he quoted Rs.800 for installation of SSD. On Amazon, the MX series SSD had an offer of installation service for Rs.200 (the BX series did not have this). So I had to spend either Rs.2100 + 800 = Rs.2900 nstallation for BX series or Rs. 2894+ 200 = Rs. 3100 installation for MX series. So, I went for MX series only since it has longer warranty and possible longer life.

https://www.amazon.in/gp/product/B07...?ie=UTF8&psc=1


I'm happy that I went ahead with this upgrade. The laptop runs very smooth after the switch and the boot time is very quick especially compared to my old HDD.

Installation offer included included fitting the SSD, installing windows and basic software like office etc., and a copy from old HDD upto 100GB.
The installation guy quickly fitted it in and installed windows from a copy he had in his pen drive. But, he could not troubleshoot other issues listed below.
1. My numlock is not working after windows re-install
2. I had licensed version of MS office 2013 bought under HUP program. He could not download the correct version of office. He tried activating MSO 2016 with my product key, but it was not successful
3. My old HDD had 2 partitions, one FAT and one NTFS. When he connected my old HDD via USB and and tried to copy data, my NTFS partition could not be accessed. He told me the drive might be encrypted. I vaguely remember doing something like this few years back, but don't remember any password. He was clueless as well on possible solutions.
4. Windows updates got stuck with a message that some important security fixes are missing.

Anyway, since it was a working day, I told him that he can leave and I will try to resolve the issues later. I installed correct version of MSO from the link I received from Microsoft when I purchased the license. Yet to work on other issues.

BTW, any recommendation for a good case to put my old HDD and connect it via USB?

[NetfreakBombay]

Originally Posted by Prowler

Thanks. Can you suggest some GPU for a desk top configuration ? I actually opted for laptop which will allow me portability. I am working on a LLM which specifies a minimum of 4 GB with at least Intel i7 processor or an Apple M2.

LLM will need large amount of memory. There are two reasonable choices :

1. Buy M2 Machine with 64 / 128 GB memory
2. Live with PC CPU + RAM + RTX 4090 and let training run overnight (For fine-tuning of LLMs)

With M2 , RAM is shared between CPU and GPU; and that is beneficial in quite a few cases.

What is the bottleneck with current Mac mini .. How much time does it take to run inference with LLM . You can use Falcon 7b as an example.

[Prowler]

Originally Posted by NetfreakBombay

LLM will need large amount of memory.


What is the bottleneck with current Mac mini .. How much time does it take to run inference with LLM . You can use Falcon 7b as an example.

Thanks again. I didn’t run LLM in the 2012 Mac Mini as it lacked a GPU. The version I am trying to get it to work requires NVIDIA GPU for CUDA optimization.
I can’t buy a Mac Mini with 16 GB or higher as it becomes tooo expensive. Intel i7 with 8 core and 16 threads coupled with a RTX 3050 meets my minimum requirements and time is not an issue. It will also come in handy for serious Video editing.

There was a time, not long ago we used to have a couple of designers for illustrations. Now the mac mini does the job with AI. Even this work will be handed over to the new laptop.

[NetfreakBombay]

Originally Posted by Prowler

Intel i7 with 8 core and 16 threads coupled with a RTX 3050 meets my minimum requirements and time is not an issue. It will also come in handy for serious Video editing.

Consider this Dell G5

1. H series CPU. GPU/CPU Wont throttle even if you leave tuning jobs run overnight
2. Has 2 RAM slots, you can put in 16 / 32 GB stick in empty slot
3. Downsides : Not that portable and battery backup is not good. Designed only for heavy workloads that are mostly plugged-in.

[carboy]

What is the difference between Dell's Vostro Series & Dell's Inspiron Series? I know Vostro is aimed at small businesses & Inspiron at home users? But if someone want to buy Vostro for home use, practically what is the difference? Generally Vostros are cheaper but there are some which are at a similar price point. Are Vostros inferior in quality to Inspirons? If so, in what what? Does the software which come preinstalled with either different? Is support options different? I know Inspirons provide at home support - i.e. the Dell technician comes to your home for Inspiron repairs/support - is it the same for Vostro or is it only carry-in warranty? I know for Inspiron you get a years warranty & you can extend it while buying for 2 more years taking it to total 3 years. And after 3 years, you can extend it for a year more. Is it the same for Vostro? Any other difference?

[Prowler]

Originally Posted by NetfreakBombay

Consider this Dell G5

1. H series CPU. GPU/CPU Wont throttle even if you leave tuning jobs run overnight

Thanks again. I don't understand the logic of Intel chips. Dell G5 is an absolute monster with i7 with 14 Cores and RTX 3060 at around Rs.115k. But it exceeds my budget . I had to settle down with a MSI laptop which came to about 80k. This i7 has only 8 cores.

It appears each new generation of CPU gets more Cores. It is confusing. My first generation i5 in the mac mini has 2 Cores. My other desktop has 4 cores in i5 - probably same generation.

My current i3 has 2 cores and 4 threads, but struggles a lot in video rendering, while i5 in mini doesn't bat an eyelid.

Why is everything so complicated in Life ?

[NetfreakBombay]

Originally Posted by Prowler

I don't understand the logic of Intel chips. Dell G5 is an absolute monster with i7 with 14 Cores and RTX 3060 at around Rs.115k. But it exceeds my budget . I had to settle down with a MSI laptop which came to about 80k. This i7 has only 8 cores.

There are families fir i& / i5 in each generation. i5 "H" series is faster than i7 "U" series. U series is designed only for thin-and-light kind of laptops; while H is designed for heavy lifting workloads.

G5 with i5 should be in your budget.

[Aroy]

Originally Posted by Prowler

T..........................

My current i3 has 2 cores and 4 threads, but struggles a lot in video rendering, while i5 in mini doesn't bat an eyelid.

Why is everything so complicated in Life ?

Some cores are more equal than others. In general the second thread in the core has only integer not floating point ALU, then the busses interconnecting CPU to memory are slower in i3 than i5 than i7 than i9. So higher numbers (in Intel) will mean higher execution speeds). Similarly Xeon CPU's especiall Xeon MP are designed for multiprocessing hence faster than the corresponding i series.

With every generation they are reducing the basic width (45nm, 30nm, 10nm, 7nm etc). With the reduction in the width and hence cell size, they can fit in more cores in the same area.

More cores means more computing power (albeit in parallel), so more money. Expect the chips to hit 32 cores soon. That said more cores are not always more productive. If you have high computational requirement in cases where parallelism is not feasible then a faster CPU with fewer cores will be a better option (I9 vs I7 etc).

If you are into CFD, Weather or other modelling, that can be parallelised, then a large number of cores is a boon. In fact Linux based multi CPU machines are a norm, where thousands of CPU's work in parallel on one problem. Most of the Supercomputers today are just a huge collection of thousands of CPU's connected by extremely high speed busdses.