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  • AdditionalPylons - Monday, February 5, 2018 - link

    I wish these companies would start integrating Nbase-T networking so that there would be some incentives for others to make more affordable switches and start the wired multi-gigabit revolution. It's almost ironic that 1GbE speeds will soon be beaten by cellular data!
  • smilingcrow - Monday, February 5, 2018 - link

    Not beaten in real world usage though.
  • FreckledTrout - Monday, February 5, 2018 - link

    True but we are talking wired LAN not even internet speeds. I do find it a bit silly 1GbE is still the fastest option for any reasonable price that 99.9% home users would consider. Usually you would see some trickle down and I think we are starting to but boy has it been *slow*.
  • Elstar - Thursday, February 8, 2018 - link

    [Old man mode] Some things never change. I remember the same complaints during the transition to Fast Ethernet, and then again to Gigabit Ethernet. The problem is that most customers care more about price than being ahead of the curve. Also, computer vendors are reluctant to upgrade to "Better" Ethernet until consumer version of "Better" Ethernet switches becomes reasonably priced too.
  • peevee - Thursday, February 8, 2018 - link

    Yes, it is hard to understand why 1GbE is stuck there for 19 years now, when 10G is available for 12. Hell, 100GbE is standard from 2010, you'd think the industry would choose and implement a particular optical standard (100BASE-DR for example) by now in every cheap PC.
  • Elstar - Thursday, February 8, 2018 - link

    This doesn't contradict what I wrote. The problem is demand and cost, not proof of concept. The demand for "better" Ethernet just isn't there and the cost of "better" Ethernet still need to come down before vendors see it as worthwhile.
  • peevee - Thursday, February 8, 2018 - link

    Transitions to 100 and 1Gb were much faster.
  • Samus - Monday, February 5, 2018 - link

    I agree there needs to be a push somewhere. It's just such a slow adoption not just because of switches but the utter lack of CAT6 in most buildings that haven't been renovated. CAT5e does not guarantee Nbase-T, let alone 2.5/5Gbps connections, because there are distance limitations that are easily broken in a decent sized office with a network closet.

    Another thing people don't talk about is patch panel compatibility with beyond-1Gbps connections. Most patch panels screw up the handshake if they aren't CAT6-compliant, and although it's a relatively cheap fix, it's just another infrastructure problem holding N-base back.
  • HStewart - Monday, February 5, 2018 - link

    What would be interesting is a review of same level processor with same graphics, memory storage but one being Xeon-W and other being X-core.

    Of course on additional test one should take account of dual M.2's, dual 1gbs network and extra memory. Especially if M.2's could be configured in Raid. Xeons have been known to have better IO performance.
  • Cooe - Monday, February 5, 2018 - link

    18-core/36-thread Skylake-SP HCC + dual full fat 16GB pro Vega's = one absolute mother of a compute/render box. I fully imagine the MSRP of such a beast to be just as insane.
  • Samus - Monday, February 5, 2018 - link

    If base price with a Xeon-X is $1500, max spec is probably around $5000 depending on storage. Not terrible for a production PC. HP's are usually a decent value given the support and discounts available in bulk purchases and for educational institutions. I've been recommending Elitebooks for years since Lenovo effectively tanked the Thinkpad nameplate by putting it on what are essentially Ideapads, and Dell has been all over the map with pricing, sometimes just totally unreasonable.
  • Samus - Monday, February 5, 2018 - link

    Correction, Core-X
  • Crazyeyeskillah - Monday, February 5, 2018 - link

    I agree 100% about the lenovo comments. They bought out IBM's namesake and sell complete garbage with high failure rates (confirmed personally). HP and Dell still deliver solid support and products, compared to what else is out there in mainstream business sector. Not a lot of companies are willing to go out on a limb and buy boutique builds that may or may not offer support in the long term.
  • HStewart - Monday, February 5, 2018 - link

    I would agree about Lenovo, with possible exception is ThinkPad notebooks that I used for work. But things may have change since my T530.

    As for HP I would never get one again, it been a while (over a decade), but I remember sticking a normal USB drive into and it fried the laptop. Nothing to mention all junk software they put on it.

    By far my Dell XPS 13 2in1 is the one with most quality. I like the idea of up and coming XPS 15 2in1 but only thing I wish Dell / Intel had option of NVidia GPU in same form factor. But the latest reviews I seen of sounds amazing especially that CPU is not U processer - but higher performance 45watt. Plus if the rumors of 15 hour battery life are true - it would be amazing - if it had only Integrated it could be past 20 hours battery life.
  • Spunjji - Tuesday, February 6, 2018 - link

    The AMD graphics are powered down when they're not in use, so having "only" integrated would make near-0 difference unless you're doing something that actually uses the graphics, in which case having only integrated would be a massive downside. That it's not using nVidia seems hardly relevant from any practical aspect.
  • Samus - Tuesday, February 6, 2018 - link

    Everything after the T420/520 is real crap. Workstations are entirely hit or miss. I’ve always had a soft spot for the mini’s like the M90’s but working on them is hell, even worse than the unreliable 70 series models with motherboards missing a ground plane (the only boards in the industry like this)

    Odds are your hp that fried a decade ago was a victim of the capacitor plague hitting the entire industry back then. Everyone was affected, especially Dell (this is why they fell THREE places in overall sales) and you’d be hard pressed to get a better corporate machine for the money than an HP starting around 2011.

    I don’t dislike Dell, though. Their support is top notch. Always has been. But that era of utter shit they went through still lingers through many IT departments, and you just need to learn to get over it. My real problem with Dell is simply price. They are completely out of touch with their brand image trying to charge what they charge for their equipment.
  • techadmin - Thursday, February 8, 2018 - link

    Lenovo has partitioned the Thinkpad line into 2 segments. The volume line, which is an IdeaPad with a black case and TP logo. This line is for the volume buyers (like corporate USA) and typically sells for less than $1k USD. Then there is the feature line which sell for above $1k USD, and come with the newer capabilities, like carbon fiber cases, light weight, workstation class laptops, titanium frames, etc.

    All the OEM brands come with their issues, nuances, benefits and failures, and many occur over a particular timeframe or generation of products, HP and the planar failures, Dell and the cracked hinges, Lenovo with pre-warranty failures, it goes on ad inifinitum.

    Typically we have traced many of these issues to the contract firm who either designed it or who manufactured it. For example Quanta on the design side or Flextronics and Acer on the fabrication & assembly side.

    This is not a recent thing. In 1992 we had problems with the IBM PS/2 Model 90. It was the only PS/2 fabricated and assembled by Mitsubishi. Many never made it to their warranty date and we would swap parts with the Model 70 to keep them going. Fortunately that generation was extremely modular.
  • Ytterbium - Tuesday, February 6, 2018 - link

    It's intresting HP is able to support CoreX and Xeon on the same platform I though this was blocked?
  • Elstar - Wednesday, February 7, 2018 - link

    Maybe the case supports two different motherboards, thus sidestepping the "same platform" rule
  • techadmin - Thursday, February 8, 2018 - link

    I agree, 10GbE on copper should be the standard on these now. For those who can't wait for the switches to come down in price, you can still create an Infiniband ring and bridge into a 1GbE network for the internet link.

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