Build Or Buy? Help! Long Post....

**Andrew Pratt** · 14 February 2003, 12:26 Friday

David as a fellow GIS guy I know exactly why you're wanting that speed and drive space :twisted: That said you are going to pay a big premium for that 3 gig CPU and at this point the benchmarks aren't showing that its all that great...but its still early and maybe some of the software will get rewritten to take advantage of it. I doubt ESRI will though since only SDE and IMS can take advantage of dual processors even though all ArcGIS should have been dualie capable IMO.

**David Meek** · 14 February 2003, 12:41 Friday

Yeah, if ever an app should have been set up multiple-processor capable, it's ArcGIS. Oracle does support hyper-threading, for the 9i RDBMS - but that may be LINUX only though. Need to check on that.

David - HTGuide flunky
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**Kevin P** · 14 February 2003, 13:01 Friday

I was thinking the same thing, the 3 GHz processors are pricey right now, and you'll get nearly the same performance for a fraction of the price if you go with the next lower speed (2.8?). Also, how much software supports the new hyperthreading feature? Probably not much for a while.

I guess for GIS and photo editing you'll want a big drive and lots of RAM. Otherwise I'd just say get 512 MB RAM and a smaller cheaper HD.

Shop around for the display too, you might find a 18" is adequate and a lot cheaper than a 20". Or if you go CRT instead of LCD you'll save big bucks. If you aren't gaming or HTPC you probably won't need a fancy schmancy video or sound card.

Is this a home or work PC? What are you using Oracle for?

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**JonMarsh** · 14 February 2003, 13:20 Friday

Picking and building a system like this and truly getting the most for your money requires a thoughtful analysis of the tradeoffs and benefits. In that thought, I agree completely with Andrew's comments regarding the 3 GHz CPU- the performance is not in proportion to the cost. OTOH, graphics card performance, memory, and HD all have pretty big influences, also.

Plus, an issue I have with many "packaged" systems is the inability to choose the sound and display units- the video card in your pick is fine (best high performance card currently), but flat panels (for example) vary widely in performance, due to both the actual panel assembly and the chip set used. Sharp has some of the best with regards to true 10 bit performance, gamma control, and response time (very important if you're into gaming- standard panels don't cut it at all).

I haven't spent anything like $3K on a PC system in eons- not since the late 80's. But, I tend to look for the price/performance sweet spot, INCLUDING many considerations of video and audio quality, not just CPU benchmarks. As an example, I hardly ever spend over $200 on the processor... (yeah, I'm an Athlon kind of guy... so sue me! :W

So, for example, my best gaming system and my HTPC's all have DD encoding, so that I can run any computer sound output and all surround gaming output into a DD compatible reciever. Display quality is very important to me, so I shop carefully both based on reviews and actually seeing the displays myself, and buy one's optimized for the intended use. I've bought a number of flat panel displays in the last couple of years, but it's hard for them to compare with the overall fidelity and refresh rates of my favorite Iyama or Sony CRT monitors. But, for example, to use with an audio test system, or as an extension for my laptop, a goot 1280X1024 LCD panel (from Iiyama in once case) for under $650 was hard to beat for CAD and DTP, and even works pretty well for DVD.

Then too, I've gotten a lot more hooked on portability lately. We picked up a great Sony laptop for Yvonne's oldest boy (20) at Costco last weekend-

2.4 GHz CPU
30 GB HD
512 MB DDR2 RAM
CDRW/DVD drive
16" 1280X1024 TFT built in
Radeon Mobility Graphics built in, 32 MB memory
Firewire, USB2, 10/100 ethernet, 2 PCMCIA slots, modem, parallel port all built in

Now, that's not a true "high end" system, but you can carry it around quite easily, it's a piece of cake to connect to large external HD's via Firewire or USB, or high end external audio adapters via USB, and it was $1799

So, the premium for high performnace laptops is clearly eroding. Wish that was my system, it would be a nice upgrade on my one year old Sony Athlon laptop.. :B

Personally, I think building and integrating your own system if you're willing to research things, make sure you understand what you really want and need, is the ONLY way to go- I haven't bought a desktop since 1983... really... even my AT clone in 1985 was home built. You just havea lot more control over what you wind up with.

Maybe it would be interesting to have a thread or threads describing "dream systems" or preferrred choices from a variety of users, depending on what the system goal is- what kind of appliations and what kind of output.

