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Emachines 64-bit Athlons Now On Sale
tomhudson writes "According to zdnet,
emachines, the company geeks like to make fun of, finally has a toy we'd all like to get for Xmas -- an Athlon64 on the cheap :-)"
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But not until then, apparently. Aw, shucks. Too bad there aren't any 64 bit operating systems out there now . . .
The bigotry of the nonbeliever is for me nearly as funny as the bigotry of the believer. - Albert Einstein
eMachines are poo.. Athlon64 is good.. eMachines are poo.. Athlon64 is good.. eMachines are poo.. Athlon64 is good..
Trolling is a art,
It seems odd to me that if you were the first company to release an lower-end 64 bit processor you'd be "quiet" about it. Does this hint at the possibility that they're not very proud of this system? If I were a company that produced the first lower-end computer flaunting a 64 bit processor, I'd be screaming at the top of my lungs to get people to take notice.
Maybe it's just me...
The guitars sound good, now give me about 10db more on the cow bell.
Emachines has a cool laptop as well. Currently it is only available to buy at Best Buy stores. I have one and love it. Widescreen 15.4" and it works great.
No. eMachines are TERRIBLE. My dad bought one a while back, it's the cheapest piece of crap ever. You can't upgrade ANYTHING in it (hard-disk, memory, gfx card, processor, NOTHING). It's noisey, the components are cheap, and if this 64bit is the same, I'd hate to have one.
When anger rises, think of the consequences.
Confucius (551 BC - 479 BC)
Wow, they seem to have managed to jack the price for their cheesy PC's up about $300 by slapping a nice big 64-bit label on one... and oh will consumers bite. Seriously, does no one else see this as simply a marketing gimmick, considering the tech-averted nature of their base market?
Microsoft, which released a beta version of the 64-bit Windows XP for Athlon 64 in September, has promised to ship the final version of the operating system in the first quarter of 2004. AMD has said several other companies are developing 64-bit games and other applications for its chip as well.
Of course Linux has been able to run on 64-bit platforms for quite some time now. If the Linux community _really_ wants to invade the desktop space, we need some killer games. Games have always been the reason why people spend way too much for a new PC. It's not what the public needs, it's what they want, and games help justify the expense.
This post may seem a bit off-topic, but I though the quote from the article which mentions Windows 64 and games in the same breath was worth pointing out.
Ruby on Rails Screencast
tomhudson writes "According to zdnet, emachines, the company geeks like to make fun of, finally has a toy we'd all like to get for Emacs
/. editors have a spell check?
There was a slight typo in the article description. I corrected it.
Don't the
It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.
Nice processor, but the rest of it is so-so.
-Valiss
I see a Mac versus PC flame fest coming and I'm not sure why!
But I can get a 64-bit eMachine for a fraction of a new G5!
Can we all agree to disagree?
...that hangs for no apparent reason with little or no driver support to fix the problem. Emachines used the bottom of the barrel components. I sure hope that has changed.
A $1200 system with a 64 bit processor and only 512 MB RAM? What gives? With RAM so cheap these days, it seems anybody in the market for such a pricey system would demand 1GB Ram. (Games, 3D, Video all seem like the obvious targets) Companies are silly.
The Compaq 8000Z, $1,189 after $100 rebate. Mail-order only.
eMachines have a bad rep, but they're not a bad unit. As a former Best Buy employee, the only problems we seen were the powersupply fans going out after 2 years and making a ton of noise.
Some of my former co-workers still have some of the first eMachines running as Linux servers to this day.
Imagine what Pixar , etc will be able to do with an array of 64-bit emachines.
Heck, imagine what I'm gonna do with them!
SWEET!
I will be installing 64-bit Linux and a 64-bit renderer immediately.
stuff |
What is the difference between Opteron and Athlon64?
------------------
You may like my a cappella music
I give up. Looked all over at their website and can't find the T6000 anywhere. Is it such a quiet release that eMachines doesn't want to give any details about it at all?
