Text 27040, 105 rader
Skriven 2007-01-18 14:23:16 av Gerald Miller (1:342/512)
     Kommentar till en text av Jeff Guerdat
Ärende: duo core - what for?
============================
Hello Jeff,

    On Thursday January 18 2007 at 07:04,
    Jeff Guerdat [1:275/311] wrote to Gerald Miller,
    about: Re: duo core - what for?

[snip]

 GM>> I wanted a computer that was going to be "high end" (for at least
 GM>> three months) and last me until I retire (I've got four years left
 GM>> before the horrid 65 mark).

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

So, there is the possibility that the forthcoming "screamer" will be an
acceptable machine after I retire?  I am greatly relieved by that prospect.

 JG> Due to the CPU choice, it's also a nice space heater for the winter
 JG> months...  ;)

Hummmm.  That's not the way I want to go!  I got seven fans -- four intake
and three exhaust.  I had thought about going water cooled, but the price
quickly modified my thinking.

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

 JG> It does take a while to get all the little things converted (mine was
 JG> from SCSI to SATA) and to determine what the gotchas are so they can
 JG> be overcome.  For me, it boiled down to 1) getting multiple SATA
 JG> drives to allow the use of the built-in RAID controller and 2) memory.

The RAID thingie has me a little confused.  The MB has Intel Matrix Storage
Technology (RAID 0, 1, 10, 5) and after doing a search at the Wiki site for
the different RAID "standards", I'm even more confused.

I think it will be a while before the machine is online, so I will have
some time to ask more questions about RAID and then make a decision.

I have two Seagate 320GB SATA drives for the boot OS (both mounted in drive
caddies so that the boot OS can be cloned).  I haven't purchased any
additional drives yet as I still need to pick up some small stuff -- power
splitter cables, cable for the two floppies, cable for the DVD burner (and
sound cable for same), couple more fans AND another copy of Microsoft
Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2 (and probably some other stuff that
hasn't occurred to me at this moment).

 JG> The former was relatively easy because I could be on the trailing edge
 JG> and get smaller drives that, coupled together in the array, provided
 JG> the capacity I desired.  Three 80GB drives were ~$70 apiece at the
 JG> time and gave me 235GB in the array with 3x the speed of any single
 JG> drive.

If one drive in the array should fail, does the data on the remaining two
become corrupt?

I do like the aspect of the drive speed though...  <g>

 JG> The memory proved to be a bit more problematic since I didn't know
 JG> where the limitation was going to be.  I found that adding 1GB to the
 JG> initial 512MB was a limiting factor when performing some operations on
 JG> digital images so it's now beefed up to 2.5GB total. I've resumed
 JG> scanning slides recently and have found no limitation so far while not
 JG> only running the scanner but also manipulating the scanned images in
 JG> Paint Shop Pro simultaneously.

I'll have to get back to you in regards to the memory.  I'm hoping that 4GB
should be adequate but I see in another message that there may be some
limitations on how the memory can be deplored.

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

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

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

Sorry, a laptop for the wife is not within the budget.  She will have to be
content with the Duron until I can remove the Intel 500MHz motherboard from
its current Cooler Master Stacker case and place it in an old ATX case that
I have in the basement.  The 500MHz box is running Windows 2000 Pro (at the
moment) and I had hoped to put W2K on the Duron box if I was able to
upgrade the CPU to an Athlon -- can't locate the desired CPU locally.  When
the Stacker case is freed up, I will put a "respectable" MB/CPU in it --
probably not going to be another Core 2 Duo...

The other part of my plan is to transfer my DOS system from the 200MHz box
to the 500MHz machine.  That should be a snap because on ocassions, I've
had to swap the drive caddie from the 200 to the 500 box and everything was
"peaches and cream", only faster.  <grin>

           Cheers ... Gerald

... System-independent: Works equally poorly on all systems.
--- GoldED+/DPMI32 v1.1.5-b20060121 [msg of Thursday January 18 2007]
 * Origin: And they still go mad at this time. (1:342/512)