The Perfect Computer
Friday, March 14, 2003 by Delicious | Discussion: WinCustomize Talk
If you could have the perfect computer what would it be like?
One that has the parts available ie not one like the starship enterprise's.
One that has the parts available ie not one like the starship enterprise's.
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stark23x
Reply #22 Friday, March 14, 2003 12:02 PM
Reply #22 Friday, March 14, 2003 12:02 PM
240GB is a lot?
I have 505 usable GB, and I'm *this close* to being out of space on all but my OS drive. I'm DYING for some money so I can pick up a pair of Serial ATA drives and finally use these neat connectors on my motherboard...
I have 505 usable GB, and I'm *this close* to being out of space on all but my OS drive. I'm DYING for some money so I can pick up a pair of Serial ATA drives and finally use these neat connectors on my motherboard...
aviris
Reply #23 Friday, March 14, 2003 12:53 PM
Reply #23 Friday, March 14, 2003 12:53 PM
Here's another vote for a dual Athlon MP machine - I currently have two, one based on the MSI K7D Master-L and one on the original Tyan Tiger MP.
The Tyan with Athlon 1700 MP's and the MSI with Athlon 1900 MP's.
Each has:
1 GB of DDR SDRAM
two Seagate Barracuda IV 80 GB drives
a Plextor CDRW and a DVD drive (no DVD burner yet)
Gainward Geforce 2 Pro graphics
Viewsonic MB110 21 inch monitor
Logitech Freedom Pro (cordless Mousman Wheel and cordless split keyboard)
Same keyboard attached to both via a Miniview III 4 port KVMP switch (the P is for USB peripherals)
And for you storage freaks I also have an Adaptec 2940U Pro attached to an external IDE RAID box with just over 500 GB in RAID 3 configuration. At work I just got one with 8 drive bays populated with 250 GB drives, 7 of them running in RAID 5 and one hot spare (see at http://www.acnc.com/02_01_jetstor_iii_ide.html), stark23x - very similar thing coming up using the serial ATA drives.
Only thing I would add at this point is a Samsung Syncmaster 241MP 24 Inch TFT LCD Monitor - of course it costs more than both my machines combined - but what a bueaty. Check a review at http://www.tweaknews.net/reviews/samsung241mp/
The Tyan with Athlon 1700 MP's and the MSI with Athlon 1900 MP's.
Each has:
1 GB of DDR SDRAM
two Seagate Barracuda IV 80 GB drives
a Plextor CDRW and a DVD drive (no DVD burner yet)
Gainward Geforce 2 Pro graphics
Viewsonic MB110 21 inch monitor
Logitech Freedom Pro (cordless Mousman Wheel and cordless split keyboard)
Same keyboard attached to both via a Miniview III 4 port KVMP switch (the P is for USB peripherals)
And for you storage freaks I also have an Adaptec 2940U Pro attached to an external IDE RAID box with just over 500 GB in RAID 3 configuration. At work I just got one with 8 drive bays populated with 250 GB drives, 7 of them running in RAID 5 and one hot spare (see at http://www.acnc.com/02_01_jetstor_iii_ide.html), stark23x - very similar thing coming up using the serial ATA drives.
Only thing I would add at this point is a Samsung Syncmaster 241MP 24 Inch TFT LCD Monitor - of course it costs more than both my machines combined - but what a bueaty. Check a review at http://www.tweaknews.net/reviews/samsung241mp/
jebland
Reply #27 Friday, March 14, 2003 3:49 PM
Reply #27 Friday, March 14, 2003 3:49 PM
Just wondered about the post from brazil saying "Stay Away From Alienware" I have been drooling over the new case design they are coming out with.
"Project Predator"
http://www.maximumpc.com/features/feature_2003-02-27.html
"Project Predator"
http://www.maximumpc.com/features/feature_2003-02-27.html
brazil
Reply #28 Friday, March 14, 2003 4:36 PM
Reply #28 Friday, March 14, 2003 4:36 PM
I originally ordered my new Media Center system from Alienware.There are no words to describe how awful and painful it was dealing with them for just a few days.I then started looking into News Groups for more info of other OEM's selling Media Edition.There is where I found more dissatisfied,disgruntled AW owners,all of which were shipping their machines back and paying a restocking fee of 500$.The descriptions of Tech Support most left on the NG were horrific.Their box is far to small for the heat although I must admit that's what drew my attention to their machine.After following the NG for 2 days every one of the AW machines were being returned defective.I canceled my order,3400$,promptly.They had already billed me and my order was in stage 2 of a 7 stage process.My CC company was extremely upset with AW and I was billed nothing.They are a horrible company IMHO.
jebland
Reply #29 Friday, March 14, 2003 5:39 PM
Reply #29 Friday, March 14, 2003 5:39 PM
Ugh...Sounds like I should start looking somewhere else. 
