Current offerings on PC market

[Robert.Hall]

http://management.cadalyst.com/cadman/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=368606

Other than looking cool, how would I know that his computer is better or worse
than what I am currently running?

What would make this PC stack up against anything on the market?

Few notes:
Expandable to 8 gb of ram, but why?
Has 2 network connections, who has 2?
2.8ghz seems like a low rating these days
only 74gb drives, I thought hard drives were made 60, 80, etc.
Raid is good, if you know what it is, and I do
8.1 channel sound, well not in the office

comments?

[Maverick91]

http://management.cadalyst.com/cadman/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=368606

Few notes:
Expandable to 8 gb of ram, but why?
why not...?

[.chad]

Has 2 network connections, who has 2?
i believe the dual network connections functions in a piggyback fashion, similar to the way people used to piggyback 56k modems instead of paying for ISDN or DSL.

[jaberwok]

http://management.cadalyst.com/cadman/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=368606


Expandable to 8 gb of ram, but why?
~shrugs~

Has 2 network connections, who has 2?
I have 2 - 1 for cable modem, 1 to connect laptop.

2.8ghz seems like a low rating these days
Not in dual core?

only 74gb drives, I thought hard drives were made 60, 80, etc.
My new 80gig drive actually gives me 74 gig - don't know why.


The most noise I heard was generated by the fan on the NVIDIA FX 5500 graphics card that I used for testing purposes.
That's not a particulary noisy card/fan.

[Glenn Pope]

Expandable to 8 gb of ram, but why?Some poeple have really large drawings. I have heard that in the automotive industry that files can get into the GB range.


Has 2 network connections, who has 2?A lot of systems have 2 these days. Mine does. Makes a great backup if one goes bad.


2.8ghz seems like a low rating these daysIt depends on the CPU. This tells you how many cycles a processor does in a second, but doesn't tell you how much work it does in that cycle.
EX: Got 2 guys shoveling dirt. Each shovel full is a cycle. One guy works faster. The other has a bigger shovel. The guy with the bigger shovel can work slower and get the same amount of work done.
AMD goes for the bigger shovel.

[Ogre]

I think the 8 Gigs of RAM will come in handy if you do heave rendering or extremely heavy CAD work...The 2.8 Ghz AMD Athlon 64 X2 FX is actually high for AMD...Rember that AMD set the stage announcing that Speed doesn't make you fast...Like if you have a 454 Big Block...You cannot run it through the stock Rear End...You need a better one so you can actually use it rather than the Rear End being the bottle neck...Granted the FX processor is nothing compared to the Intel C2D Extreme (according to tests), it is still a very good processor...I have an AMD Athlon 64 2.4 Ghz overclocked to 2.55 and it out performs a 3.2 P4 HT in CAD work (According to CADalyst C2006 Benchmark)...The only thing that is better is the save time because the HT is like having Dual Cores...The Funny thing is that my home machine works better for CAD than any work machine that I have bought...It is a PD 2.8 Ghz...Nothing special on that...Plus it has a Radeon X600 video card (not recommended for CAD work)...Just remember that the processor speed is significant, but not as much as it was...

[powermarc]

Rember that AMD set the stage announcing that Speed doesn't make you fast...Like if you have a 454 Big Block...You cannot run it through the stock Rear End....
Amen, Ray - This is the argument I've been having for forever with AMD vs. Intel guys, years ago with Mac vs. PC guys, and so on until Intel came out with their new Core 2 Duos and proved that they too see the light.

When Apple first came out with their PowerPC - based computers, graphic arts people would ask me why they should buy something that is slower than the Pentiums that were out at the time. I said, "But they're not slower. See these Photoshop and Bryce3D results? They're twice as fast as a Pentium."

Their eyes would kind of roll back in their head for a few seconds, and they would come back with "But they ARE faster, see these megahertz numbers? How can something slower be faster? You're one of those crazy Mac lovers!"

Argh.

"OK, what has more power output: a Ford Pinto engine at 4000 RPM, or a Ferrari Testarossa engine at 2000 RPM?"

"The Ferrari, of course"

"Well, that is exactly the situation we have here with the Pentium versus the PowerPC chip."

That would usually illustrate the situation for them nicely. Flash forward to when AMD released their Athlon XP processors, and you would simply substitute Athlon and Pentium 4 into the above illustration. and it would work the same way.

However, that's all changed with the new procs that Intel has released. These things run at lower clock speeds, but are kicking butt all over the place in performance. It's always good to see these upheavals every now and then. ;)

[ekubaskie]

8G RAM is useless unless you're running 64-bit Windoze - but I imagine we'll get there by the time this becomes a $600 system.

A lowly 2.8GHz Athlon 64 will stomp a 3.5GHz Pentium 4 into the dirt. And this one is dual-core. The box has CPU power.

Those puny 74gig drives are Raptors. They transfer data just as fast as the SATA bus can take it, same as most drives, but they access the data much faster. That makes a huge difference in drives that get accessed a lot, but in a random manner - so they make a great performance choice as system drives, but aren't much help as data storage units. Though if this were to be my box, I'd break them out of RAID0 and put the system on one, and the virtual memory swapfile on the other to maximize the access-speed benefits.