Most powerful computer in the group?

"Burgerman" wrote in news:2tKwg.4034$v4.1088 @newsfe3-win.ntli.net:

I downloaded the zip file, but now I've forgotten why ;-)

Me neither, what I was meaning is that the system is essentially £734 plus delivery. Delivery is ten percent.

And it's £800 for a desktop that, whilst it's okay, isn't tremendous...

It's *much* quicker than I envisaged it being, even with the integrated graphics funkiness.

With our pikey specification "Broadband" connection it'll take ten minutes to download, so I lose this one! :)

Well less than that if you count that VAT's charged on delivery as well. Assuming delivery's 65+VAT, then the system by itself is only 615 before VAT

tremendous...

Well, depends how you define "tremendous". It's not going to set the world alight, but it's a hell of an improvement on the average 300-400 quid system.

If I could do significantly better for the money, then suggestions are very much welcome....

-- "They said to me 'You could be anyone you wanted to be', but I was realistic and only ever aimed to be me, which I already was. So I gave up trying."

Yes, but for how long? Don't get me wrong, it'll rock as a system, but compared to your current system, an entry level system will rock..?

Mac? :-p

Bloody technology - there's always something new just around the corner.....

Thing is, having looked at that, there's one thing I don't get - in the price comparison page, the Pentium D and dual-core Athlon processor ranges have the Level 2 Cache quoted as xxx KB "x2", whereas the Intel Core 2 Duo just quotes the total L2 Cache. Does that mean that it's all in the one shared bank on the Core 2 Duo chips, or that a quoted 4MB actually means 2 lots of 4MB? And what's better, performance-wise - having it in the one main shared bank, or as 2 separate lots - one for each core?

-- "They said to me 'You could be anyone you wanted to be', but I was realistic and only ever aimed to be me, which I already was. So I gave up trying."

Well yes, true, but an entry level system will, in time, suffer slower performance much sooner than a better (i.e. more expensive) system. Entry level systems all seem to skimp as far as things like internal cache, front sidebus speed etc. are concerned, as well as often having cheaper integrated graphics cards and such like, and whilst I'm no expert on all these things, it's things like that that tend to play almost as much of a part in the overall system performance than pure clock speed and RAM alone does.

I suppose, at the end of the day, the best time to buy a PC is either now, as prices are always going to be good due to the fast pace technology moves at, or never, 'cos it'll always be very quickly outdated by something else.......

So far though, this thing's still working, but quite often I long for a much quicker machine. And if I'm buying something decent, I may as well do it properly.

Heh. PC definitely seems to be the way to go in terms of bang per buck.

-- "They said to me 'You could be anyone you wanted to be', but I was realistic and only ever aimed to be me, which I already was. So I gave up trying."

That's why I didn't bother looking into Centrino Duo 2, since I wanted a machine then and there rather than in August, heh...

You'd have to do some digging on that! :)

AMD's dual core technology has reckoned to be more efficient and Intel's version, even though Centrino Duo improves things... but then a couple of articles I've read have said that the difference in performance is largely confined to theoritical improvements, when in use the two are comparable.

It took longer to open WinZip than it did to unzip it...

Yep

It has potential to be slightly quicker.

James

Yer you need a big 2 or 3 gig zip really but you wouldnt want to download it! Anyway that wasnt the real point of the exersize! It was the files...

Not this week anyway! :) Maybe if I started it this week...

I couldn't view them anyway, heh.

Around 4 seconds at less than 100% magnification, after 400% it's instant. This is with an opteron 144 over clocked to 3ghz and a gig of ram.

James

Hmm, no. Unless you throw the word, "relative" in there of course.

Even so your analogy is flawed because if and when Intel / AMD move the game along, the next bunch of processors will be materially quicker than the current set up and the difference between front side bus speeds will amount to a few percent in that generation and the then-current, if you see what I mean.

If you're looking at the cheaper options, electing for something with a standalone video card is preferable to something with integrated video.

On the other hand, unless you're into gaming then integrated video will probably be absolutely fine for your purposes. When I was looking at notepads, many sources reckoned that integrated video was poor compared to a dedicated card... but the closest I'll come to needing 3D hardware acceleration will be the starfield screen saver. :-) For 2D video performance, integrated video is (in my humble end user of technology opinion of course) absolutely fine.

The other advantage of buying a cheaper system is that it's easier to bin it and get a whole new bunch of bits or another machine. I never did bother with interim upgrades, but instead moved from one class of processor to another, i.e. I moved from the Pentium II to the Pentium III, rather than from a slow Pentium II to a quicker Pentium II, to a slow Pentium III, so on and so forth.