DYSEQTA
Reply #30 Friday, March 14, 2003 8:16 PM
Reply #30 Friday, March 14, 2003 8:16 PM
>> But for me: Dual P4 3.06 HT
Sorry splash but I think you may be confused here... AFAIK there is no such thing as a dual P4, dual Xeon yes, dual P4 no. If you are refering to HyperThreading as 2 CPU's then im sorry but, regardless of what the device manager in windows tells you, HyperThreading is not the same as having a dual CPU machine. You have two sets of internal CPU registers thats all.
Sorry splash but I think you may be confused here... AFAIK there is no such thing as a dual P4, dual Xeon yes, dual P4 no. If you are refering to HyperThreading as 2 CPU's then im sorry but, regardless of what the device manager in windows tells you, HyperThreading is not the same as having a dual CPU machine. You have two sets of internal CPU registers thats all.
kthxbye
Reply #31 Friday, March 14, 2003 8:36 PM
Reply #31 Friday, March 14, 2003 8:36 PM
Dream machine, huh? Huh... people must be easily satisfied, since the things they want in their perfect computers already exist.
Oh wait - my perfect computer already does too.... the NeXT and SGI Octane. They may not be the sheer brute force powerhouses that todays PCs are (though Octanes are certainly not shabby! ^.^) but they're absolute dreams to work on.
I'd still find it more enjoyable and easy to work on an old 040 NeXT than on a PC.
Oh wait - my perfect computer already does too.... the NeXT and SGI Octane. They may not be the sheer brute force powerhouses that todays PCs are (though Octanes are certainly not shabby! ^.^) but they're absolute dreams to work on.
I'd still find it more enjoyable and easy to work on an old 040 NeXT than on a PC.
IPlural
Reply #32 Friday, March 14, 2003 8:49 PM
Reply #32 Friday, March 14, 2003 8:49 PM
SMP....
mm, the only Alienware box I've seen in person was a Full tower with 8 drive bays and loads of room.. though not sure about them other than reviews...
That and the boxes look nice, of course you could always air brush your own or take it to someone to do it for you...
Falcon bakes an wild number of paint coats and clear coats for the finish on their boxes...
mm, the only Alienware box I've seen in person was a Full tower with 8 drive bays and loads of room.. though not sure about them other than reviews...
That and the boxes look nice, of course you could always air brush your own or take it to someone to do it for you...
Falcon bakes an wild number of paint coats and clear coats for the finish on their boxes...
Splash0453
Reply #33 Saturday, March 15, 2003 6:22 AM
Reply #33 Saturday, March 15, 2003 6:22 AM
WytRaven: it can't be done? Oh well.... I was just thinking, if it could, you would have the equivilent of 4 logical processors....
I will have to settle for 1 P4 chip then....
I will have to settle for 1 P4 chip then....
DYSEQTA
Reply #34 Saturday, March 15, 2003 6:45 AM
Reply #34 Saturday, March 15, 2003 6:45 AM
Splash: HyperThreading does not mean one CPU that's really two. I know it's confusing especially when the windows device manager will show a single HT CPU as two CPU's but when it comes down to it, that is a long way from the truth.
Here's a 'laymans' terms quick summary of what HT is:
A HyperThreading Processor is a processor that contains two sets of internal registers. What are internal registers you ask? Well, a register is the tech term for a single memory cell. In the case of CPU's they have a number of internal registers (inside the processing part of the CPU itself)that are used to store information about what the CPU is doing right at any particular moment. They hold things like the current position within the active program that the CPU is up to, data to be manipulated and addresses of memory where results of calculations are to be stored etc. On a multitasking operating system like windows where lots of programs "appear" to be running at once these registers are constantly being dumped to cache and switched in with new data. All these programs are not actually running at the same time. Each "running" program is given tiny slices of time to use the CPU. When a particular program's turn comes around the CPU will dump the current state of the registers to cache and load from cache the last state of the registers as they were when the last time slice this program had was up. The program does its little bit of work and then the CPU dumps the registers again and loads up state data for the next program in its list. This happens so fast that to you, the user, it appears that all these things are happening at the same time.
Disclaimer: for all you techies out there that are saying "but there's a lot more to it than that" yes you are right but we are trying to keep it simple here, bringing program jumps and the stack into this is unnecessary.
Ok, so what does this have to do with HyperThreading? Well, as I said before HT CPU's have two sets of internal registers which means that it can keep in real internal registers the status of two different programs at once. What this means is that there is less time spent dumping data to the cache and so the time taken to switch between different programs is reduced. Thats it, ok so its a bit more complicated than that, but that should give you the general idea of what goes on.
