Eddie composed on 2025-04-24 13:21 (UTC-0400):

I am looking at the Staples Dell refurbished desktops for a debian
machine. No windows! I believe a hard drive and around 16gb but am not
sure of processor and do not want nvidia card. Thoughts appreciated.

I have about 16 Optiplexes of various vintages older than those now for sale at Staples. All mine shipped either with Intel iGPUs (most) or with Radeons (oldest
models only), none with NVidia. Mine have been reliable business class PCs. I've
never run across one configured with dual graphics or solely NVidia dGPU.

For long support life expectancy I recommend you check the CPU in any model you favor. Intel iX-4### and newer are x86-64v3 or better and should be good for a very long time. Older Intel versions may be only x86-64v2, with possible loss of
support (as is now happening for 32bit in Trixie) before natural retirement. The
same thing applies to AMD CPUs, but I'm not aware of its dividing line between v2
and v3. I'm not aware that plans have been made for Debian regarding these support
specifications, but since it is in the plans or already existing for SUSE and RedHat, it should be no surprise to happen eventually in Debian too. The CPU instruction that functions as a marker is SSE4.2, which v3 CPUs support and v2 do not.
--
Evolution as taught in public schools is, like religion,
based on faith, not based on science.

Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!

Felix Miata

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On 4/24/25 10:21, Eddie wrote:

I am looking at the Staples Dell refurbished desktops for a debian
machine. No windows! I believe a hard drive and around 16gb but am not
sure of processor and do not want nvidia card. Thoughts appreciated.

Dell factory refurbished computers are pricey. Used Dell computers can
be found at lower prices on eBay, but you may have to deal with issues.


For a graphical desktop computer, a SATA III SSD will be much more
responsive than a HDD. An NVMe PCIe 3.0 x4 SSD is even better.


16 GB of memory should be enough for typical desktop usage. I prefer
and recommend ECC memory.


I prefer Intel built-in graphics alone; no alternate or additional GPU.


For several months last year, my daily driver was a Dell Precision 3630
with a Xeon E-2174G processor, 2 @ 16 GB ECC memory modules, a 1 TB NVMe
PCIe 3.0 x4 SSD (Windows 10 Workstation), and a 60 GB SATA III SSD
(Debian). Performance was impressive, but the compact tower case used
by this and similar models has some common problems -- power supplies
(PSU) tend to fail, power button LED's tend to fail, slim optical drives
tend to fail, and cooling is inadequate when you add components. I
replaced the Dell 300 W PSU with an aftermarket 430 W PSU. I replaced
the power button assembly with a new Dell assembly. When I added two 3
TB HDD's, I also added a Dell 120 mm front fan (power adapter required).


My current daily driver is a Dell PowerEdge T30 with a Xeon E3-1225 v5 processor, 2 @ 8 GB ECC memory, and a 60 GB SATA 6 Gbps SSD (Debian). Performance is good and standard fans are adequate (and quiet).


David

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