I think the average machine would be slower than 1 gig and bot have the 3d Graphics of the G2 because of the installed base in businesses. The average machine in my company 35m+ employees is a P3 600 setup for good 2D graphics. And we are a relatively well known technology company.

I wonder how many people would actually be using an Athlon/Duron rather than a Pentium . . .

AMD for me.

Well, I don't know about the computer speed of the average user, but here are some interesting facts about the general population. For all the sites using a counter (from the counter.com), in the whole month of July 2002, out of 367,105,177 visotors:

OPERATING SYSTEM:
1. Win 98 198591398 (54%)
2. Win 2000 78302553 (21%)
3. Win ME 39410327 (10%)
4. Win NT 18722966 (5%)
5. Win 95 15773007 (4%)
6. Mac 7186307 (1%)
7. Unknown 4944367 (1%)
8. Win 3.x 1649906 (0%)
9. Linux 1199454 (0%)
10. WebTV 858444 (0%)
11. Unix 307581 (0%)
12. Win XP 104257 (0%)

RESOLUTION:
1. 800x600 161769990 (49%)
2. 1024x768 121539093 (37%)
3. 1280x1024 13583998 (4%)
4. 640x480 10239906 (3%)
5. 1152x864 10124081 (3%)
6. Unknown 3943743 (1%)
7. 1600x1200 2363575 (0%)

Isn't that surprising? I thought more people than that would have XP.. But that's for July though. XP wasn't out for that long then.

But Frogboy, I don't know about the truth of this WC survey though. I find it hard to believe, I must admit. And don't forget, making a survey about computer speed to a bunch of macho geeks, is like making a survey about the lengh of our personnal attributes.
I am pretty sure some people aren't totally honest about it, even to themselves.

But, I can proudly say that my personnal home computer is a Celeron 333Mhz, and I find it hard to believe the average people here would buy a new computer every year or two. Although it would be fitting with a previous survey about people's home income, which showed most people here are quite comfortable.

AMD 1800+ XP

WINDOWS XP pro

res = 1024 x 768
\

AMD Athlon 1700+ Win98 1280 X 1024 (Home)
Pentium3 1ghz win2k 12680 x 1024 (Work)
Pentium2 366mHz Win2k 1024 x 768 (Laptop)

And I have to say I built my home comp from bits and bobs scrounged from other older systems, 'cept the MoBo.

And I know most of my friends have a lower spec than I do but don't do as much on their comps as I do!

Spydy

I have a lowly Pentium II G6-400 made by Gateway with the WindowsXP Pro O/S and it amazes me that I am able to run all of the stuff that I do. Even WindowsXP Pro is not supposed to be able to run on my machine but it does and it is not really all that slow. In fact running ObjectDesktop with all of the various apps works pretty darn good for such an older system; I think that it actually runs better with the Object Desktop applications. I use a 1024x768 60Hz desktop and find that most all of the skins work without any glitches.

I have a 500mhz at home with XP on it (it's a ThinkPad)
two 600mhz (one dual boots XP/ME, the other 2000/ME) at work (testing). I think that the general population is more around 600mhz - 1ghz. At least that it what I see most in tech support. You do have the occasional god machine, or the one that can barely run 98, but most of them are pretty middle of the road.

1) 700 MHz Celeron, 256MB RAM, 40GB HD, 32MB GeForce2 3D card, 24/10/40 CDRW, 48x CD-ROM.
2) 400 MHz Celeron, 160MB RAM, 20GB HD, 8MB video card, 48x CD-ROM.

Paxx Wrote:
"I find it hard to believe the average people here would buy a new computer every year or two."

You don't need to buy a new computer every 1 or 2 years to remain top of the line. You just have to upgrade, and what most people don't seem to realize is that upgrading is practically a joke.

First of all, you start off with a new motherboard and CPU. All that crap you have in your computer already should still be good, and the only other thing you might have to worry about is RAM depending on what you want to upgrade to and what motherboard you buy. So... Let's be safe and name those three things to start with. You can do that and upgrade to pretty much top of the line right there.

Next, you probably have a craptacularly small HDD (under 15GB's). My old one was 8GB's... I only upgraded that about 6 months after I did everything else. So, a few months after you upgraded the other stuff, you can go and replace that Hard Drive if you're running out of space. While you're at it, depending on whether you need it or not, you might also want to purchase a new 3D card. Personally, I suggest waiting until the next gen comes out and then snatching it up right away. You'll get the most value out of it that way.

Boom. You now have a relatively new, top of the line computer. Do this every year and your investment costs will be minimal. Your biggest investments in your computer are the things that never really get old and useless. Any hard Drive that's 30GB+ should provide you with quite a few years of adequate storage space provided you don't fill it up with useless junk (use a burner to back up junk files and take them off your computer). As long as your monitor works, upgrading it is pointless. Your CD-ROM/CD-RW/DVD drives are probably pretty damn good still, and stuff like printers and scanners don't need to be upgraded either unless you want better quality.

