EXPIRED (US) - Oh look, hell just froze over - HP t740 thin clients are back below 400 USD (375 to 400, Wifi/BT or not)

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WANg

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Yep, the prices went temporarily cray-cray during the 'rhona pandemic silicon shortages, but it looks like the guys at laptops for less on Long Island got some in stock (they are the same folks responsible for the t640 deals). These usually go for at least 600 per unit. It's best offer so who knows, you can get them for 25-50 less than listed, which would be a good thing.

No Wifi/BT - 375 + a Jackson for stateside shipping....
Wifi/BT - 400 + a Jackson for stateside shipping....

HP Quickspecs says that they both come with 8GB of RAM (expandable to 64GB), PCIe 3.0 x8, 128GB SSD (probably eMMC off the M2 NVMe port) and a 3 year base warranty (YMMV). Think of them as like a larger Lenovo m715q Gen 2 with a soldered Ryzen 5 2400GE and PCIe 3.0x8 support on-chassis.
 
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newabc

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I just knew the passmark of 4C8T Ryzen V1756B is just over the 6C6T i5-8500t. The v1756b has a much better single core performance than i5-8500t.
 
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Samir

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I just knew the passmark of 4C8T Ryzen V1756B is just over the 6C6T i5-8500t. The v1756b has a much better single core performance than i5-8500t.
I wouldn't call it 'much better' because generally what I've found is 50-100 improvements on the single thread don't translate to the system feeling any faster, and the AMD is literally just 100 faster. Plus factor in the AMD 4c8t vs the 6c6t of the Intel and on core heavy workloads the Intel would definitely be faster. It is also important to note the Intel is 10W less tdp.
 

WANg

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I wouldn't call it 'much better' because generally what I've found is 50-100 improvements on the single thread don't translate to the system feeling any faster, and the AMD is literally just 100 faster. Plus factor in the AMD 4c8t vs the 6c6t of the Intel and on core heavy workloads the Intel would definitely be faster. It is also important to note the Intel is 10W less tdp.
The numbers are also based on a sample size of 9, which makes them a little more suspect. A better comparison would be against a 35w Ryzen 5 2400GE - or better yet, a 45w Ryzen 5 2600H, which has similar hardware characteristics to the V1756B (or not. That has a sample size of…2). Either ways, it’s a comparison between a hexcore, 6 thread CPU that has a base clock of 2.2GHz, 256kb L2 per core and a 9MB L3 cache, versus a quadcore, 8 thread that has a 3.3Ghz base clock, 512kb L2 per core and 4MB of L3. It’s not really a straight-up apples to oranges comparison.

Also, since the V1756B is a Ryzen embedded APU the TDP is likely configurable by the OEM to suit the need, so even that rating is a bit pointless.

Anyways, the V1756B is plenty fast, not very big and has a standard PCIe 3.0x8 slot, which is favorable compared to, say, a Lenovo m920q, which retails at a higher price and has an x4 riser and requires a custom base-plate.
 
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sic0048

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These don't meet the possible Windows 11 TPM requirements, correct? (I think this CPU version is too old).

If not, I suspect they will drop even further in price as people have to replace non-TPM equipment with TPM compatible equipment.
 
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sic0048

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WANg

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These don't meet the possible Windows 11 TPM requirements, correct? (I think this CPU version is too old).

If not, I suspect they will drop even further in price as people have to replace non-TPM equipment with TPM compatible equipment.
...the embedded equivalent of a Ryzen 5 2600H Is...too old? Also, unless your enterprise has an SA (Software assurance) license and can roll Win10/Win11 Enterprise onto the hardware its licensed for WIn10 IoT, which is not the same license-wise as the retail branches, so unless you are willing to spring for a full Win10/11 license, the TPM requirement doesn't really apply.
 
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WANg

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WANg, what do you think fair value of these should be?
South of 400 USD is where I'll park it (I bought mine at ~400 in April 2020, including taxes and shipping). It's based on a Zen core from 2018, it's about the same as a Raven Ridge, it can do 64GB of RAM, can support 2 SSDs (one off M.2 NVMe and one off M.2 SATA), has a single M.2 A+E port for Wifi or GigE, and the PCI3 3.0x8 helps. For its size (2.2 Liter) it's a bit bigger than the TinyMiniMicros, but unless you are gunning for a Lenovo P920 (smaller 1.2 Liter chassis, Intel Lake CPU, PCIe 3.0 x8, reviewed by @Patrick and average about 6-700 USD on evilbay) most of the Lenovo TMMs with PCIe slots only have a PCIe 3.0x4 available. A functionally similar Lenovo m715q gen 2 with a Ryzen 5 2400GE and no PCIe slot) goes for between 300-350, so paying an extra 50-75 for a larger chassis with PCIe x8 slot isn't a ridiculous ask. Just don't go too hard on it and buy a stack of them at their asking price - I am hoping for Dell to revise their Wyse 5070 thin clients soon.

