TV> On Mon, 20 Mar 2006, WAYNE CHIRNSIDE wrote:

>> -> Yeah.  It's because it's now all obsolete in a month or less.
>>
>> Unless you have it's custom built it's obsolete before you walk out
>> the door with it IMO.

 TV> For PC hardware, I tend to jump for "upgrade path" 
 TV> hardware, custom built. The top of the line is always 
 TV> priced at absurdly high levels, but there's always a 
 TV> manufacturer or two out there making hardware that provides 
 TV> a migration path (particularly in regard to motherboards).  
 TV> The *first* CPU I install on the motherboard usually runs 
 TV> at only a third or a fourth of the maximum rated speed for 
 TV> the mobo's bus, though I tend to pick higher-speed RAM in 
 TV> preparation for a future CPU boost.

 TV> When DDR first appeared, my first upgrade was a motherboard 
 TV> with both SDRAM and DDR slots.  Now that PCIexpress is 
 TV> gaining momentum, my next upgrade will probably be a 
 TV> motherboard with both an AGP-compatible slot, and PCIe 
 TV> slot(s).  I usually choose a processor socket variant that 
 TV> appears to have a reasonable upgrade future (today I'd 
 TV> probably recommend AMD socket-939 with reasonably high top 
 TV> bus speed).

 TV> This approach has afforded me the flexibility to keep 
 TV> per-PC upgrade costs well below US$200 a year, without 
 TV> sacrificing "usable" speed and expandability.  My longest 
 TV> running motherboard was installed about 5 years ago, and 
 TV> today has 1GB PC3200 DDR RAM and an AMD Sempron 3200+ 
 TV> (socket-A) installed -- not too shabby for that kind of 
 TV> base hardware longevity.

 Very good, IMO. However, I learned, long ago, that I really have
 little need for the top of the line. And I am a heavy duty
 computer user. The most demanding thing I do is video. Ok, for
 that I could use something about 10 times faster than the best
 on the market.

 OTOH, the first rule of computers is:

 There is no such thing as too fast or too much memory.

 Learned that over 30 years ago.

BOB KLAHN bob.klahn{at}sev.org   http://home.toltbbs.com/bobklahn

... Cats *are* the higher purpose of the universe.
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