More PC Vendor Suggestions 2004-07-27 - By Dave Angelini
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Matt,
Thanks for the tips....all worth considering. I am leaning towards Monarch
Computer and Cyberpower as I am doing the research on the components and
like the ability to select them myself. I know I may save money purchasing
each piece separately and building it myself, but then again the PC market
is such a low margin commodity product that I would not expect to save
enough to warrant the extra hassel (particularly if something goes wrong).
I do understand that extra cash is required for the latest
technology....definitely true! The only new technology that I am willing
to pay extra for is PCIe as that is a new platform that will impact PC's for
years to come (a really good article can be found here:
http://arstechnica.com/paedia/p/pci-express/pcie-1 (See http://cie-1.ora-code.com).html.) This is what
brings me to the ATI X800 XT and nVidia 6800 Ultra cards (both PCIe based
cards).
I have heard that ATI cards are better performing cards, but the unified
driver architecture of the nVidia cards gives me the assurance that my
drivers will always be kept up to date (something that I have heard that ATI
does not do as well with). Also, there is a tremendous article on the
nVidia 6800 Ultra card at this link:
http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20040414/
Part of my desire to wait is for the vendors to update their PCI Express
drivers for all applications. For example, the windows player does not
necessarily run as well as expected on the 6800 Ultra, a problem which
nVidia says will be corrected with the next set of driver updates.
Likewise, there are just not that many PCIe motherboards on the market
yet....and those vendors that do offer them are charging a premium for the
PC. Dell is selling PCIe systems, but what bothers me is that they do not
explicitely state if they are using a PCIe based motherboard....I would
assume it is, but not seeing it in print is still troubling. So I am tending
to wait until things become more common.
Relative to hard drives, well again Serial ATA (with 8mb cache or more) is
the way to go....and I am now leaning towards 160Gb mirrored drives.....what
the heck...it only adds about 3% to the purchase price....so go for it. I
would like to mirror two 74Gb Western Digital 10,000 RPM drive but they are
just too expensive right now.
Again, thanks for the help (of course, if you know of any PC vendors out
there, please send them my way).
Thanks,
Dave Angelini
-- -- Original Message -- --
From: "Matt Geier" <matt_g_geier@(protected)>
To: <truespace@(protected)>
Sent: Tuesday, July 27, 2004 6:02 AM
Subject: Re: [TSML] More PC Vendor Suggestions
> Dave,
>
> You would be better off building your own. It would be
> cheaper and you wouldn't really run into all the
> propriatary problems you would have with a
> manufacturer. It seems that everyone has their own
> flavor for everything. You'll find that if you look on
> ebay for all these things by themselves, would end up
> being cheaper then buying off the market. I would say
> that if you were using an application that was ported
> to Irix, then buy and SGI if your looking for
> performance. :) My company is the leader in high
> performance systems, but you won't find SGI sitting on
> the shelf at Wal-Mart :) ... Our old machines still
> out perform PC's today.. and our top processor is a
> MIPS 800 MHZ :) ... but anyhow, enough of that.
>
> I would take the time to build my own, but you can do
> whatever. My first PC was a home built one, at the
> time it was top of the line, that was back in '97
> though.
>
> The processor, a couple hundred. I know the 1.5 GHZ
> ran about 98 dollars last time I checked, and your
> looking for a 3GHZ + ...
>
> If your going with a GFX card and your looking at ATI
> vs GEFORCE, they are both great cards. I have heard
> that ATI is better visually, being a game player, I
> also prefer ATI, however, I own a 128MB GeForce 5200
> which seems to get the job done well. I think you will
> find that GeForce and ATI are comparable on pricing.
>
> The drive/s will run somewhere in the area of 75 - 250
> bucks, the last time i checked, a high capacity drive
> wasn't really on the cheap end.
>
> If your not thinking of getting additional storage
> space, I would recommend it. Working in the computer
> industry, particularly in High Performance and Storage
> for 7+ years, I can tell you that 9-10 times someone
> didn't back up their stuff and likes to blame is one
> anything other then themselves. My suggestion is
> fairly cheap, go buy yourself a small storage unit,
> something really small that has only storage drives.
> You will find that it is much better to have back ups
> then trying to re image your hard drive after it
> crashes. Trust me, you will get more sleep. I had 180
> GB worth of data for my web pages that crashed once,
> and I didn't have a back up, needless to say, I didn't
> sleep well for a good time after that.
>
> You can go to http://www.pricewatch.com/ and look at
> the going prices for everything you have listed here.
>
>
> Anyhow, just my two cents....
>
>
>
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