Absolutely. A collect of mid-spec devices will provide a robust overall level of performance that'll make for a more effective system than buying a BFO processor and cheap other components.

Yup. Buying something in the top half of the scale feels like giving four pints of blood. Sure, at the time it feels good, but afterwards you feel a bit sick... :)

Hmmmm... Aside the stability issues, which were a great excuse for Charlie to buy me a new notebook, the AMD Duron 800 desktop I have, with its 15 Gb drive and 256 Mb of memory, run Office 2003 as well as I could want (disclaimer that it has a 1,500 rpm hard drive from the feel of it and a modern 5,400 rpm 80 Gb unit ought to dramatically improve matters).

This notebook is _only_ twice as quick when recalculating my Allcar spreadsheet.

Yes, for the most part, I would agree...

Heh, s'pose so.

Aye, know what you mean. Suppose I want a system that, in its lifetime I'm not going to want to do bit by bit upgrades, just wait until stuff's moved on enough for it be worth just buying a whole new system. Bit like what you said later on.

compared to a

Aye, I probably don't need 3D type functionality. What I would like, though, is something with enough processing power, RAM and a decent enough graphics card to make video capture / amateur DVD authoring a possibility - something I don't currently use my PC for, but would like to be able to.

Zackly. I'd rather a system where all the components are up to speed with each other, so that even if in a couple of years' time it'll feel a bit slow compared to the latest machines, at least all the components will be able to keep up with each other no problems.

Heh. Well I'd agree with that sentiment if we were talking 1500-2000 pounds for a mid to top spec system (as was the case 10 or so years back), but these days you can get something pretty damn good for a reasonable amount short of a grand, and I must say I'm a bit tempted.

Well as I've said, my P3/450 system with it's 320MB of RAM and 2x 13GB hard drives (one for OS, one for all my documents + copies of installation CDs etc, oh and yes, the 250GB 'Porsche' USB2 drive as well) runs perfectly well for most mundane tasks - Office, OE, MSN, Winamp/iTunes for entertainment (including video - though iTunes is pathetic for playing videos thanks to its resource-hogging nature - funny how Winamp never has a problem with exactly the same files....) - even a few complex Acrobat files and it'll cope fine.

But running all that lot many times over, with loads of IE windows open, quite a few complex PDFs open, including a couple of websites running complex scripts, and things do start to slow down noticeably.

I think what we all need is more efficiently written software......

-- "They said to me 'You could be anyone you wanted to be', but I was realistic and only ever aimed to be me, which I already was. So I gave up trying."

What does? The one shared bank? And when you say 'potential', is it

-- "They said to me 'You could be anyone you wanted to be', but I was realistic and only ever aimed to be me, which I already was. So I gave up trying."

Well, what I did mean to mention was to do the test with it fully zoomed out - i.e. with the whole thing in view (as in view the full height, as it's a landscape orientation).

-- "They said to me 'You could be anyone you wanted to be', but I was realistic and only ever aimed to be me, which I already was. So I gave up trying."

Anyway - 2500 pounds it cost him

I cant even remember what my processor is these days - I would look, but I can't quite be bothered getting up and checking. This message brought to you by my elderly Compaq Armada 1750 laptop on wireless - 350mhz or thereabouts.

Lots of memory and some fast drives then?

Yes. I've had a machine in the past that had a relatively slow processor but decent hard drive and video card. It felt just fine but I was bored and chucked out the old Celeron processor for a shiney new faster one... and the difference in running speed was tiny. Then I chopped out the video card, bought a new drive, and because I'd gone for a mix of components, the machine was never the same again (!).

Triggers' broom and all that of course...

Heh!

Yes. Mac *cough*.

But seriously now, I suspect that a low to mid range processor combined with lots of memory would work well for you. That's the reason why I was happy with the base Centrino (until people said, "nah get the Duo model over the Solo, it's quicker and more power efficient) and a gigabyte of memory. For my duties, I've not come close to using all of that memory, but then I don't do anything high end. Because my applications, even all together, don't use the paging file (that I can tell) so the system performance just keeps on going. There's no deceleration as the machine pulls information off the drive to do something...

As I understand (and somebody funky with computers please correct me), almost all high end consumer orientated video cards offer great 3D acceleration but 2D video acceleration is, err, well present. So the difference between an inexpensive card, a mid range card and an expensive card would be wasted on you and I.

Perhaps a lower mid range machine with 1 Gb of memory would suffice, as long as it has a free memory slot so if you need another gigabyte you can add it?