December 7, 2010 at 12:32 pm
alen teplitsky (12/7/2010)
i've been thinking about it and i think i'm done with desktops. my wife has been bugging me for a Mac, but i don't really want to spend a lot of money on a "computer" anymore since we do so much of our computing on iphones now. and i don't want to have another computer corner. i've thought about a Mac just so my kids can learn UNIX from a young age, but i don't like what Apple has been doing with OS X lately. my wife asked about a MacBook but i said there is no way i'm buying a laptop with a 13" screen for $1000.my shopping list for 2011 is a laptop in the $700 range once Sandy Bridge comes out. not sure when i'm going to buy. an iPad once the next version comes out in March or so.
the laptop will be to hold the data and for my wife to do photos. and to play some strategy games i still play.
iPad will be for me to use daily to read and to teach my oldest son to read. the App Store has a lot of educational apps. my wife wanted to get the leapfrog and the other crap where you spend $40 for the robot or some kiddie electronic book and then $20 for the add on cartridges or paper cards. i told her once you add up all this money you might as well buy an iPad. and if i need to VPN into work at night i can use the iPad to do it as well and it's faster than turning on my laptop and waiting for it to boot, log on, etc
for 3d games we have a PS3 and X-Box 360 with Kinect. laptop will be for Civ 5 and Total War games i play once in a while
That's right, I realize that this may well be my very last desktop. For a better monitor(s) and good audio, in the future, we may be using some mobile device's processing power instaed.
Civ 5 is one I'm looking forward to by the way (even if I do have to connect to Steam to do play it :ermm:).
The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge. - Stephen Hawking
December 7, 2010 at 12:43 pm
it's been about a year now that i've been 100% Steam and lovin it. my oldest son scratched up a few games and i lost some of the discs on others taking them to work to play at lunch. last year Steam had a nice sale in December so i rebought a bunch of games for less than $50.
you can download on as much computers as you want, delete and redownload as much as you want on most games. some games have limits, but i rarely buy new games. and no more keeping track of discs.
the graphics on the game console may not be as good as with a new video card, but i can put my 2 month old on my lap and play Call of Duty Black Ops from the couch. can't play it like that on a PC
work wise i just installed the latest firmware on our HP tape robot and in the release notes they specifically say they added official support to mobile devices. i've been able to access it on my iphone before, but now it's better support. and on HP servers they have added official mobile support to iphones and android phones for iLO's. used to be i could push the power button from my PC at home, now it's from my iphone. and with advanced iLO i can get console access via my iPhone or soon to be iPad and do work on my couch or bed
December 7, 2010 at 2:39 pm
Maybe Steam is not as bad as I fear it is. But I've been told by more than one person in IT that it's a vat of viruses and worms. Still, maybe that depends upon how you use it, I don't really know much about it. It's good to hear that you like it.
The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge. - Stephen Hawking
December 8, 2010 at 1:50 am
Steve Jones - SSC Editor (12/7/2010)
nice! I love my quad core, 8GB desktop. Be interested to see where you Windows Experience Index comes in. Mine is 4.6
Bear in mind that the overall Windows Experience Index is always the lowest score out of the tests run. For instance, my work PC has a WEI of 3.5, but that's because my Gaming Graphics score is very low. The non-graphics scores are all 5.5 or higher. Obviously the graphics score isn't that important if what you're interested in is how SQL server performs on the machine! 😛
Re: Steam: I don't know who's been telling you it's a vat of viruses and worms, but they've either never used it or they're scare-mongering. It wouldn't have got to be as successful as it is if it's as insecure as that statement implies. Speaking personally I have never heard of a single instance of anybody getting a virus or worm via Steam.
December 8, 2010 at 8:22 am
My Windows Experience Index on my almost 3 year old machine is 5.9, probably because I have a decent graphics card:
Antec 900 case
Asus Striker II NSE mobo
4gb DDR3 RAM
750W PS
Nvidia 9800GT video card (a $100 piece)
Intel q9300 Quad Core CPU at stock 2.5ghz
320GB WD drive
1TB Seagate second HD
I'm running Windows 7 Ultimate now, but started with Vista. If history is any indication, I'll still be using this in 2015.
For relatives and friends, I tell them to buy a Dell or HP at teh desired price point.
December 8, 2010 at 8:51 am
Is that Experience Index measured in Vista or 7? 5.9 was the highest possible value in Vista, but it got boosted in W7...
December 8, 2010 at 9:02 am
It's definitely my graphics card. I re-ran and got a 5.5, on desktop areo. I have 2 cards, one old, driving 3 monitors, and it's good enough for me. The CPU/processing scores are 7.1 for me.
My son has STEAM on his laptop. No complaints across 6 months, and he gets to use some games on it that were cheap and he enjoys.
December 8, 2010 at 9:12 am
paul.knibbs (12/8/2010)
Steve Jones - SSC Editor (12/7/2010)
nice! I love my quad core, 8GB desktop. Be interested to see where you Windows Experience Index comes in. Mine is 4.6Bear in mind that the overall Windows Experience Index is always the lowest score out of the tests run. For instance, my work PC has a WEI of 3.5, but that's because my Gaming Graphics score is very low. The non-graphics scores are all 5.5 or higher. Obviously the graphics score isn't that important if what you're interested in is how SQL server performs on the machine! 😛
Re: Steam: I don't know who's been telling you it's a vat of viruses and worms, but they've either never used it or they're scare-mongering. It wouldn't have got to be as successful as it is if it's as insecure as that statement implies. Speaking personally I have never heard of a single instance of anybody getting a virus or worm via Steam.
