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#1
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curious if people are satisfied with their old machines?
The computer I'm writing this on is now over four years old. It's
been upgraded some, like most every computer I've owned, but its far and away the most satisfied I've been with a four year old system. At the moment I have two web browsers open, this newsreader, two virtual machines,a media player, dozens of background processes... and it's not even close to breaking a sweat. |
#2
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curious if people are satisfied with their old machines?
On Sat, 4 Jun 2011, Trevor Smithson wrote:
The computer I'm writing this on is now over four years old. It's been upgraded some, like most every computer I've owned, but its far and away the most satisfied I've been with a four year old system. At the moment I have two web browsers open, this newsreader, two virtual machines,a media player, dozens of background processes... and it's not even close to breaking a sweat. I suspect a lot of people upgrade because they are told they need to. I haven't bought a new computer since 1989. It made sense to buy a new computer every few years, since there were dramatic changes and you'd get a better boost by buying new than adding to the old. Of course, I went from a KIM-1 in 1979, to an OSI Superboard in 1981 to a Radio Shack Color Computer in 1984 (and then a Radio Shack Color Computer III two or three years later), and then an Atari ST in 1989, a clearance item that was always flakey, so most of those upgrades were leaping to a completely differen computer, rather than today when you are buying a faster/better/whatever version of the last computer. After that, things had reached a point where one could easily do things, and it slowed down. Plus, used computers had reached a point where they were cheap and yet still pretty good, so I went with more widely spaced new computers. A decade ago, I bought a used Pentium 200MHz with 32megs of RAM, so I could run Linux, moving away from some years of an old Mac. I got a hand me down 1GHz Pentium in December of 2003, and I'm still using it. I had to change the DVDrom drive, so I put in a DVDRW drive, I moved to a larger hard drive in 2005, though ironically I haven't filled it so much that I really needed the higher capacity. I am thinking about buying a new used computer, it's been enough years and I can get something that's a fair leap forward for a hundred dollars or so. I don't really need it, but they are now cheap enough to consider making the leap. Of course, I don't do anything much intensive. Michael |
#3
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curious if people are satisfied with their old machines?
Trevor Smithson wrote:
The computer I'm writing this on is now over four years old. It's been upgraded some, like most every computer I've owned, but its far and away the most satisfied I've been with a four year old system. At the moment I have two web browsers open, this newsreader, two virtual machines,a media player, dozens of background processes... and it's not even close to breaking a sweat. My machine is a Celeron 2.6 Ghz on an MSI board from 26 June 2004. XP PRO SP3. Failures: Power supply burnout 3 weeks ago. Replaced with a better one. So 7 years. Upgraded a year ago from .5GB to 1GB memory(made little difference). Added an old dvd(R) player 3 weeks ago( A NEC DV-5700A). Only a mayor disaster will make me replace the computer. Only problem is the DVD, have not located a driver yet, only found firmware upgrades. |
#4
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curious if people are satisfied with their old machines?
This same computer of mine is not the same computer. I physically
upgrade ~something~ on it at least once a year. The latest upgrade was from a dual-core to a quad-core CPU. I actually noticed no real improvement in apparent performance, so maybe that upgrade was a waste of money. I have had the same case (a customized all-aluminum Lian Li) for years. The FDD was purchased at the same time and still works. Everything else inside has been replaced more than once. It's kind of hard to say precisely how old this computer is, but the motherboard (Gigabyte GA-770TA-UD3) is about a year and a half old. Generally I am happy with it, but I am never completely happy for long. |
#5
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curious if people are satisfied with their old machines?
Trevor Smithson trevor_smithson yahoo.com wrote:
The computer I'm writing this on is now over four years old. It's been upgraded some, like most every computer I've owned, but its far and away the most satisfied I've been with a four year old system. Not sure if my system can be considered old, but... Upgrades have radically slowed down here over the years. At this point, I can do about everything I want to do with a PC. Besides voice-activated scripting, the biggest strain is a game called Supreme Commander 2. Even though it is futuristic, it is classic real-time strategy (RTS) game, making it a modern version of chess. My quad core system is probably fast enough for anything I might want to do in the near future. Definitely gone are the days of regular upgrades. My system can probably easily handle any dabbling with stuff like electronics simulation, if it grabs me. One possibility that might push the envelope is a good first person shooter with jetpacks for full 3-D movement, like Tribes 2. Such a game is certainly complex as RTS, but I'm not sure if the complexity can be realized when acting as only one participant. If FPS with full 3-D movement were nearly deep as RTS, it would be awesome. Maybe some study would uncover complexities. Plenty of power here, for now. |
#6
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curious if people are satisfied with their old machines?
