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This discusses only home and small business computers. It will apply to
damned near any desktop computer for any purpose I can think of but there
are too many possibilities and I unfamiliar with most of them.
My first PC was a Bally Arcade in 1979. I have never had less than one
computer. I had a one time peak of four doing the same work but not
clustered. The maintenance time for lack of clustering made the
maintenance time more than it was worth.
Over the years I have seen several designs and watched the industry settle
on the motherboard concept which is found in all PCs that run Windows. Apple
my use it too. I simply do not know. The motherboard (MB) concept is simple.
It is a bunch of empty sockets into which you can plug in anything. Over the
years the only major change that makes a difference to us lowly users has
been that basic functions that had to be in all computers became built into
the MBs. In the old days there were separate cards for sound, video,
modem/LAN connections. But if you are into gaming for example adding kick
ass sound and video cards is just like in the old days. You buy it, plug it
in, run the installation driver, get pissed at all the things that quit
working.
But lets look at what you really need to speed. The first thing to realize
is if your computer is less than five years old you likely have more
processing power than you need. But whatever you have your speed depends
upon the speed of your CPU, RAM, data bus, and primary hard drive. Sounds
like just about everything and it is for most users.
The RAM and data bus have been fairly constant for a decade. I have never
seen two computers so closely designed that the speed of the RAM and bus was
a deciding factor. But if you worry about things like this go directly to a
company specializing in workstations and be prepared to pay Ferrari prices.
The speed of the CPU is simple, the faster the better. AMD uses an
"equivalent" speed which I have found to be only slightly exaggerated but
otherwise perfectly legitimate.
The hard drive is your last consideration. It is slower than your CPU but
faster than your RAM and data bus. You are in a box from which there is no
escape until the next generation computer comes along.
You care about your primary hard drive as it is the fastest way to access
and use all of your data in the fastest way possible.
But what you do not care about is the speed of your DVD/CDROM drive nor how
quickly you can excess external data such as audio and video material. What
matters here is a modern USB 2.0 bus (try finding a 1.0 bus these days) so
anything you might needs comes fast enough.
Fast enough or not fast enough. Email any sort of pure text exceeded 90% of
human capability at the original 300 baud. Anything you want to do with
watching video, not game playing, can be handled with an 80 MHz machine
which haven't been made so slow in nearly 20 years. So why do we pay money
for better machines than that? A video game can eat a hundred times the CPU
of just showing a movie. If you do not play games a faster machine can do
more things at the same time any many before you need them done. So while
the computer may sit mostly idle if it did its work right you never have to
wait for anything.
Of course if you use Windows of any kind from Microsoft you know that is
nonsense. My answer is to switch to Apple or Linux and it all becomes true.
Windows is a clusterfuck and deliberately designed to be one. You may have
heard better is the enemy of good enough. Everyone has windows as an enemy.
So since you are buying based upon a better CPU and more RAM you have
exactly one other requirement, a single internal hard drive. Everything else
can be plugged into the USB bus. Today's machines have at least four built
in and expansions for eight or more start at $20. Anyone with the mechanical
talents of a cave bear can move an internal hard drive from one machine to
another. One can also make it a secondary internal drive or one can buy the
hardware to convert it to an external USB drive. It may become immortal.
Believe it or not every time you buy a hard drive as part of pre-built
computer cost you money because of the extra record keeping to certify it
does not contain an MS product on it.
So you thought about buying a barebones machine to install Linux and you
decided to had to have one with a DVD drive just to make the installation
happen. And that despite the fact you likely have three or four around as
spares. The solution? A single external DVD drive that plugs into a USB
port. Do you have a lot of data to store? That is what external USB HDs are
for.
Do you want a special internal card that converts external TV info to movies
or do you want an external box that plugs into a USB socket?
Lets go one step further. Why do you need a case? A bachelor won't care and
fiance may consider it manly until the second week of wife-hood. Lets assume
that problem has been solved. Then you find all you need to buy EVER is a
motherboard with the CPU and appropriate RAM. If you buy no sooner than nine
months after the hottest new configuration is released your cost is always
under $200. The power supply is reusable. There is no point for $30+ case.
You don't need any of the fancy flashing lights except the one that tells
you the power is on. You might like the light showing disk activity.
Take out the top drawer of your desk. Cut out/remove the back piece for air
flow. Use your imagination for the rest.
Obviously buying everything new to look like this is contrary to the entire
point. But start now. DVD burners are not that reliable if you use them a
lot so when one fails get an external. When you need more storage get it all
external. If there is a choice go external.
This my is my position right now. I have collected 2 TB of external storage
and an external DVD burner. My mouth has been watering for a 64B x 2 core
machine and as soon as I saw the implication of an external DVD burner
reducing the cost of hardware upgrade so drastically, roughly $500 to $200,
it finally registered on me.
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