Who is the market for this? If you're one of the few people who has a genuine need for a 64 bit desktop, I can't imagine eMachines' entry is going to satisfy your requirements either. On the other hand, if your concern is that going to 64 bits is going to make your, err, bits twice as large, it seems to me that the bragging rights of a 64 bit Athlon and the shame of being an eMachines owner will cancel out.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
I don't care what kind of power those e-machines hold. It's an e-machine, hold on to your pants and wait for the custom jobs to come out, not a cloned piece of junk.
ogg
Black cat, searing pain, flames...? I must be in Heaven! - Homer Simpson
AMD designed the Athlon 64 to work with 32-bit and 64-bit software, in an effort to bridge the gap between the two applications. The move to 64 bits from 32 bits, which has already begun in servers, promises to boost the performance of PCs, partially by enabling them to use more RAM. But the software that will make the jump possible is still in the developmental stage.
So servers are starting to switch to 64bit machines now eh? I thought it was 2003 not 1993.
Later they say that WindowsXP 64 will be out "later next year" (tm). I don't see the big deal around the 64bit hype. I've been using 64bit machines for years and I only see a difference when dealing with large files (>2gig), which is partly or mostly a software issue or other very large stuff like addressing up to 4 gigs of RAM in one app. I've never had these problems doing "normal" PC computing like email, graphics, music, web surfing.
Anyway, it looks like 64bit computing is about to become standard. Yeah! Back to work.
They are horrible machines, they are. My previous company had bought them, though I don't know why? I guess ppl will anything if it is cheap enough. They had all sorts of problems and never worked properly.
Is it just me, or is it odd that this isn't even on their official site?
The Emachine is much more useful than the Mac, as it can run a hellofalot more software.
The last time this was mentioned, the retort came from a Mac user listing all the wonderful software they could use. Almost all of the software packages listed were web sites. Not sites where you could download software: just web sites. "I can do anything at all on the Mac: I can go to Google! Yahoo! wow!"
I'm okay with emachines; they make cheap little boxes. May main home machine is a 300 MHz celeron emachine running Linux. (RedHat until last night, when I installed Debian.)
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
i used to have (at work) two emachines. while the machines were stable, the stuff was really poor quality. the big hit comes when you want to do an upgrade: the prices are really hard....
..Have great products for the price. There not all that bad. My mom and dad have one and its going on three years now. if your in a money bind and need a computer with software Emachines is the best bet. But now you can get a 64 bit machine cheap.
Some software money can't buy. For everything else there's Micros~1
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/64bit/howtobuy/ default.asp
Windows XP 64-bit is already made -- for the Itanium. You either get to wait for them to port it to the Athlon64, or you get to find another one.
REM Old programmers don't die. They just GOSUB without RETURN.
This will never sell. Intel, which is the world leader in 64 bit computing, has declared that no one will want to buy a 64 bit desktop for at least another 3 or 4 years, when a cheap Itanium finally goes into production.
I found it on Worstbuy's site Right here. It ships with XP Home installed. Does XP Home even run on a 64 bit processor?
There is no reasonable defense against an idiot with an agenda
:wq
Sorry, I've already drawn up my entire christmas list, and its being hosted at thinkgeek. As it should be.
Except maybe the Family Guy DVDs, god I love that show.
My father bought 3 emachines for various family members. Within a year, none of them were working. I don't know where they get their parts, but I suspect it's from other companies reject piles. There has got to be a reason why these machines are so cheap -- and quite frankly, my time is too valuable to waste it on flakey hardware.
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
See subject.
This is for people that want to be Buzz-word complient but have little real understanding of the technology behind it all.
Help fight continental drift.
It's a sad comment on the current monopoly state of the computer business that the first desktop Athlon 64 machine is being sold by a company like emachines rather than Dell, HP, or IBM. AMD makes an excellent product for a very good price so you would expect that normal entrepreneurial businesses would have rushed to get their own Athlon 64 products out. Unfortunately, though, the computer business has become like the automobile market in the old Soviet Union where the politics (monopoly politics or communist politics) are more important than value, quality, price, performance, or any of the kinds of things that users care about.