We use exclusively Dell systems at work. My technician just got a new dual processor system (first of an internal engineering grade spec we have in house) and it's pretty good. OTOH, my Dell SX260 which IT forced on my (to get rid of my personal desktop I've been using in house for 1-1/2 years) is a clunker, had crap memory, and the CDRW drive or our software configuration can't even load my main Schematic/PCB CAD program. IT hasn't resolved this in 3 weeks, and if they don't get it fixed in the next two, I'm unplugging the system and taking it and dumping it on someone's desk, and plugging in my rebuilt laptop (with WIN2K, finally can use USB ports), and I'll fire up my personal desktop ) homebuilt, of course), and tranfer files between the company laptop and my personal laptop or desktop at work where I'll do my real work. Is the problem with the Dell hardware? Or our new standardized client? No one knows yet, but the program loads fine on very thing else, on the Dell system after starting up the install, it can't find the CAB files. Go figure. Sorry for the OT, even though Dell is a good customer of ours, I'm less than thrilled about the combination of Dell hardware and company standardized WIN2K client I have to use at work.

Best regards,

Jon

Earth First!
_______________________________
We'll screw up the other planets later....

**David Meek** · 14 February 2003, 14:56 Friday

Originally posted by Kevin

Is this a home or work PC? What are you using Oracle for?

It will be sitting at home, BUT it will need to have the capabilities of a workstation-class machine to support the ArcGIS and Oracle. The Oracle RDBMS will be used to house the data used in Arc project files and the associated imagery. Also, some major drive space will be required to store MP3 files from my collection of vinyl, ditto imagery from Jen's new digital camera, and on and on . . . .

David - HTGuide flunky
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**Kevin P** · 14 February 2003, 15:12 Friday

David, I took the liberty of fixing your last post which was messing up the thread, you were missing a quotation mark in your quote tag.

You're probably one of the few who will actually be able to take full advantage of a cutting-edge PC. But you can save some big bucks by going down a step or two on the processor.

As for JonMarsh's query about dream systems or what I would want in a system of my own, well since I don't do much beyond web surfing and email on my home PC, I don't need cutting edge. Sure it would be cool to bang out SETI units every 3 hours, but I can live with a 2.0-2.5 GHz processor. Heck, I only have a 800 in my PC at home now. I tend to keep PCs for 4 or 5 years before replacing them, so upgradeability is important. On my almost 3 year old Micron 3100 I've only upgraded the RAM and video card on it so far. It originally had 128 MB RAM, now it has 512, and I replaced the NVidia TNT card with a Xtasy GEForce4. Not so much for gaming but because the old card was a bit flaky with some applications. And I also went from WinME to Win2K Pro, and replaced my NIC because my old one (a 3Com HomeConnect) wasn't W2K compatible.

As for what my next PC will be, it's hard to say since it's likely years away, but if I were going to pick up a machine now, it would probably in the 2.8 GHz P4 category, 512 MB RAM, 17" flat panel monitor or 19" CRT, 80 GB hard drive, and a DVD writer.

KJP

Official Computer Geek and Techno-Wiz Guru of HTGuide - Visit Tower of Power
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**Lex** · 14 February 2003, 15:34 Friday

Well, I've got about as many computers I guess as anyone, not clunkers either.

Dual Asus AMD Athlon 1.6 ghz CPUs, dual 60 gid HDs, over a gig of ram, G-Force 2 graphics, CD-R/RW, etc... Performance desktop.

Asus 333 1.6 ghz 80 gig HD, 512 meg ram, this PC is virtually unused. (HTPC), never really got into it.

Asus ? 1.4 ghz AMD, dual 20 gig drives, etc..

Daughter has an IWILL board with 900 mhz Thunderbird, been a good box.

3 laptops, 2 Sonys and an HP.

I think if I was gonna build one, it would be the Asus 333 board with a fast CPU, and a gig of ram, dual HDs, nice graphics, a case similar to Bing's or my own. Full size case, lots of room for peripherals, expansion, etc...

dual CPUs can be a pain, some programs pick up on the fact you have 2 CPUs, and want you to get 2 licenses! Seriously.

As to the issues, I'd never buy another PC, i will always build one. We have enough knowledge here at the forum to walk you through most any problem that could come up. Flexibility? If something goes out, you can always get replacement parts easy, none of this proprietary fan, you got to go to Dell, etc...

I was once intimidated by building my own. Now, I wouldn't have it any other way.

Lex

**Andrew Pratt** · 14 February 2003, 16:46 Friday

Doug you're the PC king! ;x(

If you ever want to unload one of those laptops let me know.