In summary HyperThreading does not give you additional processing power as is the case with a Dual CPU system (which *can* actually do two things at the same time), it merely aims to make use of the available power more efficiently. It's aim is to improve multitasking performance and squeeze just a little bit more power out a single CPU by reducing some execution overhead. Nothing more nothing less. Simple aye?
Here's a 'laymans' terms quick summary of what HT is:
A HyperThreading Processor is a processor that contains two sets of internal registers. What are internal registers you ask? Well, a register is the tech term for a single memory cell. In the case of CPU's they have a number of internal registers (inside the processing part of the CPU itself)that are used to store information about what the CPU is doing right at any particular moment. They hold things like the current position within the active program that the CPU is up to, data to be manipulated and addresses of memory where results of calculations are to be stored etc. On a multitasking operating system like windows where lots of programs "appear" to be running at once these registers are constantly being dumped to cache and switched in with new data. All these programs are not actually running at the same time. Each "running" program is given tiny slices of time to use the CPU. When a particular program's turn comes around the CPU will dump the current state of the registers to cache and load from cache the last state of the registers as they were when the last time slice this program had was up. The program does its little bit of work and then the CPU dumps the registers again and loads up state data for the next program in its list. This happens so fast that to you, the user, it appears that all these things are happening at the same time.
Disclaimer: for all you techies out there that are saying "but there's a lot more to it than that" yes you are right but we are trying to keep it simple here, bringing program jumps and the stack into this is unnecessary.
Ok, so what does this have to do with HyperThreading? Well, as I said before HT CPU's have two sets of internal registers which means that it can keep in real internal registers the status of two different programs at once. What this means is that there is less time spent dumping data to the cache and so the time taken to switch between different programs is reduced. Thats it, ok so its a bit more complicated than that, but that should give you the general idea of what goes on.
In summary HyperThreading does not give you additional processing power as is the case with a Dual CPU system (which *can* actually do two things at the same time), it merely aims to make use of the available power more efficiently. It's aim is to improve multitasking performance and squeeze just a little bit more power out a single CPU by reducing some execution overhead. Nothing more nothing less. Simple aye?
kona0197
Reply #35 Saturday, March 15, 2003 6:51 AM
Reply #35 Saturday, March 15, 2003 6:51 AM
does AMD chips do hyperthreading? I was just at their site. I noticed the new AMD Athlon XP 3000+ is finally out. At 2.17 Ghz it still out benchmarks a P4 3.06 Ghz machine.
Styl-X Design
Reply #36 Saturday, March 15, 2003 7:07 AM
well ok, not the best comp on earth, however its good enough for me.
PIII, 800 mhz,Nvidia Gforce 3, and thats all I can remember
But as I said, its enough for me, I only use it for skinning and stuff...
Reply #36 Saturday, March 15, 2003 7:07 AM
well ok, not the best comp on earth, however its good enough for me.PIII, 800 mhz,Nvidia Gforce 3, and thats all I can remember
But as I said, its enough for me, I only use it for skinning and stuff...
DYSEQTA
Reply #37 Saturday, March 15, 2003 7:43 AM
Reply #37 Saturday, March 15, 2003 7:43 AM
kona0197...no. AMD is not going to bother as far as i know and i dont blame them (read above post for why) AMD is looking into dual core CPU's instead, thats right, one chip = two CPUs...don't expect to see them for a while though
kona0197
Reply #38 Saturday, March 15, 2003 8:00 AM
Reply #38 Saturday, March 15, 2003 8:00 AM
I think the Athlon 3000+ has a dual core. They call the core on the new chip the barton core. Would be nice to have.
DYSEQTA
Reply #39 Saturday, March 15, 2003 8:56 AM
Reply #39 Saturday, March 15, 2003 8:56 AM
no it is not dual core...dual core is a concept they are considering working on for the future, you are not likely to see them until after the switch to 64bit
citats
Reply #40 Saturday, March 15, 2003 10:12 AM
Reply #40 Saturday, March 15, 2003 10:12 AM
Many of these systems that everyone is designing for them selves sound pretty awesome for the most part. The only thing I would recommend is: the big HD lovers go with dual HD's. Hard Drives are the biggest bottle neck in any system now. Even with a 10k drive the access on a 120 gig HD would turn a 3000 mhz system into the pre gig club. 60 gig main drive for the OS ( limiting what is only absolutely neccisary on drive C )and a second 120 gig drive for all the fun progies... I saw a really nice performance boost by brick walling my OS swap on a second smaller drive.
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Reply #21 Friday, March 14, 2003 11:15 AM
BIG tft monitor (how big do they come? 20", 22"?)