Imagine what Pixar, etc will be able to do with an array of 64-bit emachines.
Find its way out of the Disney contract sooner? It's rather well-known that Pixar CEO Steve Jobs hates Disney CEO Michael Eisner.
Isn't that sorta like a Chevy Vega with a supercharged V8?
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
Here is the link at best buy http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?id=1067390 092896&skuId=6186156&type=product
How long will it take for MS to come out the 64bit Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition. The say first quarter next year. But we all know about these timetables how tend to change.
Get Movie Posters
I see folks mentioning quality issues with eMachine products. Does anyone have high quality, upgradable, Linux compatible Athlong they can suggest?
64-bit processing on an e(mpty)Machine?
Is that like jumbo shrimp?
Seriously though, despite the many problems I've seen and fixed on eMachines in the past (power supplies being just the tip of the iceberg), an affordable computer with the 64-bit Athlon will be great for experimentation. So, I may have to get one.
If anyone is looking for gift ideas for me for this Christmas...
Seppuku: Your solution to my problems!
Because, you know, when I think of 64-bit computing, I think of eMachines!
"And this is my boy, Sherman. Speak, Sherman." "Hello." "Good boy."
tons more?
hmm. applestore has " $1,799.00
1.6GHz PowerPC G5
800MHz frontside bus
512K L2 cache
256MB DDR333 128-bit SDRAM
Expandable to 4GB SDRAM
80GB Serial ATA
SuperDrive
Three PCI Slots
NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 Ultra
64MB DDR video memory
56K internal modem"
that is barebones. the emachine has "AMD's Athlon 64 3200+", "The $1,299 desktop also comes with 512MB of 400MHz double data rate synchronous dynamic RAM (DDR SDRAM) and a 160GB hard drive with a generous 8MB buffer for data, which helps boost performance." and "Included with the T6000 is an ATI Radeon 9600 graphics card with 128MB of on-board memory, a CD burner, a DVD-ROM drive, an 8-in-1 memory card reader, seven USB (universal serial bus) ports and two IEEE 1394 or FireWire ports."
now, i might be STUPID and IGNORANT and a FOOL, but in my world half the mem, half the harddrive, suckier gfx card.. they don't really count as tons of more. did you even rtfa? or are you just fishing for a mac sympathy +5 insightful/informative? each to it's own and i'd love to have a g5 but it sure as hell doesn't have TONS more of stuff for 'few hundreds more'.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Not to defend e-machines, but the reason for the USB hub is because machines don't have enough USB ports.
An obvious answer to an obvious question.
Your solution is to make the user go out and buy an accessory, as well as take up more volume at their desktop. Wouldn't it make more sense to build it in if it's pretty standard for people to need more ports?
That's about it. If you are going to get a machine that only runs a tiny fraction of the software available, you are hardly worse off buying a rock.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Yeah your right! $1299 is to expensive. If you want to burn money, why not burn $2000, and get that exclusive one-button mouse.
A manager here just got an eMachine laptop. I was laughing at first when another employee told me about the purchase, but when I actually went to configure it I was surprized. It felt solid, contained decent parts (except the sound chip), and all in all impressed me a lot more than the eMachine desktops we all know & love to hate.
Jaysyn
There is a war going on for your mind.
USB 1.1 is so cheap now that it can be seen as an added benefit to consumers while not adding significantly to the cost.
-- If an artist saw things as they truly are, they would cease to be an artist.
I'm not sure that everyone here understands that the Athlon 64 up until now has been mostly limited to lower-end professional workstations (by low-end, I'm talking $2500+; ).
This is probably the first affordable Athlon 64 PC. $1200 is VERY a very reasonable price to pay when the processor alone costs $475. Considering that, the high-performance RAM, the higher-end hard drive, and the relatively good Graphics card, most people would gladly shell out $1200.
Of course, I won't because of E-machines' horrible reputation for cheap power supplies and poor service.
Also, to those who say that there isn't a market for a 64-bit chip without a 64-bit desktop, I tell you to take a look at Apple's G5. Even on a legacy 32-bit OS, it whoops any other processor out there. The Athlon 64 does the same.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
I'm just guessing, but today, to "get the message out there" - that's mucho expensive.
If the company doesn't have tight connections in the industry and/or a strong position in geek community/culture (do they? Some geeks here are saying "poo..", &c., so..), then it might be difficult...
Maybe they just don't know *how* to get the message out (without heaps of dollahs, and a Superbowl to run ads all over).
668.5
If they come with Linux pre-installed, do you really expect them to give the hardware away for free?
Sorry...
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
A recent Seattle Times article gives eMachines kudos for good tech support, and no, the argument that crappy products need to have good tech support to back them up is a poor slander: no business could stay in business that way.
Quote from article: " If you're thinking about giving a new PC, eMachines has top-notch backup. It makes its computers easier to service over an Internet connection, and the CPU unit itself is a snap to open and self-service."
A fully Loaded Athlon 64 PC...... With Windows XP Home edition and a little 90 watt power supply that'll last 2 months.
---- "Excuse me. Where's the children's gun section?"
Since when is
AMD will be introducing the 3000+ A64s next week. I am running off to snap a few pics of them now. All the details will be up on the Inq tomorrow morning, I don't want to scoop myself here though. :)
What I can say is:
Lots and lots of them, no shortages here.
They will be substantially cheaper than the current ~$400
Available to the public next week.
-Charlie
At full tilt avisynth eats up about 120MB. It'll do that all day, even with a complex filter, because a frame of video is only a few MB - video simply doesn't NEED any more RAM. Even on a higher end linux networked station you don't need more than half a gig, and that's on a system that doesn't even have a damn hard drive...
If the Linux community _really_ wants to invade the desktop space, we need some killer games.
Actually you just need to relax while Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo fight it out -- once again the pendulum of game playing is swinging far back towards consoles, decoupling the need for your computer to be a great gaming platform.
Of course this applies to the market as a whole -- there are still lots of hardcore computer gamers, but it's a vastly declining market.
What they are selling for $1299 is hardly a barebones system. The only things I'd change is the video card and the addition of some more RAM. I think the other guy who answered your post was right, you were just fishing for Mac user sympathy karma. To get a G5 with comparable geat you'd have to spend over $2000.
I would love to have 7 USB(version 2) ports. Having hubs and such to incrase the # of USB ports causes headaches. They are all going to eventually reach the system anyway.
Actually, for geeks this is an easy decision.
poo = 0
good = 1
Therefore, eMachines = 0 and Athlon64 = 1
Since you are getting both of them, logically you have to AND them.
(1 AND 0) = 0 = poo
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
it is crap!!!
the only good peice of hardware on there is the CPU.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
$1299 is cheap?
;) ).
Compared to Compaq's offering it is. But that's not saying much, I agree.
Until then I'll keep drooling over a G5 (which is only a few hundred dollars more, with TONS more stuff).
Configuring a 1.6GHz G5 to be roughly equivalent to the eMachines system gives a cost of $2070 (upgrade memory, HD, video). And, as best I can tell, offers nothing in excess of what eMachines does. You can talk about XP vs OS X, but if you prefer one or the other then the cost of the system is irrelevant since it's not something you can choose irrelevant of the hardware. The only substantial difference I can see hardware-wise is that the eMachines has two optical drives (one CD-RW, one DVD) while the G5 only has one. Two optical drives have their advantages.
Oh, and the G5 is going to be considerably slower than the Athlon64. The fastest G5 is roughly the same speed as the Athlon64's, but this is the slowest G5, not the fastest.
