danose wrote:

Wobbler wrote:Fans dying on cards are sweet, one fan died on my old 560ti and they gave me a 660 as replacement (which I then sold to my brother ads I have already purchased a different card)

should have just gone with one of these - can replace the fans with decent ones, and you can use it to heat the house

http://www.gigabyte.com/products/produc ... id=5255#ov

Would still put out less heat than a 290X.

Astoria Paranoia wrote:

danose wrote:

Wobbler wrote:Fans dying on cards are sweet, one fan died on my old 560ti and they gave me a 660 as replacement (which I then sold to my brother ads I have already purchased a different card)

should have just gone with one of these - can replace the fans with decent ones, and you can use it to heat the house

http://www.gigabyte.com/products/produc ... id=5255#ov

Would still put out less heat than a 290X.

Found danoses next comp

http://imgur.com/a/f12Ad

four 290x

Hey danose what are your thoughts on the new coffee warmer macpros?
I've been pcmasterrace from way back, but I'd have to admit that the new unified exhaust thing is pretty cool

NickCW wrote:Hey danose what are your thoughts on the new coffee warmer macpros?
I've been pcmasterrace from way back, but I'd have to admit that the new unified exhaust thing is pretty cool

We have a couple of those at work.
They seem to be a bit aloof about networking with lower lifeforms, mostly they will, sometimes they won't.

They look very tidy until you plug in all the extras you'll need, like storage... Hard (expensive) to swap parts out due to Apple's proprietary fitting guff.

Very fast, the pci SSD is certainly speedy.


We also have some PCs with very similar spec doing the same jobs, and while the Macs take the raw speed slightly, they did cost significantly more, and are as above much harder to swap parts around on.

Woah... is that a pooter which is designed to use it's excess heat to keep a drink warm?
Finally a mac design feature which is good!!!

Velocipedestrian wrote:We also have some PCs with very similar spec doing the same jobs, and while the Macs take the raw speed slightly, they did cost significantly more, and are as above much harder to swap parts around on.

nothing with an e5-2697 in it is going to be 'cheap' - but the real issue with the macpro is it hasn't had an update since it's launch in 2013, so still stuck on the v2 (v3 goes from 12 cores to 14).

Other killer for us is it's only a single cpu - if you have s/w that can load up 12 cores it obviously parallelises well, and 24 (or 28) cores would be a nice option.

Which is why we're looking at build-your-own options based around asus dual xeon boards (cos they're still a pile cheaper than a HP z840 optioned with dual 2697v3s )

Wife bought me an Apple TV for Christmas but I took it back as didn't think we needed to be that high tech, spend that much and didn't want to convert stuff to work on iTunes.

So I've got a passable solution working at the moment using plex on the laptop and streaming through Wii U (because it's less noisy than my old PS3). This also works well for Netflix.

So today I picked up a Chromecast on flybuys points. Plan is to run Plex/ Chromecast/ iPad solution.

I've put about 400 movies and lots of shows into the plex library and like the interface.

Anyone doing anything similar? Does it work well?
Are there better media servers than Plex?
Is there any benefit for Plex Premium Pass?

This is replacing a USB stick solution so anything is better than nothing.

Conners wrote:Apple TV streaming from my laptop running Plex Media Server. Plays anything I've thrown at it so far.
Works mitna, Plex iOS app lets me run everything from my phone/iPod on the couch too.
And now that I have a semi decent amp I get 5.1 sounds via the optical audio connection as well.

Bring the iHate - but it works. And Apple TVs are something like $110 now, and have RedBull TV as a built in all for watching live UCI DH on your big screen in HD goodness with zero faffing.

If you're using Plex, you don't need to convert anything to iTunes.

Plex to samsung tv plex app for main TV. Works suitably.

Also have a couple of (old version) chromecasts for extra TVs that can throw to via plex on cellphone. Also works acceptably.

If I was less lazy I'd run up a rPi wotsit with raspbian/kodi on it or some kind of plex interface on it, but for the extra features it would provide, its more effort than I'm willing to expend (ie, any whatsoever).

Converting media is for suckers. Plex does whatever it needs to on the fly.

On a side note, discovered this weekend I can run my media on my computer at home & stream it via RDP to (in this instance) hotel wifi

So 18 months of running Plex off my laptop deciding to get a NAS. Found the QNAP TS-251+ which meets my need for Plex.

So a couple of other questions if anyone knows.

Anyone know if the QNAPs are any good? I've checked Plex compatibility.
Is it easy to run a back-up of a drive which is shared with 1 drive?
If one was inclined is there a way to set up a torrent tool that can be controlled remotely? Ie, everything is downloaded directly on the NAS but controlled on my phone or laptop,

I have been playing with a QNAP 251 at home, setting up as a file server for a small Non-profit NGO. Shopped around and it came down to Synolgy or QNAP. Synology for "ease of use", QNAP for "Bang for buck" - if your an IT geek, know a bit of linux, and can find your way around a network, QNAP is great, although sometimes not the most obvious UI. If you are a user who thinks the internet has gone down when you loose Wifi connectivity and DDNS and DHCP mean nothing to you, buy a Synology.

Overall, very impressed. Its hard to tell where the line between server and NAS crosses. Drives and Backups are well handled. It can sync directly with One Drive accounts.
You can install a torrent client, and everything is natively be controlled by the web interface. I have never connected the NAS to a screen. It has built in DDNS and connectivity so I can control the entire device from my desk at work. Once installed in the NGO's office, the only thing I will not be able to do from my desk at work or home is physically replace a failed hard disk and physically plug in a USB hard disk for offline backups. The thing even emails me when it has a problem.

As far as multi media use I have not done anything with it, so cannot comment.

Consider buying NAS specific hard drives (e.g. WD Red or Seagate Ironwolf), cost a bit more but are build 'tougher' than cheaper ones.

So not really an IT geek but went with the bang for buck option of the QNAP. Everything I read said I shouldn't struggle too bad setting it up as a media server and back up.

Also ordered two WD reds and a new router and switch so this weekend I'll be repositioning the cable modem, installing ducting into the office and running cables throughout the house.

dwgknz wrote:So not really an IT geek but went with the bang for buck option of the QNAP. Everything I read said I shouldn't struggle too bad setting it up as a media server and back up.

Also ordered two WD reds and a new router and switch so this weekend I'll be repositioning the cable modem, installing ducting into the office and running cables throughout the house.

main issue with the 251 is the old/slow cpu and correspondingly slow intel HD graphics - if you've got much content that's h.265/hevc encoded it's not going to be up to decoding it. I'd look at a dedicated NAS (and put it somewhere away from your media setup - a typical 2 drive NAS is quite noisy) and something attached to the tv JUST to stream content off the nas (preferably over ethernet but if you're wifi setup is decent that's fine too)

251 (dual core) or 251+ (quad core)?

All reviews say the 251+ is capable for Plex transcoding.

So last question is RAMM upgrade. Comes with 2GB, what difference would 8GB make and does it just take any similar ramm ( DDR3L-1600 204Pin RAM Module SODIMM) like crucial or sslt?

dwgknz wrote:So last question is RAMM upgrade. Comes with 2GB, what difference would 8GB make?

About four times the difference?


Sorry, I've got no useful answer