# Just upgraded to a better PC



## Milkman (Feb 2, 2006)

I decided to get a bit more storage and ram and ended up just getting a new processor and monitor altogether.

It's a Hewlet Packard

P4 2ghz
2 gig RAM
600 gb HDD
Two DVD drives (one is a burner)
Altec speakers and sub
19" Flat Screen

Windows XP Pro

Seems to zip along nicely.


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## violation (Aug 20, 2006)

I didn't even know people still sold P4s... I thought it's all been Celeron on the single core side, Pentium Dual Core Exxxx/C2D for dual core and C2Q/C2E for quad for awhile now (leaving out server models of course)? Weird. 

Either way, as long as it's an upgrade and does what you need it to do that's all that matters. PC upgrades are always nice. Congrats!


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## NB-SK (Jul 28, 2007)

600gb HD? You're into video editing?


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## Wheeman (Dec 4, 2007)

NB-SK said:


> 600gb HD? You're into video editing?


Or sound editing.

Sounds like a nice upgrade. I don't see many P4 chips being sold, much less a 2.0 GHz. What video card are you running in it? Sound card?


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## Vincent (Nov 24, 2007)

i just upgraded as well and its also a p4...i was going to get a dual core however for now I just went with the P4.

Here are the specs.

Intel P4 CPU 3.4 GHz FSB800 2MB System 

Intel P4 Processor 3.4 GHz LGA 775 FSB800 2MB 650 
Asus P5VD2-VM SE Motherboard 
1024 MB DDR II 667 Memory 240 Pin (Kingston) (1GB x 1) 
Onboard Video (Verify availability on motherboard) 
Onboard Audio 
Western Digital 160GB 7200RPM 8MB Cache Serial ATA II 
LG 20X DVD RW +- Dual Layer 
Onboard Network Adapter 
1285B Case 
450 Watt Optimax Power Supply 

I got the p4 because of the 3.4 GHZ processor...the dual core for around the same price only had a 1.2 GHZ.

I got mine at LU Computer...they have some great deals on new computers without the windows operating system...costs about $130 more if you want XP however if you already own xp you wont need it.

Computer I bought...$310...it came to $388 after taxes and shipping...not bad for $388 bucks...you can also customize your computer to whatever you want it to be including the case however the prices for different parts vary...this is a great site for computer parts and computer systems...pretty cheap...I recommend it..

One year parts and three years labor warranty,Hardware only on the computers.

http://www.lucomputers.com/Product_detail.asp?parent_id=243&id=2952&class=1

The dual core I didnt buy.
http://www.lucomputers.com/Product_detail.asp?parent_id=242&id=2886&class=1

This is a good place to buy to build your own computer.


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## NB-SK (Jul 28, 2007)

Wheeman said:


> Or sound editing.
> 
> Sounds like a nice upgrade. I don't see many P4 chips being sold, much less a 2.0 GHz. What video card are you running in it? Sound card?


Maybe, but 600gb seems a bit much for sound editing only. In my experience, audio doesn't take that much hard-drive regardless of how it's encrypted. 600gb is just enough storage space for a few hours of video shot in DV format, on the other hand.


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## NB-SK (Jul 28, 2007)

"I got the p4 because of the 3.4 GHZ processor...the dual core for around the same price only had a 1.2 GHZ"

Sorry to tell you, but with a dual-core, you can pretty much throw the idea that GHz=processing speed out the window. 

http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu_2007.html


You don't need Windows, either (unless you want to use your computer with hardware and software). Linux is far simpler to use than it was just a couple of years ago. I was shocked by how user friendly Ubuntu was when I loaded it onto my computer (and it's free). Last time I tried Linux, I ended up cursing techies who claimed it was much better than Windows. I just couldn't get it to work for me...and I have been using computers since the 70s.


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## violation (Aug 20, 2006)

Vincent said:


> I got the p4 because of the 3.4 GHZ processor...the dual core for around the same price only had a 1.2 GHZ.


Clocks don't mean too much these days but it all depends on the applications being used and whether or not they're multi-threaded. Multi-threaded = taking advantage of other cores = faster. 

Like a 3ghz dual core E8400 performs roughly as good as a 2.4ghz quad core Q6600 for typical games and apps. Anything with support for 4 cores, well the Q6000 obviously wins. Leaving out the obvious fact that the 45nm dual core bastard can OC to 4ghz+ and the G0 quad top out at about 3.6ghz +/-, 45nm uses less power, less heat, etc. 

Right now I'm rockin' a Q6600 (G0), Asus P5K, 4x1GB OCZ Gold XTC (finally got the bastards stable with this POS Asus board), BFG 8800GT OC, Western Digital 250GB (no need for much space on my desktop... file server takes care of that), Corsair 620HX PSU and my pretty not-so-little case is an Antec P182. Cost me a bit over $1000 since I waited and got most of the shit on sale. 