The G5 is still a sweet system, mind you, it's just not a "few hundred more" (at least, I don't count nearly $800 as that, but "few" is hardly a definitive number
It's called sarcasm, people. Look it up.
"If the Linux community _really_ wants to invade the desktop space, we need some killer games."
True. But what we need even more is a killer Linux-exclusive game. Sadly, though, no company that attempts it will survive for more than a couple months past release. Including Knoppix and the game may appeal to more users, but only if hardware setup is flawless. But getting your casual gamer to install a new operating system just to play a game is going to be close to impossible.
"Hu, ho, ho-ah-oh-oh-oh. Hu, ho ho-ah-oh-oh-oh. Mario Paint! Whoaaa!"
And I corrected it further...
"According to zdnet, emachines, the company geeks like to make fun of, finally has a toy we'd all need to get for Emacs
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
You forgot: G5's eyecandy design: $500.00
"thing I recommended was wiping the harddrive and installing their favorite OS (in their case, Windows XP)."
I find that using 40 Grit sandpaper to wipe both sides of each platter in the harddrive removes a problematic OS, and makes it impossible for someone to bedevil the computer with another problematic OS. There's a lot less computer frustration all-around.
Just make sure to scour all of that coppery-looking residue off.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
based on the Athlon 64. I will call it the "Commodore 64". It will offer never-seen-before performance/price ratio.
Besides, managing four USB devices in a dark alcove under my desk is bad enough. It's nice to have a separate place to plug everything in, but how many USB devices do you really need all plugged in a the same time?
- keyboard
- mouse
- printer
- scanner
- digital camera patch
- mp3 player patch
- PDA link / IR reader
- compact flash/memory card reader
- host of thinkgeek USB toys
Of that list I'd say the first three stay plugged in all the time (if you don't have a print server for your home network). And the fourth USB port (since most PCs have four these days, can have a USB hub that extends the location of the USB port to somewhere other than the backside of your computer for easier swapping of the remaining devices as needed. I don't think hubs are that expensive....and that's the way the cookie crumbles.
I'm not sure I understand...
Go to www.shoprbc.com and you can get a similar system for CAD$1259. Given that they're in my hometown...
BTW, RB Computing rocks! I ordered an Athlon 2600+ system from them a couple of months ago and it works beautifully.
The guy was joking, moron.
- 1.6GHz/256MB/80GB/SuperDrive - $1499
- 1.8GHz/512MB/160GB/SuperDrive - $1799
- DUAL 2GHz/512MB/160GB/SuperDrive - $2499
Those come with the same warranty as new ones (which can be extended to 3 years, just like on the new ones), and obviously can't possibly be terribly old units.So now it becomes:
64-bit good, but e-machines = poo. Apple != poo, but Apple costs more than e-machines...
I briefly considered whinging about how I could've gotten two 1.6GHz G5's refurb for what my dual 2GHz cost new... then I realized that wait, two of those would still be slower than my dual 2GHz...
What about the yearly $130 upgrade?
-]Phreak Out[-
You don't think it's expensive, but people who buy eMachines in the first place do. Think of the target demographic, people trying to save a buck.
-]Phreak Out[-
In fact, I bet MS insists on it. Let's say I make a system, and I saturation bomb TV with ads for my 64-bit system. Consumers ask, 'what can I run on it to take advantage of the capability?' I respond with 'Windows, eventually,' at which point consumers say 'OK, I'll buy it eventually, if I remember.' Right, that works. Otherwise, I can respond 'You can run linux on it! 64-bit happy!' and MS gets super-pissed and screws me next time my OEM contract is up.
So there's your problem. If I hype my chip, I have to hype Linux or something like that. Or I can wait for MS to catch up and hype it then, which makes more sense for my company.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
True. But what we need even more is a killer Linux-exclusive game
I'm sure that kind of extreme wouldn't be needed. Just tweak the game to have under Linux 10-15% higher FPS or more polygons/better AI at same FPS and throw this bone to the usual GPU/CPU/mobo review sites.
