This is topic What's the new State of the Art? (PCs) in forum Books, Films, Food and Culture at Hatrack River Forum.


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Posted by KarlEd (Member # 571) on :
 
Somehow I blinked on the technological progress front and now I feel like Rip Van Winkle.

I just looked at home computers for the first time in a couple of years and none of new chip numbers mean anything to me. Clock speeds seem to be about what they were two years ago and that doesn't seem right, and what the heck is a Pentium D or E and how does it compare to the Pentium IV I have now (at a clock speed not appreciably lower than some of the ones I see offered today)?

So if I were to "theoretically" go buy a new PC and I want something good for gaming (among more "productive" things), what should I be looking for. (I really don't need a terabyte hard drive, though I see those are offered standard in the higher end models now).
 

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Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
 
Yeah, processor speeds have terraced; instead, we're getting new architectures with more throughput per cycle, and/or more cores in each processor.

As for processor, anything with an Intel Core Duo 2 is right now around the cutting edge; I'm not sure what AMD's comparable offering is, but its out there somewhere. Someone else will have to cover video cards. Don't buy alienware (they've become greatly overpriced).
 

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Posted by TheTick (Member # 2883) on :
 
Alienware has always been overpriced.
 

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Posted by Sterling (Member # 8096) on :
 
We're in a "more is more" phase. AMD's multi-CPU chip is called the AMD 64 Dual Core; Newegg has them listed up to 5000+, though since those numbers used to be based on comparison with MhZ or GhZ-rated computers, and Intel isn't describing its own processor performance on the basis of clock speed anymore, I have no bloody idea what it means. Um, it's fast. I think AMD's current consumer top of the line is called the FX-62 Dual Core; again, no idea how that describes its performance other than "damn fast". A little Google-fu can produce some benchmarks, I'm sure.

More-is-more is also being extended to video cards. Nvidia seems to be the current winner on this front, as one can put two or four identical PCI-express cards into a modern computer with enough slots and have them run in tandem. They've also recently released at least one video card that (surprise!) has two GPUs on one card; the GeForce 7950 GX2 is the one I'm aware of. My understanding is that while ATI cards are also capable of running in tandem, they require some kind of additional dongle and some hardware tomfoolery to pull it off.

Of course, I'm stuck with a socket 754 motherboard without a single PCI-Express slot to its name, so I'm just going to sit in a corner and drool over all the shininess for at least a couple more years.
 

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Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
 
Alienwares = overpriced bling computer that you pay additional hundreds for so you can have shiny blinking lights on the sides of the case.
 

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Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
 
And in looking at their site, Falcon Northwest seems to = overpriced bling computer that you pay many additional hundreds for so that you can have it custom painted using automotive paint.
 

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Posted by Earendil18 (Member # 3180) on :
 
Go custom built through Monarch Computers, Newegg.co m and ZipZoomFly.com

2cents
 

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Posted by Boris (Member # 6935) on :
 
As it stands, AMD doesn't have a response to Intel's Core 2 chips. They have, however, dropped their prices down by about half what they were 2 months ago.

The frequency hasn't increased simply because they've reached the speed limit for current semi-conductor technology (Electrons only go so fast ) as Fugu said. You can get above 4 ghz, but doing so requires an immense amount of power and heat dissipation, so it's really not worth it in the long run. It's hard to compare the current processors to the processors of two years ago because the majority of processors being sold right now are Dual core (two processors in one, which is what the D stands for in Pentium D, Core Duo is the E chip). Also, there are more variables in the comparisons. RAM speed is playing an increasing role in computer performance now, as is hard drive and video speed. Answering how the new processors compare to your current is tough without knowing some specifics. What speed is yours? What speed is the FSB (Front side bus, basically the frequency the memory runs at)? What type of pentium 4 is it (Northwood? Prescott? Intel has stupidly hung on to the pentium name for so long it's amusing. There were at least 3 different versions of the pentium 4, all of which could have been given different names).

But, assuming you want to do some real comparisons... Tom's Hardware has some nice interactive CPU benchmarks.
 

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Posted by Samarkand (Member # 8379) on :
 
A Mac. (sorry, sorry . . . it's true though . . .)
 

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Posted by Corwin (Member # 5705) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Samarkand:
A Mac. (sorry, sorry . . . it's true though . . .)

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-What does it do?
-Nothing, that's the beauty of it!



As a programmer I found Macs pretty crappy in the past. Don't know much about recent developments, but I don't see any reason to switch. Plus, why would I want to wait even more time to play my favorite games?!
 

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Posted by John Van Pelt (Member # 5767) on :
 
Thanks for asking this question, Karl -- it's been on my mind, too.
 

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Posted by twinky (Member # 693) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Corwin:
Plus, why would I want to wait even more time to play my favorite games?!

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