Here she is before I got the other 2 sticks of memory in and got it stable.



Not the best use of the bad ass cable management but it stays cool enough hah.


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## Vincent (Nov 24, 2007)

You guys know more about computers than I do...Im just starting to learn about them and thought that 3.4 GHZ was better however now I know it doesnt matter much...I might end up getting that dual core computer as well...$270 is a pretty good price for that dual core I think...can always upgrade any parts in the future if I need to.


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## noobcake (Mar 8, 2006)

Haha I'm just waiting for SC2 to come out before building a new computer  Violation you've got a smokin' rig there, play any Crysis lately? It's just too expensive to keep up with gaming hardware these days..


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## NB-SK (Jul 28, 2007)

Vincent said:


> You guys know more about computers than I do...Im just starting to learn about them and thought that 3.4 GHZ was better however now I know it doesnt matter much...I might end up getting that dual core computer as well...$270 is a pretty good price for that dual core I think...can always upgrade any parts in the future if I need to.


Yeah, some dual-core CPUs really have gone down in price.


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## NB-SK (Jul 28, 2007)

violation said:


> Clocks don't mean too much these days but it all depends on the applications being used and whether or not they're multi-threaded. Multi-threaded = taking advantage of other cores = faster.
> 
> Like a 3ghz dual core E8400 performs roughly as good as a 2.4ghz quad core Q6600 for typical games and apps. Anything with support for 4 cores, well the Q6000 obviously wins. Leaving out the obvious fact that the 45nm dual core bastard can OC to 4ghz+ and the G0 quad top out at about 3.6ghz +/-, 45nm uses less power, less heat, etc.
> 
> ...



In my opinion, nothing beats the cool elegance of the old mainframes. I remember going to my dad at the lab and see all these reels of tape stacked on shelves. I learned to write on huge sheets of accordion paper from the mainframe's dot-matrix printer (that thing was the size of a piano). 

I remember that at that time computers were still something very new and exciting, not just everyday tools like today. For one, there were no personal computers to be bought. People would actually make their own computers from kits (called them microcomputers back then). My dad was a member of a club that would get together once a month and discuss all thing related to computers (Apple computers was born out of one of these clubs). When Apple began selling computers, only a few of them could actually afford a personal computer. The Apple IIe we bought (with printer and extra memory) was 3500$. In today's funds, it probably adds up to over 10000$.

http://static.cray-cyber.org/Comprooms/LARGE/IBM_360.jpg


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## violation (Aug 20, 2006)

noobcake said:


> Haha I'm just waiting for SC2 to come out before building a new computer  Violation you've got a smokin' rig there, play any Crysis lately? It's just too expensive to keep up with gaming hardware these days..


Thanks... the start of the year was pretty bad ass. I bought the parts, put it together and a week later I won a decent 22" LCD (TN panel by a company I've never heard of, but it looks and works surprisingly good).

I've played a little bit of Crysis... it runs decent on medium/high settings, not so good on very high (then again no cards can rock that too good yet). Oddly enough I'm rarely playing games these days, mainly just some Call of Duty 4 here and there.



NB-SK said:


> <snip>


That's some old stuff man... like back in time where people used floppys hah. My first PC had like 32mb of memory and a 6gb hard drive and all I was excited to do was draw in MSPaint in trusty Windows 98. Oh how things have changed.


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## Milkman (Feb 2, 2006)

violation said:


> That's some old stuff man... like back in time where people used floppys hah. My first PC had like 32mb of memory and a 6gb hard drive and all I was excited to do was draw in MSPaint in trusty Windows 98. Oh how things have changed.



LMAO

You think THAT'S old?

My first PC was a 286 with 640k of RAM and a 40 meg hard drive.

We weren't even running Windows as I recall.

And that was a work computer. Lots of people didn't have anything _that_ fast.


Crap I'm old.


I don't use computers for gaming at all so my requirements aren't quite as high as some.


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## shoretyus (Jan 6, 2007)

Milkman said:


> LMAO
> 
> You think THAT'S old?
> 
> ...


Yeah and the good ones cost $5k.... I still miss Norton Commander... 
Old... yup I am still using Lotus 123 and an old 2d drawing program. I have really work to print but they still work and I have 20 yrs of work estimates and drawings that I still use.


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## violation (Aug 20, 2006)

Haha 286 and 8088 are way before my time. Hell when the 8088 came out my mom was like 9 or 10?


