Computer power

KE7FD

I'm currently using a 6400 interfaced to a Xeon workstation running win10. It's a beast both physically and well, physically (lots of memory etc...). To reclaim some desk space, I picked up a: Beelink SER Mini PC W-11 Pro, AMD Ryzen 7 5700U, DDR4 32GB RAM 500GB NVMe M.2 SSD, Radeon Graphics 8 core 1900 MHz, WiFi6, Triple Display..." that I'm planning on using instead; it's a much smaller package. My question is this: Should I DEDICATE this mini PC solely to the 6400 and somehow (?) delegate tasks like HRD, WSJT, LoTW to a separate mini PC ? Is that even possible? So I'm also asking if anyone has actually done that?

If Jupiter aligns with Mars, I hope to upgrade to the 8400 once they start shipping.

Glen KE7FD

VE7ATJ_Don

Hi Glen… I suspect your mini-PC configuration will be more than adequate to handle SmartSDR and the Flex. As has been mentioned before (many times), the Flex implementation does most of the heavy processing lifting in the radio itself. The PC really is just for interface - display and control.

What I find matters most is having enough 'ethernet processing' to handle possibly multiple streams of stuff coming in (since many hams want their radio integrated with logs, cluster servers, etc.) and graphics capability (I'm running two 4K displays currently, so I think the graphics card is sometimes struggling).

KD0RC

Hi Glen, Like Don, I doubt that you will need a separate PC for the ancillary stuff, but if you do, it is easy enough to have multiple computers connected at the same time. The radio is the server and all the apps are clients (SmartSDR and the Maestro are a special (GUI) client type). The radio doesn't care if some clients are on one computer and some are on another.

Depending on the apps, you may need to run CAT or DAX (or both) on the other computer.

In my case, I found that my old laptop ran SmartSDR just fine, but CWSkimmer swamped it. My new laptop runs everything with power to spare.

KE7FD

Thanks guys! I hoped that would be the case, I just wanted someone with experience with the concerns I had to confirm for me. I'm looking forward to the improved desk area and the 84' when it comes in. I'll likely mount it under the desk to save even more space. The desk rides on tracks so I can pull it out for easier access to cables.

John KB4DU

although I don’t run a lot of other apps, I still run SmartSDR on a win 7 laptop.