Oh, and don't forget that the t640 was formerly available on the secondary market for 120 including taxes, so if you just want a small embedded Ryzen to play with, that's a better choice. The t740 is much beefier with a PCIe x8 slot, which makes it much more interesting if you plan to wire up smallish nodes with 40Gbps networking, but the t640 is a nice little toy if you are comfy with USB3 networking. The t540 is an even better toss-away vis-a-vis the t640, but it's too new to end up on the secondary markets at a reasonable price yet. Of course, the good news is that at the end of the day it’s still just a thin client, so amortization and lack of demand usually dip their prices down quicker than those 4x4 boxes.
 
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WANg

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Can these machines run ESXi 7.0?
Not out of the box - their primary NIC is a Realtek 8111C, that’s not supported in ESXi 7 and you’ll get an error on install. Put a compatible NIC in the M2 A+E slot or the PCIe slot (preferably a quadport i350), then it’ll work just fine. In fact, upon initial install, do that.

Oh, USB NICs and passthrough/passback will work as well, but it’s a bit hacky:

 
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WANg

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Wow, holy crap. Either the boys at Nassau county got a few more they need to move out fast, or they are amortizing faster than I would’ve assumed. Check out the other 2 auctions hosted by them - for an extra 20 bucks you can get it with Win10 IoT/WiFi+BT and a 64GB Mothim card, and for an extra 50 bucks over that, get one with a rather rare E9173 Lexa SFF GPU (which is roughly the same as the RX540 and can do video encoding via VCE)…those cards are half height, single slot and only uses up 8 PCIe lanes.

F9C66D1E-4801-4242-B975-FD10F9B97D14.jpg
 

cthulolz

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Wow, holy crap. Either the boys at Nassau county got a few more they need to move out fast, or they are amortizing faster than I would’ve assumed. Check out the other 2 auctions hosted by them - for an extra 20 bucks you can get it with Win10 IoT/WiFi+BT and a 64GB Mothim card, and for an extra 50 bucks over that, get one with a rather rare E9173 Lexa SFF GPU (which is roughly the same as the RX540 and can do video encoding via VCE)…those cards are half height, single slot and only uses up 8 PCIe lanes.

View attachment 19313
All gone. :(
 
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thetoad

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unless one really needs a a discrete gpu, does the gpu one really provide much value for most of our use cases? (plex/htpc/vm server)? or is the point that one could possibly part that part out and sell for money?
 
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WANg

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unless one really needs a a discrete gpu, does the gpu one really provide much value for most of our use cases? (plex/htpc/vm server)? or is the point that one could possibly part that part out and sell for money?
That card is what we call “a unicorn” - a half-height, half-length 1 slot discrete GPU PCIe card that is capable of video encoding (GCN4/UVD 6.2 in the Polaris family) - the nVidia GT1030 is anywhere between 5-20% faster but NVENC doesn’t exist on those cards, and there’s no such thing as a 1 slot, half-length, half-height GTX1050/1650.
It’s an obscure card and are only found bundled on 4 "big" thin client machines (the HP t730/740, the Igel UD7-LX10 and the Wyse 5070 extended thin client) - if purchased separately from an AMD embedded partner (like Avnet) they want a prince’s ransom on it (I remember seeing quotes around 350+ USD). Even sourced from places like Aliexpress it’s still at least 200 for what is essentially an SFF RX540/550 card. On those 3 thin clients it’s commonly used to drive an extra 2 4K screens via mDP, and on the t740 it becomes a 6 screen remote display beast good for running booths on trade floors.

So yes, retain it as a rare card or flip it for instant money. You won't get RTX money for it but those in the know will still be willing to pay non-Avnet pricing to get their hands on one.
 
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thetoad

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ok, good to know. i like your indepth responses to my naive Qs. best way I've found to learn is to ask naive Qs :)
 
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newabc

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The only RX550 low profile and single slot wide card I found is the "Yeston RX550-4G D5 LP" which only has 512 shaders of Lexa GPU, the same amount as the amd E9173, but 2GB more memory.
 
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