What do others use to run Pixinsight

[RugbyRene (Rene)]

Hi all,

I'm currently running PI on a HP Omen gaming laptop and while it's good it's no match for a full desktop. So, I was wondering what other people would recommend. I'm space limited so a full tower desktop won't suit. I was looking at a Mac Mini but they are expensive. Please let me know what you use and if anyone uses a powerful but small form factor desktop.

Rene

[AdamJL]

I built a small form factor desktop PC a few years ago
Ryzen 3900X CPU
32GB RAM
RTX 2070 Super (for CUDA cores but also games )
2x 2TB NVME drives

It’s a small but powerful little machine. But also noisy. Small form factor machines just don’t have the cooling potential of a mid tower so the fans run faster. But if you’re okay with that, a Small Form Factor PC is wonderful
I’ve started the slow replacement project for this machine now and will be upgrading this year

I’ll post up a picture shortly

[AdamJL]

here you go. The PC is quite small! It's a Streacom DA2

[AstroViking (Steve)]

Nice setup, Adam! (And the mini-PC has taken it's styling cues from the old Mac-Pro, I see.)

Sorry, Rene, I can't offer any advice on a small form-factor PC.

[Camelopardalis (Dunk)]

Yep, you can get a super powerful unit in a small space these days

Mine is a 16-core Ryzen 5950X in a Cooler Master NR200P, so not quite as compact as Adam's unit (still mini-ITX though), but it sits behind the monitor and I don't see it. With the water cooler I added, I also don't hear it much, which was my primary consideration.

I'd suggest you consider your datasets though to determine how much oomph you really need. If you're processing hundreds and hundreds of high megapixel images, then memory will be more likely to be a limiting factor than the CPU. I use Linux on my machine, as that is PixInsight's primary development platform, with 64GB RAM and a healthy swap partition on PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD and it flies!

[oska (John)]

Best bang for buck:
5950x
~RTX2060 (all CUDA processes in less than a minute)
64G ram
AIO 360 cooler running on idle
Very quiet but not silent

[AdamJL]

Originally Posted by AstroViking

Nice setup, Adam! (And the mini-PC has taken it's styling cues from the old Mac-Pro, I see.)

Sorry, Rene, I can't offer any advice on a small form-factor PC.

Thanks Steve. That's also the first thing I thought of when I saw the case. Definite Mac Pro vibes.

Originally Posted by Camelopardalis

Yep, you can get a super powerful unit in a small space these days

Mine is a 16-core Ryzen 5950X in a Cooler Master NR200P, so not quite as compact as Adam's unit (still mini-ITX though), but it sits behind the monitor and I don't see it. With the water cooler I added, I also don't hear it much, which was my primary consideration.

I'd suggest you consider your datasets though to determine how much oomph you really need. If you're processing hundreds and hundreds of high megapixel images, then memory will be more likely to be a limiting factor than the CPU. I use Linux on my machine, as that is PixInsight's primary development platform, with 64GB RAM and a healthy swap partition on PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD and it flies!

Nice setup! I was interested in that case for a while. Also the Louqe Ghost S1 (which it's based on). There just wasn't stock anywhere so I got the Streacom in the end (and no regrets!)

btw @Rene, if you want some tips on building in small form-factor cases, keep an eye on this channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRY...xhBVrdvbsUwmAA
He's the king of SFF and builds super powerful machines.