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Check out this deal on a new computer

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Mechanical Engineer Grad here.
Took many Fortran classes.
Eventually I just wrote down what I needed and had some guy write the code for us for a 12 pack.

I knew I should have gotten into business after that adventure.

See if you can find a picture of one of the first luggable PC's.
I think it was a Compaq, had the yellow screen on the left with two 5 1/4" floppies on the right.
I loved lugging those around on job sites.
 
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I use 2 Mac's, an iMac (2 yrs old) and an iBook G4 (3 months old). I will never go back to PC. I havent had to restart my iMac for 6 months (other than software updates), and I am yet to have re-start my laptop.

I would recommend Mac to anyone. They are not memory hogs like PC; I am constantly working with multiple programs and there is virtually no lag, where on my previous PC's with 512mb of ram I was lucky to see no lag with 2 programs...
 
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BrutusMaximus said:
The Athlon XP's always had a heat problem, they have since corrected though. The semprons run at around 30 C. My Athlon 64 Runs about 35 C.........no problems at all. Intel better get on the ball real soon, cause when M$ finally releases XP 64 bit, they are in deep shit. In fact they are in deep shit right now, cause the 64's are already smokin the P4's :)
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I believe they already have a testable version available for download from their site. I think it comes with a 1 year license.

BrutusMaximus said:
And I work in support, network administration, etc, so i deal with Telco support people, comp manufacturer support people, etc............they all suck ass.
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Yep, they all pretty much suck. That doesn't mean that thier products are inherently bad. I got a great deal on a Dell for my folks, included a 17" LCD screen, an would have bought one for myself if I had the money. I couldn't have made a PC for the price I got this one (LCD, cheap printer, and XP Pro included.) If they have problems with it they can call me so they don't have to worry about anyone named "Habib" trying to help them.

I use their PC for my work when we stay at their house over weekends and it runs like a champ. Very quiet, especially compared to my 1100 AMD. I can't even hear it when it runs unless it's booting up or reading a CD-ROM.
 
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I believe they already have a testable version available for download from their site. I think it comes with a 1 year license.
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Yep that is what I am running now. The OS itself runs great, but there are still some driver problems. For instance the ATI catalysts...........they have a 64 bit driver and whatnot, but it's very buggy still.


That doesn't mean that thier products are inherently bad.
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Not all of them. The lower end dimensions are shit, and the lower end Inspirons are shit. I do like their cooling system though, because it does make the machine as quiet as a church. I guess I am just spoiled with self-built stuff, much better performance, lot less issues. Plus Dell uses only Intel stuff, and that doesnt fly with me. Nothing wrong with them, but the Athlon 64's are faster, and Intel has always charged entirely too much for their processors.
 
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77
I also started out with punchcards.
I remember the midnight runs to get your cards read and a decent printout.
I remember one young lady spent all semester typing her cards and then brought about a foot high stack in and asked me, now what do I do with them?
I also remember over 100 engineers running the same program on the same homework problem. That caused me to start to name my programs some pretty graphic things so they did not get stolen

Strength & Max

I assume you know that business applications have been running on 64 bit processors for quite awhile.

I know some games get a boost and MS does have an operating system and database that benefit from the additional bits. The average desktop user is not going to get a boost with the 64 bit processors.

I went with the Dell and Pentium based on cost, quietness and the fact the majoity of my work is playing around with video. I believe Intel still beats AMD in that process. My system is quiet and runs for weeks 24X7, until I shut it down. The only trouble I have had is getting an external firewire enclosure to work and I believe that is the enclosures chipset fault.

AMD needs to get some more traction with the processor or they will be out of business, which is a shame, they have been pushing Intel.

I also think that if Apple did not make the iPod they would be going the way of AMD. They are too expensive and too closed of a system. When you have 3-5% share of a two player market things do not bode well for you.

Linux has better traction than the MAC. Any Linux geeks? I got one in the office and he is driving me crazy.
 
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AMD needs to get some more traction with the processor or they will be out of business, which is a shame, they have been pushing Intel.
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Dont know about all that man. Right now, the Athlon 64's are beating the shit out of the Intels in just about every benchmark known to man. Also on the server front, the Opterons are puttin a whoppin on the Xeons. Now mind you, I am not an AMD fanboy. I must say that the Athlon 64 is a sweet chip. I always had my doubts about them in the Athlon XP days, but it's a different ballgame now. Also, 64 bit will give everything a boost, you may not quite notice it as much unless you are doing something like gaming, video editing, etc. There would be an argument here if the 64 bit stuff was ridiculously expensive, but the fact is, the Athlon 64's are still by far cheaper than the P4's. Intel doesnt make a better product, they just like to act like they do, by charging 4 times more for their product. Even their older stuff never drops in price very far. That is my main problem with them. I guess we'll just wait and see though.
 
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MAX
My point was this.
AMD had sales of $1.2 Billion and income of $20 million, that sucks.
That is down from income of $46 million.
They ended up with a loss for the quarter.
With that type of business results all the benchmarks in the world won't save them.

I am not pro intel or anti AMD; competition is good for all of us.

I paid $300 plus $59 shipping for my Dell 400SC. My understanding is you can't get a mother board and processor on the AMD 64 for that. I don't game but I would love to get my encoding time down. The difference in time the AMD would save does not justify the cost.

I agree the server market is where they shine. That was my point, they need traction there. The consumer PC market is a bad place to be. Now if they could get into cell phones, PDA's, MP3 players and the home DVR's they could have something.
 
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Wasnt taking shots at you, didnt mean for it to sound like that at all.


See the thing about the cost on the Dell, I would say that is because it's a Dell. I dont trust em at all. Believe it or not, you can get the Asus K8V mobo, and an athlon 64 3000 for under $200.

I know exactly what you're saying though, just all depends on what you use it for. I do alot of heavy gaming, dvd ripping, encoding and such. i have 2 systems. One is a P4 2.8 HT, gig of PC3200. The other is an athlon 64 3000 with gig of pc 3200. The Athlon runs circles around the P4 on all of those things I listed, even though technically you are comparing a 2.8 ghz to a 2.0 ghz :) Intel is heading in the right direction on one thing though. Gettin away from the clock speed race, and working on other things, like the multi-core processors. The memory controller on the Athlon 64's are so sweet, makes all the difference in the world with it being able to use your system ram as cache.

Oh yeah one more thing. Was on slickdeals.net last night, Dell was runnin a coupon thingy on their high end Dimension machines (this was true, I went and did it myself). I took the Dimension 8400, maxed out the upgrades, including a Radeon X800XT, and a 20.1" LCD. The whole bundle woulda been $2500. After the coupon code (which was 40% off orders over $2499), the final price out the door was $1500.

How bout them apples. If it wasnt a Dell, and wasnt an Intel, I woulda bought it in a heart beat. Just for the monitor and vid card if something else.
 
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No offense was taken.

My company is an IBM business partner.
I get PC hardware at a good discount, well we used to.
I just can't pull the trigger on the AMD intellistation, yet.


My wife and kids are still running on a dual 1 GHz intellistation.

I bought my dell off of ebay and I am sure the guy I bought it from got a deal like you described. I know when I registered it for warranty they questioned who I was and my address. As a business partner we are not supposed to resell. Many do just what you suggest. Buy it and take the pieces they need, sell the rest.

I am sure soon we will all be running 64 bit processors with a 64 bit operating system. We will still want it faster.:)
 
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