Between you and Steve's vouching for it, I feel better about Steam. I have seen where people are encouraged to turn off their antivirus programs for better game performance on Steam, but I don't think I'll try that one (but I know someone who does, and his PC is always infested).
The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge. - Stephen Hawking
December 27, 2010 at 11:48 am
My new PC is amazing.
The lowest Windows Performance Index is 7.3. Oddly enough, the 7.3 is for the hard drive, and it has a 120GB SSD. All the other metrics are 7.4 or more. Next, I need to find a game that will really challenge its power, like Civ 5 maybe.
Also, I can't believe how quiet it runs - I have to actively listen to hear the fans. (Of course, this is when the DVD isn't running and the video card isn't having to work hard, which is most of the time.)
I ended up choosing an Antec 200 V2 case and I like its looks and build. It's not a high-end, expensive case, but I didn't want to spend a lot on one anyway. I wanted to spend more on what runs inside of it.
I bought it from eCollegePC, where Steve Jones got his and I'm impressed. The people there are easy to work with and answered my questions and the computer is just what I wanted. One silent, screaming fast machine.
The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge. - Stephen Hawking
December 27, 2010 at 11:57 am
Glad you had a good experience from the eCollegePC people and nice desktop.
Mine works great for me, and I can't complain after nearly two years.
December 28, 2010 at 8:18 am
I have seen where people are encouraged to turn off their antivirus programs for better game performance on Steam, but I don't think I'll try that one (but I know someone who does, and his PC is always infested).
Hmm. Turn off their antivirus for better game performance? Seems like a no-brainer for me. Not just better performance on Steam, but any game would benefit from more cpu.
Why wouldn't you turn it off while you play, then turn it back on after you are done? Unless you are playing a MMOG and browsing the web at the same time, you aren't going to get a virus while playing. (I'm assuming that you aren't playing some browser-based game)
Some virus programs will kill game performance *cough*McAfee*cough*Norton*cough*. I stopped installing McAfee and Norton on machines because they eat up sooo many cpu cycles it's ridiculous. Norton is the WORST for this. I don't know how many times someone's brought their machine to me complaining that it's slow and they have Norton installed. I take all the Norton off and install a freeware virus program and all of a sudden the machine is fast again.
bottom line - you want a higher framerate? turn off the virus software while you play. Spending $1500+ on a machine only to leave virus software up while playing is like buying a sportscar and then putting a wood block under the accelerator for fear or burning up the tires too fast.
December 28, 2010 at 8:37 am
never had a problem with AV software. i use Symantec Endpoint Protection i get from work.
after much thinking i'll probably buy a laptop next year along with an iPad and say goodbye to desktops for good. my wife and i do a lot of computing on our iPhones and the iPad will be an extension. the new laptop will be mostly for storage of photos and to import photos from our iPhones. my wife asked about a MacBook but i told her that if she wants a Mac it's only an iMac. no way i'm paying $2000 for a laptop
Ipad has a lot of cool educational apps and cheap books that make it a nice value over buying crap from toys r us or amazon.
waiting for Sandy Bridge to come out. for gaming it's the x-box and PS3
December 28, 2010 at 9:13 am
alen teplitsky (12/28/2010)
after much thinking i'll probably buy a laptop next year along with an iPad and say goodbye to desktops for good.
I went this route a few years ago. At the time, I was working from home 80% of the time, and having something that I could take in to the office was a bigger consideration. Now, the laptops do everything I need. My current laptop is a HP DV7. Intel dual core, 4gb ram, Vista Ultimate 64-bit. I'm almost out of drive space (darn virtual machines), and this one supports dual hard drives, so I'm adding a 700gb drive (and upgrading memory to it's max of 8GB). I only run one VM at a time, so I'll probably have them set to use 3-4GB.
Wayne
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server 2008
Author - SQL Server T-SQL Recipes
December 28, 2010 at 9:54 am
Will1922 (12/28/2010)
Hmm. Turn off their antivirus for better game performance? Seems like a no-brainer for me. Not just better performance on Steam, but any game would benefit from more cpu.
Why wouldn't you turn it off while you play, then turn it back on after you are done?
Tom's Hardware actually did a review where they assessed how much of an impact anti-virus had on game performance. The answer was, pretty much none:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/anti-virus-virus-scanner-performance,2777.html
And it's not like it's impossible for your machine to get infected while you're gaming--it's fairly unlikely you'll respond to a Trojan in the middle of a COD blast-fest, obviously, but the more traditional "infect your machine without your intervention" virus could still land on your machine if you're not careful.
December 28, 2010 at 9:54 am
Will1922 (12/28/2010)
Hmm. Turn off their antivirus for better game performance? Seems like a no-brainer for me. Not just better performance on Steam, but any game would benefit from more cpu.Why wouldn't you turn it off while you play, then turn it back on after you are done? Unless you are playing a MMOG and browsing the web at the same time, you aren't going to get a virus while playing. (I'm assuming that you aren't playing some browser-based game)
I mainly play Civilization and other strategy games and play them against "the computer" vs online. I could see the temptation to turn AV off while playing a graphics-intensive game online, but it sounds like you're disciplined and smart enough to know when you need to have your AV active.
More than anything, I wanted to be able to take advantage of all the new tech: Windows 7, 64 bit, multi-core processors, SSD, 1 GB (RAM) video cards, etc.
Speaking of gaming, I bought my last PC, a Dell Dimension 8400, so that it could handle playing Doom 3 and that turned out well for me since that PC's tech wasn't outdated very fast. The funny part is, as it runs out, I didn't even like to play Doom 3, with its blood-soaked walls and all - kind of creeped me out too much. :blink: 'Guess I'm done with 1st person shooters. But I was basically addicted to Doom 2 for a while there.
The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge. - Stephen Hawking
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