**David Meek** · 18 February 2003, 12:17 Tuesday

The ONE reason I'm looking at the extra dinero for the 3 Ghz chip is to give me the extra capability which will in turn extend the useable performance life of this PC. In other words "the more I get now, the longer it'll be before I need to upgrade".

David - HTGuide flunky
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**Burke Strickland** · 23 February 2003, 17:41 Sunday

Originally posted by David Meek

"the more I get now, the longer it'll be before I need to upgrade"

True, up to a point of diminishing returns. You should still consider the economics vs true performace. The technology is changing so rapidly that the 3.0 gig processor will probably be considered "entry level" by the time all its more esoteric functions are actually taken advantage of in applications you will be using. So if buying the "bleeding edge" processor now costs, say, twice as much as the combined cost of a just slightly lower-capabilty one (say 2.8 gig) now plus the projeced cost of a pin-compatible replacement that is even more powerful (say for sake of example 3.5 gig or more) down the road when SW takes advantage of the new features, then it makes sense to save money now with the idea of replacing the processor later when you will really see some benefit from even higher speed along with the additional processing features.

In the meantime, as others have pointed out, you really won't be losing much if anything performance-wise by having the processor that is a step back from "fasteest available". That would probably be different if you were a developer involved in producing the next generation of SW that would take advantage of the top gun's speed and features -- then you would need the latest and greatest to be sure you were actually advancing the art with you programming. But short of that, it makes sense to me to bank the difference (or spend it on more DVDs). :>)

Ultimately it is your money. Do what you feel most comfortable with. But I am glad that last year, when I bought my latest PC, I saved several hundered dollars (actually nearly a thousand) buying a "lower speed" processer than the top one that had just been introduced. The difference between 1.8 gig and 2.1 gig really isn't night and day, and you'll notice a year later, 2.1 doesn't even get mentioned as "high end" any more. So even if I had spent the huge sum it would have taken to get that last increment of available processing power at that time, I'd still have an "obsolete" processor in my machine today.

Burke

PS -- bulked up memory (512K), high capacity HDD (120 gig), and fairly advanced graphics were good investments a year ago -- for my purposes, no need for me to think about changes there even if I were to spring for a faster pin-compatible processor in the same machine. Although there are evolutionary changes in those areas, the pace is not as dramatic as it is for processors. The config you've outlined in those areas makes a lot of sense for your intended uses and "future proofing".

**David Meek** · 24 February 2003, 12:00 Monday

Stopped by MicroCenter, one of Houston's larger PC-retailers, on Thursday. A 3.0 Ghz CPU with hyper-threading is about $1,600!!!!!! The 2.8 Ghz CPU they offer is around $600. Okay, for THAT price differential, I'll go with a 2.8 and be happy. Thanks for the heads-up on that part of things.

BTW, that doesn't mean I'll be purchasing through MicroCenter, they were just easy to get to at the time.

David - HTGuide flunky
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**Andrew Pratt** · 24 February 2003, 13:43 Monday

Told ya the 3GHz was on the "bleeding edge" :LOL:

**AndrewM** · 24 February 2003, 14:00 Monday

It almost never pays to buy computer parts locally, unless one of the discount warehouse places are local to you. The difference in price between online and in a store is staggering, especially once you get into the higher end stuff, like the CPU you saw for $1600 would be under half of that online from a reputable online shop (I've seen them under $600).

Andrew

**Lex** · 04 March 2003, 01:17 Tuesday

Thanks Andrew.

Actually, I do have a 4th laptop, that's a Hitachi 125MMX, slow but still works not counted in my laptop total. I've considered selling it.

Update: My dual Asus/AMD combo has changed. It now uses dual 120 gig Western Digital 8 meg cache hard drives. Talk about changing performance! There's a lot more to the story than that, but suffice it to say, my dual is a lot better now.

Lex

Cable Guy DVD Collection

**Burke Strickland** · 04 March 2003, 01:38 Tuesday

Originally posted by Lex

120 gig Western Digital 8 meg cache hard drives

Anybody remember when a hard drive with 8 meg total STORAGE was considered 'high capacity? :>)

Burke

**David Meek** · 04 March 2003, 10:45 Tuesday

Yeah buddy, unfortunately I do.

David - HTGuide flunky
Our "Theater"
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Build Or Buy? Help! Long Post....

Build Or Buy? Help! Long Post....

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