Personally, I don't see why non-gaming consumers should buy the newest, fastest processors. A Pentium 233MHz is enough for web browsing and document editing. The new cpus + system requires over 400W, while a PIII Celeron system uses only about 200. I don't see why so many people just dunk out their "old" PII/PIII and get the newest and greatest. If the system goes slow, just reinstall it right? Saves electricity, money, and sound pollution.
because people are complete idiots and want to get more megahertz thinking it will speed their boot times and stability. Though they only use wordpad and paint... heh I've got a i166, an i200, and a pentium w/mmX sitting on my desk an ornaments
For me, it's a hobby, and I do like to keep up to date and use fairly current tech. Now, yes, there are people that always have the latest and greatest or are finding the best OC'ing chip. I don't do that crap. I do my research and find out about what I'm looking at and if there's a good reason to spend a little extra for a certain part or parts. On the flip side, you have people that will sell a kidney to have an Athlon FX-55 the day it's available and then sell it off when the next premium CPU comes out. Even for a gaming rig, you don't need to shell out for the top-end stuff to get a sweet rig. As for the whole MHz=performance, I think that people are getting the message that clock speed doesn't mean the same thing it used to. Yes, at one time, the CPU's speed defined the PC, but with RAM, video cards, disk drive spindle speeds and so on, speed is a lot more complex. I think you can see this with the move of Intel to a Performance Rating system. I know AMD has already done this, but if you understand the marketing influence Intel still has, I think they realized that the MHz=performance was eventually going to not work. Going with a PR rating system really changes the rules. A higher number still means the faster CPU, but it's more like we've been seeing with video cards for awhile with different grade levels.
Its nice to have the latest and greatest stuff but if youve got an old faithful machine its good to have that too
lol "because people are complete idiots..." I am an environmentally friendly person(enivironMENTAL know by friends) and I just wanna ask if you guys know what power supply/cpu/motherboard are the most "green" or energy efficient while providing mediumish power.
No, No, Throw away all your old machines and get the latest and greatest!! That way people like me can rescue the "old, slow donkey" from the bin, clear out all the junk on it, put a proper operating system on it, and start building a personal supercomputer from (free!) spare parts while Mr. Clueless tries to figure out why his un-defragmented, ad- and spyware-filled, unconfigured, virus-ridden, un-maintained £1500 PC running WinXPloited is sooo slow! "Oh, I see you've got a <<INSERT INSANELY FAST SPECS HERE>>, that's six months old. What you need is a <<INSERT PSYCHOPATHICALLY FAST SPECS HERE>>. Tell you what, I'll take that old, slow donkey down to the skip for you. No, no, that's OK, I won't charge you for the service." :good:
Plug your PSU into a exercise bike. Then you can surf the web, help protect the environment and keep fit all at the same time! Perfect! :sun:
Yeah, I've been recycling old "broken" PCs for ages. I built my own router/firewall/VPN-gateway out of one, and for several friends as well. It's really amazing what you can do with an old derelict PC and a lean Linux rollout. If it's really low-end, you could still make a dumb-client out of it and use it for a public access terminal! -AT
IP cop's awsome! Is it based on Linux and is under GPL? Oh - another thing - I know that a 486 DX-4 requires a heatsink but can it run well without a fan? Because after taking out my 486SX and replacing it w/dx-4+heatsink+fan, it's become very noisy. I think it's that the fan is poor quality, wondering if it'll run with only a heatsink.
Yeah, a 486 should run fine without a fan, assuming of course the chassis itself doesn't run too hot. Passive heatsyncs tend to get saturated in environments like that and can cause the CPU to overheat.
Easy. Take a dynamo, the sort you would use if you had one of those lights that work off the rotation of the wheel, wire it up to the PSU and bingo! Enviromentally-friendly web-cycling! :good:
