Affordable PC for BI and around 10 Cameras

[rmoran]

u used to be an IT guy, haven’t kept up in years. Seeing Amazon has Quad i7, 16GB ram, 2TB HDD, Windows 10 home for around. $300/$400. Seems like a beast compared to my old machines I’m using with 4GB. What should I be loooking for/staying away from? Thanks

 

[ldasilva]

Choosing Hardware for Blue Iris | IP Cam Talk

 

[Q™]

You can’t go wrong with >= i7-6700.

 

[dannieboiz]

+1 for an I7 6700. it'll handle 10 cameras easily with room to spare.

 

[Q™]

+1 for an I7 6700. it'll handle 10 cameras easily with room to spare.

...and if you're like many of us here 10 cameras will become 15 and 15 cameras...

 

[Mr-Gizmo]

I would also recommend purchasing a PC with Windows 10 Professional over the Home Edition. The main benefit of Pro over Home is being able to defer "Feature Updates" for up to 365 days.

 

[bp2008]

Windows Pro editions also have Remote Desktop and the local group policy editor for making advanced tweaks for things like preventing driver updates.

 

[Thickice]

If you already have a win7/10 product key, you can build your own for less than $400. You can also get win10 for free if you have an edu email account.
System Builder - Core i5-8400 2.8GHz 6-Core, SRM-01 MicroATX Mini Tower - PCPartPicker
8400 is equal to or slightly better than 6700 in most applications, I dont know about blue iris specifically but they should be in the same ballpark.

 

[bp2008]

If you already have a win7/10 product key, you can build your own for less than $400. You can also get win10 for free if you have an edu email account.
System Builder - Core i5-8400 2.8GHz 6-Core, SRM-01 MicroATX Mini Tower - PCPartPicker
8400 is equal to or slightly better than 6700 in most applications, I dont know about blue iris specifically but they should be in the same ballpark.

I'd guess the 8400 would be a little faster. Lower base clock speed. But at the same time, 50% more real cores beats hyper-threading for most workloads.

 

[rmoran]

Y’all are awesome. I picked up a HO ENVY i7-6700 12gb Ram and 2tb HDD off eBay for $425. I think that’ll do the trick!

 

[dannieboiz]

I think you bought the same one I had. IF so, that HP Envy you got is limited to 2 slots of ram. It's also DDR3L and not DDR4 ram. you are also very limited with how many HDD you can stick in there. an OS HDD and a DATA drive then you'll be ok but any hopes of future expansion is out of the question.

I gutted my system and only took the CPU after using it for a few months and ended up building a new system.