ToolPackinMama philnblanc comcast.net wrote:
This same computer of mine is not the same computer. I physically upgrade ~something~ on it at least once a year. The latest upgrade was from a dual-core to a quad-core CPU. I actually noticed no real improvement in apparent performance, so maybe that upgrade was a waste of money. You should have used Performance Monitor to observe the core loads. |
#7
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curious if people are satisfied with their old machines?
Trevor Smithson wrote:
The computer I'm writing this on is now over four years old. It's been upgraded some, like most every computer I've owned, but its far and away the most satisfied I've been with a four year old system. At the moment I have two web browsers open, this newsreader, two virtual machines,a media player, dozens of background processes... and it's not even close to breaking a sweat. My rule of thumb would be P4 @ 3GHz (preferably, a cooler-running Northwood CPU) Athlon 3200+ (S462 minimum, but any later socket would be better) as minimum machines. I have about four motherboard/CPU combos that meet those requirements, and any of the four pieces of hardware is good for day to day usage. I have a 1.8GHz P4, and the peripheral interfaces and memory are pretty slow in that one. It would be interesting to test that processor, in a decent motherboard, to see if in fact it would be acceptable. Once you get back to older machines based on this architecture Processor ---- Northbridge ------------+---- Southbridge --- disks PCI Bus | +--- Add-in PCI slot | ... that's pretty hopeless. Too much traffic through the PCI bus. Tends to be sluggish. Something like this Processor ---- Northbridge ----------- Southbridge ----- PCI slots Hub Bus ----- Storage interfaces plus a 3GHz P4 equivalent (at least a single core), and then that is good enough. The Hub bus can be anywhere from 266MB/sec to 1GB/sec on some of the older machines with that design. It takes a lot of bloated software (emulation upon emulation) to make acceptable hardware, look like crap. I was reading today, how some tablet or other, was using Java for some key functions, and, well, I couldn't believe it. That's sheer torture. Java on overpowered hardware, is almost acceptable. Java on top of some marginal processor - who wants that ? If you're going to run older hardware or weak hardware, you want "lean and mean" software for it. One of the reasons you still like your computer, is the older OS on it :-) Even some of the latest Linux distros, are packing a bit too much lard. It's actually hard to find a good distro with a 2.6 Kernel, where the emphasis is on a lighter memory footprint. Paul |
#8
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curious if people are satisfied with their old machines?
On 2011-06-05 12:17:12 +1000, Paul said:
It takes a lot of bloated software (emulation upon emulation) to make acceptable hardware, look like crap. I was reading today, how some tablet or other, was using Java for some key functions, and, well, I couldn't believe it. That's sheer torture. Java on overpowered hardware, is almost acceptable. Java on top of some marginal processor - who wants that ? If you're going to run older hardware or weak hardware, you want "lean and mean" software for it. One of the reasons you still like your computer, is the older OS on it :-) Actually, Java is not slow at all. It is a common misconception that it is slow, largely a result of ancient Java applets which were slow to download and run. Modern Java uses JIT (Just In Time) compilation where the virtual instructions are translated to X86 native code from the virtual machine code, when a Java class is loaded the first time. There is a small delay the first time the class is used, and then afterwards it runs pretty much at machine speed. Microsoft use identical JITting tech with their .NET platform. There is no emulation. Java does need more memory than the equivalent C++ or C code, because it uses a garbage collecting memory manager. |
#9
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curious if people are satisfied with their old machines?
Trevor Smithson wrote:
The computer I'm writing this on is now over four years old. It's been upgraded some, like most every computer I've owned, but its far and away the most satisfied I've been with a four year old system. At the moment I have two web browsers open, this newsreader, two virtual machines,a media player, dozens of background processes... and it's not even close to breaking a sweat. I'm still using the one I built several years ago based around 4GB RAM and a dual-core Intel processor. I even through in a $100 video card a couple of years ago when I was gaming. It's plenty fast for what I use it for, and until something breaks I don't see any good reason for a new box. Jon |
#10
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curious if people are satisfied with their old machines?
Trevor Smithson wrote: The computer I'm writing this on is now over four years old. It's been upgraded some, like most every computer I've owned, but its far and away the most satisfied I've been with a four year old system. At the moment I have two web browsers open, this newsreader, two virtual machines,a media player, dozens of background processes... and it's not even close to breaking a sweat. I still use a 600 MHz K6-III+ for e-mails (late 1990's ? vintage). Also I have a P4/AGP/DDR box that is adequate for lots of stuff. The most modern that I have is a Core 2 quad mainly for number crunching. |
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