Aaron Springs

I'm pleased to see that prices for the cards I am considering (mainly RTX 3060 and RTX 3060 TI) seem to have been creeping downward in recent weeks. There is still a considerable way to go before they get back down to MSRP or below, but at least they are heading in the right direction. I suppose we'll know that things are back to normal when the Newegg Shuffle eventually fades into oblivion. [I acknowledge that this is probably common knowledge here by now, but seeing it made me sufficiently happy that I felt like posting something for once.]

Well, considering that the PC is a total sloth (a dual core running at 1.4 GHz in its turbo mode) that I will most likely never use for anything more than running an occasional utility that is only available in a Windows version (I run Linux on my daily driver system) the whole point of posting the benchmark results here was really just as an amusement for folks who normally see numbers an order of magnitude higher in the results people get on their serious gaming rigs. My personal reason for even installing the Cinebench benchmarks on that pig of a system in the first place had more to do with checking the system's thermals under extreme CPU load than anything else, The benchmark software is a good way to really load up the CPU to see how well the system handles the heat generated. It did occur to me that the system was likely going to turn in some hilariously bad benchmark scores given its processor specs. Mind you, I don't think its numbers are bad enough to set any records on the low end. I'm sure there are operational PCs out there that use processors that are so bad that they would turn in even worse results, though I suspect most of them are quite a bit older.

Okay, a quick follow up. I reran Cinebench on this HP All-In-One 19-2014 but without the Open Hardware Monitor running to see if that made a difference. This time the CPU score was 47 cb, That's less than the 48 I got with the Open Hardware Monitor running so I'm going to just chalk it up to some random variability in something I didn't control. Oh, in case anybody is interested, the CPU benchmark took more than 14 minutes to run on this thing. That's one pass. 14 minutes. I won't bother to post a second screen shot. I mean, what would be the point? Anyway, enough of this for now.

Just benchmarked a used PC I found out by the dumpster here. It is only 4 years old, but its score is hilariously low. The thing is an HP All-In-One model# 19-2014 which dates from early 2014. It came stock with Windows 8.1 and 4GB of memory. I tossed in an 8GB memory stick I had in the pile of spare parts to bring it up to a whopping 12GB. And I upgraded it to Windows 10 Home because, well, I hate Windows 8.1 more than Windows 10. Oh, did I mention this thing has single channel memory? The fun just never stops. It sports an AMD E1-2500 APU with is a dual core APU that has a base clock or 800MHz and turbos up to the dizzying speed of 1.4 GHz. Back in 2014 this APU was intended for use in low end laptops where battery life matters more than raw performance, I think. TDP is rated at 10 watts. By now you are probably thinking something along the lines of "Wow, that thing must be a total pig!" And it is. Its Cinebench score is 48. That was with Open Hardware Monitor running to keep track of temps which never managed to top 56 degrees C. I suppose I ought to rerun it with nothing else running to see just how much of a difference that makes on this thing. I should time the run if I do. It took quite a while to finish. Like ... minutes. I must say, this thing amuses me, though it's not likely to be used much. Mostly I decided to get it up and running on Windows 10 because I run Linux on my main PC and I decided that having a Windows PC here might occasionally be useful.