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## shoretyus (Jan 6, 2007)

Paul said:


> In the 70's they paid $750.00 for a colour floor model from Sears. .
> 
> The bill was always the same, the real $ value....not so much the same.


Ha ... We couldn't afford the floor model. The wood grained metal box with metal legs. 

Dad had a remote speaker with a volume knob on it.... The first mute :smile:


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## Guest (Mar 23, 2008)

Milkman said:


> LMAO
> 
> You think THAT'S old?
> 
> ...


Somewhere in my mother's basement is my
Commodore 64 and Vic 20. I went to DeVry
in '79/80 where we used keypunch cards
in our computer programing class.


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## NB-SK (Jul 28, 2007)

Milkman said:


> LMAO
> 
> You think THAT'S old?
> 
> ...


Our Apple IIe had 128k of processing power (that's 128 kilobytes, not megabytes). Hard-drive? What's that? MS-DOS was what the other computers ran, not Windows.


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## NB-SK (Jul 28, 2007)

laristotle said:


> Somewhere in my mother's basement is my
> Commodore 64 and Vic 20. I went to DeVry
> in '79/80 where we used keypunch cards
> in our computer programing class.


Vic 20, I remember those. My friend had one. Took at least 10 minutes to load up anything that was more complex than Pong. I think all that computer had was 16k of memory.


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## NB-SK (Jul 28, 2007)

stupid double post


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## NB-SK (Jul 28, 2007)

Paul said:


> A friend had one of these:
> 
> http://oldcomputers.net/ti994a.html
> 
> ...


Oh, yeah, I remember those. Not that popular, as I recall (or at least, few people I know had them...then again, back then few people had computers). Remember the old Colecovision and the Sears LED electronic games?


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## hollowbody (Jan 15, 2008)

NB-SK said:


> Remember the old Colecovision and the Sears LED electronic games?


I still have a Colecovision in working condition in a box somewhere. Wonder if it's worth anything?


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## NB-SK (Jul 28, 2007)

hollowbody said:


> I still have a Colecovision in working condition in a box somewhere. Wonder if it's worth anything?


I'd hold on to it unless it's taking up precious storage space. On Ebay, the system goes for over 100$ and the cartridges go for 8-10$. It will continue to go up in value.


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## GuitarsCanada (Dec 30, 2005)

I have an old laptop sitting around here somewhere. I think its about 15 years old. It's about 4" thick and weighs about 15 pounds.


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## allthumbs56 (Jul 24, 2006)

I did punch cards in university. First job was with a service bureau that ran 6 DEC-10 "mid-frames" - each had no more than one meg of memory (in 16k cabinets the size of broom closets). Things were such that an engineer could actually repair a "bit" if need be. What was so amazing was that the operating system was so perfect that each machine could manage close to 100 concurrent users. No CRTs - used "Teletypes" for communication.

Course the A/C systems were even larger and more impressive :smile:


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## Sneaky (Feb 14, 2006)

Heh, I remember punch cards too, and writing code in Fortran and Cobol.

My first PC was one of these (exept branded Zenith, not Heathkit). It weighed at least 50 lbs. I think it cost about $5000 new (I got it second hand for free in the mid 80's)










In the early 90's I finally moved up to a Mac SE with 2MB of Ram and a 40MB hard drive and a 6" b&w monitor. 

I think it cost about $3500 at the time.


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## NB-SK (Jul 28, 2007)

GuitarsCanada said:


> I have an old laptop sitting around here somewhere. I think its about 15 years old. It's about 4" thick and weighs about 15 pounds.


Gee, I'm not sure how much that could be worth. What do doorstops go for nowadays? :smile:


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## NB-SK (Jul 28, 2007)

allthumbs56 said:


> I did punch cards in university. First job was with a service bureau that ran 6 DEC-10 "mid-frames" - each had no more than one meg of memory (in 16k cabinets the size of broom closets). Things were such that an engineer could actually repair a "bit" if need be. What was so amazing was that the operating system was so perfect that each machine could manage close to 100 concurrent users. No CRTs - used "Teletypes" for communication.
> 
> *Course the A/C systems were even larger and more impressive :smile:*


Probably quieter, too.


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## Chito (Feb 17, 2006)

> Heh, I remember punch cards too, and writing code in Fortran and *Cobol*.


I still write code in Cobol just like I did in '76!! hahaha Come to think of it, it's been 32 years ago since. And funny thing was when I was learning it, it was expected that Cobol is going to be replaced by other more advance languages. 

From wikipedia: "In 1997, the Gartner Group reported that 80% of the world's business ran on COBOL with over 200 billion lines of code in existence and with an estimated 5 billion lines of new code annually."

It is celebrating it's 50th year of existence next year, and from what I can see, it might still be around for another 50 years.


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