By: König Prüß, GfbAEV
[2001-03-27]
Like the Hardware Store, But Worse!
I hate shopping!
I hate shopping! Well, I kinda like shopping, but I hate making
decisions! It's getting on to "get a new 'puter" time, and there are
faster boxes with bigger memories that are tempting me. A nice Compaq
P3 996mhz w/ 60gig drive at Circuit City, and a whole setup from the
local Gateway shop. What's kind of given me pause is the rumor of
100ghz speeds and 10x's the memory just over the horizon and around the
corner. Hewlett-Packard is maybe going to have DNA computers in less
than 2 years. Compaq's 1,200 processor "Renderwall" is nice, if not
quite the 12,000 processor cluster that was used for the animation
"Antz."
It's
an almost guaranteed sure thing that if I get a 1 or 1.5 ghz box, the
next month the 100ghz box will be out, again leaving me as roadkill in
the infobahn.
I think that one thing that I'll do is to call
a guy who worked at the Naval Research Laboratory, there's a
possibility that he can wire me into a cluster. I almost think that
computing has gone through a cycle from the large central computer with
peripherals to desktop horsepower back to a large central cluster.
I think that I'll continue to window shop and wait to see what evolves, wait 'til this computer dies and pour a 40oz on it.
It's always the problem with computers. You buy one, and another is just around the corner, waiting to kick the one you just bought in the teeth. So I say "Don't bother!". Keep your old P 120, with 16 megs of RAM! Play Duke Nukem and Doom all your life! Who needs HALO and Max Payne?!
Actually, wait.
I need Max Payne, and HALO, and Black and White. So actually, what I said was, in fact, a cleverly crafted web of lies and misinformation. But, König, you might as well upgrade to whatever is the best in your budget. Dell are always good.
You will be able to upgrade for cheaper later. It all doesn't make sense in the end.
Yep, I'd just like a bigger drive and more speed.
Graphics and music take up a lot of drive space.
With Compaq and Intel and Cisco laying people off
and the economy still down, I think that assuming
an attitude of watchful waiting might be advantageous.
There's a guy who makes robots out of old Walkman units
and calculators, that would be some mischief.
name brand pc's are for people who drive minivans and eat Hot Pockets, dude. come on.
Well, alternatively I can get some of the guys in Comp Sci
/Communications at the Navy Research to make something from
surplus. Also, some Sun/Army surplus is fast with big drives.
Or there's Linux and BSD...I don't drive minivans, unless
that's what the Co. leased, and no hot pockets,
but four cheese calzone, or those Greek spinaka things.
Hey, I'm up for suggestions, fastest clock and biggest
drive, 100 gigs is fine, but the 100ghz is going to make
current stuff look like a 486, huh? A couple local engineering
companies have VAX machinery that is underutilized.
So, what are you saying? I should get a motherboard,
Cyrix, a 100gig drive, and so on? You're in Jersey, right?
Any good calzone there?
well, my foot's kind of in my mouth, as I've never been able to afford a high-end pc, and therefore don't really know how to shop for one. I think the same rules hold true, though: check out the prices on generics and smaller manufacturers (but not so small they're likely to go out of business before the warranty coverage ends). Micron, perhaps. I don't think it's possible to upgrade a Dell/Gateway/HP/Compaq, even if they'll let you, which is another reason to go with the cheaper options.
What would be your ideal custom design?
What do you think of the Mac Cube? I kinda
like the idea of multiple processors.
This dual-P3 'board is faster than a P4!
Dual Pentium III Plus DDR SDRAM: "Iwill
DVD266-R Mainboard ...... Iwill DVD266-R with
two CPUs proved to be faster than the platform
for Pentium 4 1.5GHz in almost all the tests..."
http://www.cyrix.com/
But crap! 1.5ghz is miles from 100ghz!
Actually stan, I bought my Dell 3 years ago after going through a couple of years of building my own, and I found it to be highly upgradeable. I mean, I whip out the mobo (I'm so hip!), the AGP graphics card wasn't welded in, it has space for an extra CD sized drive, room for Zip drives, etc. and a load of free PCI slots.
I was really happy with this PC, and it convinced me to buy with big name companies, as the support was also excellent (especially when I nuked my speakers: they sent another set out the next day).
I wouldn't buy Gateway though, as they truly are rank. No room for upgrades at all (my friend bought one, and he regretted it ever since). That's why I like Dell.
that's cool, but 3 years is a long time in the computer industry, so I'd still advise our Prussian friend to be wary of name brands. the opportunity to pull apart a brand new Dell and see what the innards are like without having to buy it would be cool, but unlikely.
In the long-run, it might be a tad bit pricier but leasing might keep me ahead on the technology curve; when new junk comes out, turn in the old box for a new one, which might be less pricey in the long-run. Min-max optimization techniques are not my forte.
Get a room, you two lovebirds.
I prefer the more politically-correct term, "fun-boys".