Take me for example. I'm soon upgrading to a Celeron 1.8GHz CPU, with a new motherboard, a new case and powersupply, 128MB GeForce4 (cheapest one available), and 256MB's of 333Mhz DDR-RAM. Total cost: $586 Canadian. That's $367US. I'm keeping my 40GB HDD, my floppy drive, my burner, my CD-ROM, and my Monitor.

Then, with what I'm left over with, all the pieces from my other - slower - computer will be put into there. Then with what I'm left over with again, I'll just collect spare parts here and there, maybe look around at second hand computer shops for monitors, 10GB HDD's and such, and then put it all back together again and I'll end up with a 3rd computer. I do this once a year, and the end result is a practically top of the line computer and one extra computer to do whatever else with for less than 1/4 the price of buying one brand new.

Don't need that extra computer lying around? Then make the investment in secondhand pieces, rebuild it, and then donate it to a school or some orginazation and get a tax refund on it that'll usually cover more than what you paid to rebuild that and upgrade the other one.

Another really good trick for cutting upgrade costs is to stay out of big brand electronics stores (Staples, Office/Business Depot, Futureshop, Circuit City). They aren't specialized in computers, therefore they charge more for parts and they don't react as fast to constant price fluctuations in the market. Try and find a store near you that builds custom computers and sells parts. They're your cheapest and best bets.

Also, do all the work yourself. For those of you who don't know anything about them, let me assure you that it's not hard. If you know how to hook up your VCR or Stereo system, that's about all the experience you need. When you open up your computer to take parts out to begin with, you'll realize right then and there that it's not quite that hard, especially since most wires have only one place to fit into, and if there's more than one place you can put it, it'll probably work there too. I'm not saying experience isn't a bonus, but I am saying that it's not as complicated as most people make it out to be. Just take good note of how everything is set up already.


(¯`·.¸.·{DiStUrBeD}·.¸.·´¯)

Home
1Gig PIII, 512 Meg RAM (Windows XP Pro)
PIII 600, 512 Meg RAM (Windows 2000 Server / Exchange 5.5)
PIII 550, 320 Meg RAM Windows 2000 Pro)

Work
1Gig PIII, 512 Meg RAM (Windows 2000 Pro)
PIII 500, 256 Meg RAM (Windows 2000 Pro)
PII 450, 256 Meg RAM (windows 2000 Pro)
PIII 800 Latitude, 512 Meg RAM (Windows 2000 Pro)
2 HP Brio's that sit around and do nothing...

That's the rundown for my systems...

I find that hard to believe. I think most people here are very honest.

BTW, I'm running a Pentium 5 at 3 GHz and 2 Gb of RAM. It looks great on my 52" widescreen plasma display.

The 'general public' fall into two groups, those who use their employers computer at work and those that buy them to use - for whatever. I have two clients with 800-1200 computers between them whose average speed is under 500Mhz and where one of those clients is still standardised on W95, yes 95, avergae RAM is less than 64Mb, screens are 800x600 or 640x480.
At my home office I have 3 500-600Mhz machines but with 256 - 512Mb RAM in each. I am just upgrading my main workhorse to Dual 1Gb P3, and am getting excited as I await arrival of the new processors.

pentium 4 2.359 ghz, 512 mb DDRRam, mobility fire gl 7800, 8x10x24 burner,12x dvd. i love my laptop

233Mhz Pentium II (Actually a 350 but isnt recognized) Getting a 533Mhz celeron upgrade. Maxed out the MB with 384MB SDRAM, 32Mb TNT2 M64Pro Video Card, Resolution is 1024x768@60hz (headaches come frequently at 60hz) And of Course a perfectly legal copy of Windows XP Professional... Im running Stlye XP with no problems at all, the only real thing that smacks me in the face is game play... And believe this or not... I can actually "PLAY" GTAIII ... errr... only with an over head view though... Eh, Im not much for games, all I really like to do is make my computer look "neat", and organized...

-= RAGE2KK2 =-

1.2Ghz Celeron, 256MB Ram, 40GigHD, 1024x728 most of the time.
XP Home.

1.7Ghz Amd,256MB Ram,40GigHD, XPPro:
1.3Ghz Amd,768MB Ram,85GigHd, XPHome.

1800 Athlon, XP
512MB RAM
40GB Hard drive
Run in 1024x768 - Runs all stardock software pretty well in Windows XP

i have to say, that this survey reminded me, how old my system is...
P3 500 512MB SDRAM.
So i decided to purchase a newer one!
P4 1800 512 DDR.
It should arrive next week, i can't wait...

I'm an intel geek Green Reaper, I would not touch amd .. yet i do not like some of the early problems they had.