Pesky Ngon

so im upgrading CPU to amd. ive learned ill need to reinstall windows or ill hit driver issues. apparently after that I should be able to put all other programs on the new system from old HDD. problem is...I have a lot of stuff on this HDD. its going to be a huge pain in the ass to find everything I need to transfer. so Im wondering if anyone knows about this situation, and if so what its the most efficient method for copying over my files. there must be a better way than just manually locating everything....right? D':

thanks, that's really useful. I hadn't realised the HDDs would use that amount of power. really surprised. considering how cheap SSDs have become in the last few months I think itll be worth me picking some up instead of using the hard drives.

tbh, even if the power efficiency ends up not being great, it'll still be a really fun project to mess around with new parts. I think it could also help me a lot for simulation work If I can dump CPU bound physics sims onto other PCs so I can keep using my main rig smoothly.

hmm. another thing im thinking about is where im likely to be living fairly soon. ill be renting a flat with friends as a roomshare. the important part is a lot of these flats offer to pay your electricity for you, in which case the HDDs power draw wont matter. I think for now I will use HDDs and then in future if I have enough servers to justify it, ill make the change to 10gig e and repurpose the HDDs. thanks a lot for the tips though.

ahh, I see. I think HDDs draw so little power compared to the CPUs ill be running that it will be negligible for what im doing. and the up front cost is pretty intimidating seeming as the cards for the 10 gig e would cost as much as the server. ?I think considering im new to this it will be safer to stick to what I know and I have some random hard drives lying around the house anyway so may as well put them to use.

thanks for the recommendation

im afraid I don't know what discless boot is, but ill look into it, thanks

true. im an idiot for not thinking of turning them off in not in use. thanks for reminding me if I buy an old server, is it as simple as just plugging in a hard drive and installing Linux like you would on a normal pc, or are there extra steps I need to look out for?

im afraid I don't know what that means. what I do know, is that I can split the workload between as many pcs as I want. so its just a case of getting a bunch of pcs that wont break the bank

hi... I do 3D stuff for a living but I also love messing around with PCs and searching for deals, building, upgrading, etc. so although having a lot of power is genuinely helpful for my 3D work, I like going overkill for fun just to see how fast I can make my system for as cheap as possible. and now I want to take things to the next level. in 3D applications, using CPUs on Linux in some situations can mean a 2x performance boost compared to windows. but I rely on windows for certain programs that simply don't exist elsewhere. so instead of spending any more money upgrading my main rig, Ive realised it might be more cost efficient from this point on to buy slightly lower spec, but more power efficient parts for pcs, and use them as nodes. my main hope is that I can get some crazy dual or quad CPU mobo from an old server, install Linux for the 1.5x performance, and then just have it connected as a node (or nodes if I buy multiple). problem is...I know f*** all about servers and I know that if I try and buy one ill mess it up and waste all my money. so I was wondering if anyone could give me some general tips about how server hardware is different from normal desktops, and where I should look to buy a used, power efficient server that has kinda midrange specs. any help would be great.

omg, that's awesome. thanks so much

THATS A THING?! HOLY SHIT PLEASE TEACH ME

ok so this isn't something ill be able to do instantly, but its a way I thought of solving the problem with VMs and dual boots. I love messing around with hardware. my PC is worth about £2500 at this point and I spend every penny I have on upgrading and tinkering with it. I use it both for my job and gaming. so in future when I have the money. could I make a second PC running Linux and then...im not sure what its called, but theres some kind of thing where you can send files to another PC and control that PC remotely. so, say I had an animation to render. I could make 2 files. one renders frames 1 to 100. the second does frames 101 to 200. then I send one file to the other PC so i can render both halfs at once. that way I can use my main windows PC for all my windows-only programs, and then use the other PC for Linux performance boost in blender and stuff?

I agree it sucks, but I don't really have a choice because of the programs I need. there are certain programs in the 3D industry that simply cannot be replaced unless you want to add hours more work to each task

ahh, that sucks, but thanks for the help.

that would be great, Ive heard of WINE in the past. the compatibility thing sounds great, but would it do a good job in terms of not losing too much performance? theres not much point in me doing this unless my performance stays quite high in windows. ?

in that case, what If I reversed the situation? if I had windows with a Linux VM, would I still get the performance benefit for CPU tasks?

sorry, I don't think I explained clearly. I know blender has a Linux version, and that the Linux version gives far better CPU performance and similar GPU performance. so I want to have blender open on Linux, and then a VM open using all the software I cant find on Linux. I know very little about how to use Linux, so id only want to use it for basic tasks and then use windows VM for the rest. but im guessing the VM cant use the GPUs very effectively? also, no I wasn't planning on buying a new HDD, but I could easily do so if that would help. thanks for the help.

so. im in a situation where im upgrading from intel cpu and mobo to amd. as a result im going to need to re install windows and I thought, while im at It, why not install Linux for the performance gains? this has me considering something though. as a Linux noob, pretty much all I care about is that my CPU will perform much faster for my work (3d rendering, blender, simulations, etc). however because I need other software only available on windows, id need to have windows too. the question is, what kind of performance loss would I expect from running windows in a VM, and could I do it at all with my CPU (1600X) because I know some CPUs have limited VM support? for my use case a dual boot isn't really an option because id need to access multiple programs at once, some on windows, others on Linux. even more complicated than that... would I be able to make an image back up of my windows system. and then restore that back up onto the VM? this would be insanely useful, but im not sure its possible...

ah crap. that's not ideal, but thanks a lot for the help

so using the image back up will negate the driver issues?

oh, thank you. I have a 2tb image back up of my system. would I be able to use this to install on to the AMD platform to get around driver issues?

hi. I have just found some amazing deals on amd am4 parts (cpu, mobo, cooler) that will get me over 2x performance for a low price than my current intel parts. however, I have heard some people talking about things that suggest that I will have to reinstall windows 10 when I make the change, is that correct? or is it just as simple as plugging everything into the new mobo? id be grateful for any help. thank you.