Dell Optiplex 3000 Thin Client
- Thread starter foureight84
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Yeah, 8GB RAM and 256GB HD (non-eMMC) on these, looks like.
Tempting but still a pretty limited box, expansion-wise...
EDIT: The same seller is selling some Optiplex 7050 SFF (i5-7500/8GB/256GB) refurbs for $149.99, which might be a "better" deal depending on needs.
Tempting but still a pretty limited box, expansion-wise...
EDIT: The same seller is selling some Optiplex 7050 SFF (i5-7500/8GB/256GB) refurbs for $149.99, which might be a "better" deal depending on needs.
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Personally, I get the ones with some form of windows embedded and use it as a completely silent rdp client. If you have 3x servers idle, you could use it as a silent management console for those servers.
Two purposes.
The first is as a HTPC. The lack of a fan makes these totally silent. I had SFF but not micro cases on my previous systems. With a CPU fan, video car fan and power supply fan they made some noise. Not quite as capable as what it is replacing, but it is good enough. The 5W idle power is a big plus.
The second is to replace my homelab boxes that are running around 200 watts between a few systems. My power is about 30 cents a kwh and I'm in a hot place so I pay twice to cool my home. I estimate that each watt costs me at least $3 a year. I'll be using a few different thin client systems to get the total down under 50W and perhaps as low as 30W. That will be a $450 to $500 per year savings. I'm spending about $250 total for the change. Saves a ton of space compared to the ATX towers I have now.
Like most my setup is mainly idle. These little boxes a super power efficient and can run what I need. I'll keep my more powerful stuff around, but I'll only power them up when (if) I need them.
Eh, the choice of the Atom variant Dell chose for the Optiplex 3000s are...a bit weird - you figure that they'll go with the J-series Elkhart Lake, which are embedded models. Dell instead went with the cheap laptop N-series Jasper Lake. Well, looks like 32GB of DDR4 is your "tested by vendor" max on the Jaspers, but if you can do 2x32GB, do mention that. The J4105/J5005 Gemini Lake Atoms on the Wyse 5070s are technically discontinued.
Otherwise, it's an uplift, the Intel "7" Tremont architecture CPU being roughly in the same ballpark of the Ryzen 3 3300U HP fitted into their mt45 mobile thin clients or Lenovo's m75n thin clients (the Vega 6 will blow the Gen11 32EU iGPU out of the water though).
Otherwise, it's an uplift, the Intel "7" Tremont architecture CPU being roughly in the same ballpark of the Ryzen 3 3300U HP fitted into their mt45 mobile thin clients or Lenovo's m75n thin clients (the Vega 6 will blow the Gen11 32EU iGPU out of the water though).
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Kinda. I think Dell has a deal with Intel to go exclusive on their professional product lines (kind of a poor move), and considering that Intel 7 (well, 10nm superfin) came in late, and Intel was prioritizing Ice Lake/Tiger Lake first, their Jasper Lake Atom CPUs came in even later than anticipated. The Elkhart Lake J-series embedded came in even later than that. Unlike Lenovo and HP with their Elite/Think series, Dell does NOT sell Optiplex Micros with AMD Ryzen, they probably had to go with the Jasper Lake-Ns to make the market with "more modern" hardware for their mainline thin client before the Gemini Lake J4105/5005 were pulled. Eh, at least the N6005 looks "okay" next to the Ryzen 3 3300U...of course, HP has been teasing their Elite t655 thin client with the "Picasso" Ryzen Embedded R2314 for a few months now, and that's supposed to be like a Ryzen 5 3450U...which is a slightly faster APU than the 3300U. My guess is that the R2000 lines will expand a slight bit as AMD builds up more 12nm inventory for long term availability?
Considering that Atoms and Cores are now pretty much integrated onto the same platform (the efficiency cores in Alder/Raptor Lake CPUs are Gracemont Atom, while the performance cores are Golden Cove/Raptor Cove "Core"), the Jasper Lake Atoms on the N6005 are like the older Tremont Atoms that was supposed to be launched 2 years ago, competing against the Gracemount "Atoms" from Alder Lake (E-Core only), like the N200 of today. It's what I would call a "why bother" product - Intel's not guaranteeing longer availability like the embedded J-series, so, ehhh, did Dell get a really good deal to take all these old-on-arrival Atom mobile chips off Intel's hands to make thin clients? Or is it because these are the only cheap-but-decent Atoms that Intel can sell at the time, and they had to go with that?
Oh, and HP, if you are reading this? Make the t750 with a V2516 and PCIe slot, please?
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The N6005 looks to be the most performant of the 4 core Jasper/Elkhart lake generation. The Elkhart chips have the advantage of a four channel memory interface instead of two that the N6005 has. I've not looked for one, but I don't remember ever seeing an Elkhart board with four memory slots.
The two of these that I bought were brand new. I paid $99 for a box that lists for about $600. That makes me think that they are being blown out and the replacement will be based on the Alder Lake e-core only chips like the N200 or N300. This will follow the pattern of offering two CPU speed choices. I would expect this replacement to be out shortly.
Quad channel on Elkhart Lake is only relevant if it's LPDDR4. Otherwise for regular DDR4, it's dual channels. Do keep in mind that DDR4 memory channels are 64 bit, while LPDDR4 are 32 bits.
I was able to mount a usb c port for an optiplex sff model. Cable length is not quite right but it fits without too much strain. This gives usb c 5 gig or video out. Dell 7060 7070 7080 MT SFF USB-C type C R9J4K 8XP85 WRMH0 Daughterboard card | eBay
Seller accepted $18 each for two quickly. There might be other versions out there with different cable lengths, but it seems that the cables would probably be longer so those should work as well.
Seller accepted $18 each for two quickly. There might be other versions out there with different cable lengths, but it seems that the cables would probably be longer so those should work as well.
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What design program do you refer to? Thin Client doesn't really perform well on the programs that need high computing power. Office software is okay. You should have a standalone PC to run design program like Adobe's softwares etc.
What type of VDI are you doing and what type of graphics design programs?
In general, anything static or slightly moving (think web page ads) are fine for these to display when they are being rendered elsewhere and the thin client is being, well, thin. But they can choke on video, especially if using higher colors and resolutions.