Text 26971, 49 rader
Skriven 2007-01-18 07:04:34 av Jeff Guerdat
     Kommentar till en text av Gerald Miller
Ärende: Re: duo core - what for?
================================
Gerald Miller wrote:

> When I was investigating the purchase of a new computer, most that I looked
> at were either proprietary boxes (very little leeway for customizing with
> additional hardware and generally, expensive) or disposable "scat" boxes
> (made with the cheapest, no-name hardware and meant to hit the landfil
> after a year or two).  I wanted a computer that was going to be "high end"
> (for at least three months) and last me until I retire (I've got four years
> left before the horrid 65 mark).

While I'm less young than you (soon to be 57), you're coming from 
basically the same place I did a couple of years ago, shortly before I 
retired.  The old dual PII 300MHz. had been around for 7 years and was 
time to see it go.  I replaced the motherboard wth a dual Xeon 2.8GHz. 
version and off I went.  It took a while for me to get it fleshed out, 
also, but I'm very pleased with how it turned out.  The capability of 
the sucker is such that it should be very viable for the next 5 years. 
Due to the CPU choice, it's also a nice space heater for the winter 
months...  ;)

> I am presuming it will be a screamer, when I eventually get it completely
> built...  Stay tuned for "breaking" news...  <vBg>

It does take a while to get all the little things converted (mine was 
from SCSI to SATA) and to determine what the gotchas are so they can be 
overcome.  For me, it boiled down to 1) getting multiple SATA drives to 
allow the use of the built-in RAID controller and 2) memory.  The former 
was relatively easy because I could be on the trailing edge and get 
smaller drives that, coupled together in the array, provided the 
capacity I desired.  Three 80GB drives were ~$70 apiece at the time and 
gave me 235GB in the array with 3x the speed of any single drive.  The 
memory proved to be a bit more problematic since I didn't know where the 
limitation was going to be.  I found that adding 1GB to the initial 
512MB was a limiting factor when performing some operations on digital 
images so it's now beefed up to 2.5GB total.  I've resumed scanning 
slides recently and have found no limitation so far while not only 
running the scanner but also manipulating the scanned images in Paint 
Shop Pro simultaneously.

It takes a while but it's worth it in the end.

> Now, if I can just keep my wife off the new machine (I'm giving her the
> Duron)...

I solved that by giving my wife a laptop.  Doesn't need to be fancy for 
her needs.  (I actually think she's a bit intimidated by the desktop 
machine - she rarely uses it...)  ;)
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