Comments on: Why buy a workstation computer?

By: Dave Farquhar

Dave Farquhar — Thu, 18 Jul 2019 00:25:43 +0000

In reply to Carl Buyer. I've had no problems running Win10 on any quality PC made within the last 5-6 years. One of my sons is running Win10 on a Dell 6430 laptop and it's been fine. For desktop hardware, the best value right now seems to be an i5 3470, whether you find a workstation or a business desktop with one in it. A 3470 still had enough power to run Win10 well, especially when you outfit it with an SSD and 16 GB of RAM.

By: Carl Buyer

Carl Buyer — Fri, 12 Jul 2019 14:07:37 +0000

Thanks for this article. Based on your previous posts on this same topic, in 2014 I outfitted my family with Dell Optiplex machines running W7, and in 2016 a Dell 6420 laptop now running W10. Apart from what you write in this post, what would you recommend now (July 2019) as replacements (both desktop and laptop) to run W10, since W7 goes off security updates in January? Thanks in advance for your reply.

By: Dave Farquhar

Dave Farquhar — Sat, 29 Jun 2019 21:41:13 +0000

In reply to Shirley Marquez. Right, there's little point in spending workstation money and not getting an SSD in it. I frequently see them without drives, or with random drives that probably didn't originally come with them. So I look for one without a drive. No point in paying a premium for an HDD I don't want.

By: Shirley Marquez

Shirley Marquez — Thu, 27 Jun 2019 14:05:49 +0000

If you buy a refurbished workstation it may come with an SSD. Usually that means it came from a company that requires physical destruction of the original hard drives for security when they sell their systems, so the refurbisher has to install a new drive.