I have a couple of 19" rack mounting Gigabyte/i7 custom builds from 2015 which have been the mainstay of my studio system. One blew last week.
A lot happens in 8 years, but these guys have been dedicated to their task and have been reliable performers.
For under $500 I could put together a Gigabyte board with an 6850k i7 and 64 gigs of DDR4.
Simply migrate the SSDs and peripherals and be back in business for a modest rebuild fee.
On the other hand, what would 500 bucks get that’s more contemporary and could be slung into the rack? Any suggestions welcome. Thank you compadres!
I tend to use hardware failures to upgrade toward the current tech level. Think of it this way; after I spend $500 the way you propose, what have you got; the same tech level as before. Now that may be perfectly alright, but what performance are you missing out on? I would stick with Gigabyte MB but look for something that supports either a current i7 or maybe one generation back with the appropriate memory. Use the SSDs you have until some point at which you might want to upgrade them also. Might cost a little more than $500 but you are gaining a ton of processing power (if you need it).
You are correct. I was surprised to find a replacement CPU for $30, which has kinda shifted my thinking. If it transpires that the MB has survived, then it makes sense to keep it functioning as part of the network. without throwing away RAM and the headache of chasing installs and peripheral compatibility.
If the MB has gone then I am seeing some pretty good MB CPU packages and I’ll follow your advice. In fact, I was thinking I might actually bring a Mac back into the fold as I see some remarkable performance coming out of those M1/2 chips. I can still run Cantabile into such a machine if needs be.
Thanks for your input.