Here's an old headline I keep around, just to remind me to be nice when I see stuff (original thread subject) pop up:
DIGITAL CORNERS NT 64-BIT MARKET - THANKS TO INTEL
As the release of Intel's 64-bit P7 processor release has been put off
until 1999, Microsoft has announced that it will not wait for the P7
release to begin shipping 64-bit Windows NT 5.0. Instead, the first
64-bit version of 5.0 will run on Digital's Alpha platform, which is
already 64-bit, and currently has the fastest chip available: 533MHz.
Rumor has it that Microsoft is buying up quite a few DEC Alpha 500MHz
machines for its development staff.
Digital is further preparing for the 5.0 release by slashing prices on
new Alpha systems, taking full advantage on its two-year head start on
Intel."
grrrr...
Athlons don't have any more of a tendency to overheat than Pentiums do now. Back before the AMD cpus had sufficient thermal production checks in various places, this was true. The Athlon 64 has just as much protection as the new Pentiums do, heat plate and all.
I have been running Suse 64 on my Athlon 64 for about a month now, awesome.
If you've got enough USB devices to fill a normal 4 port PC, then you're not poor, you're just penny-pinching and can probably afford a hub anyway.
...and that's the way the cookie crumbles.
64 bit will just become another buzz word used by the likes of DELL and QVC to sell photo editing machines.
It depends on the genre. FPS will probably be PC-dominated for quite a while. Flight sims aren't going console anytime soon. Ditto for RTS. Of course, the fact that there hasn't been anything innovative in those spaces for a while negates some of that...
The key to Linux on the desktop is to be cheaper and good enough. It's already there and economics will drive it through businesses and then the home, that is already happening. The only thing which can stop it now is the law.
It also happens to be more open, standards compliant, scalable, flexible, powerful with a host of other important beneficial properties which doesn't include games.
And which nitwits moderated the parent to this "Interesting"? I guess small minds also think alike.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
I am in the process of setting up an Athlon64 system. The 64-bit architecture is nice, in a techy coolness kind of way. And, the other architecture improvements, like more general purpose registers, are great.
But, the thing that pushed me to take the plunge was the "Cool 'n Quiet" feature of the chips.
The Athlon64 is the first mass-market / desktop chip to offer speed/voltage control that has been offered in laptop chips for quite a while. Based on processor load, CnQ will slow down the processor speed, in 200MHz increments, all the way down to 800MHz.
So, when you're doing light tasks like WWW browsing, MP3 playback, word processing, etc. the system slows down. When you're compiling, gaming, minidv editing, or other CPU hungry app, it goes up to full speed.
When the CPU slows down, obviously less power is used, and less heat is created. The system fans slow or stop, and the noise level goes way down.
Combine this with a fanless video card (e.g. GeForce FX 5200) and a quiet Seagate Barracuda hard drive, and you've got a very quite, but still powerful, system.
But does the eMachine come with equivalent software? Granted, iTunes can be downloaded free for Windows, but what about iMovie, iCal, development tools, etc.
I love to pull that example up when people whine about XFree's network support/slowness/other whininess about XFree
Similar for 3dfx cards and pre-perhelia cards on linux (iow the ones with decent drivers...). Not true for ATI, and others who don't release specs, or provide binary drivers that work (nvidia, and they are pretty much it in the "binary drivers that work" category)
Hmm...
I had an eMachine. Reformated the thing after a month of using it and its been perfectly happy since then. Also gave it a sizable boost in RAM too: 32mb -> 160 mb.
Never had an issue, guess I'm the anomaly.
Insert Sig Here
I know this is a redundant post, but I thought i'd clarify the issue a bit more. I work as a technician at Best Buy which basically means i'm pretty much a gloried salesperson who installs ram and removes viruses. eMachine computers are actually suprising decent now compared to 3 years ago; they share very little in common with their incompatible predecessors. As far as the people who keep mentionining the power supply issues, this is also a thing of the past. eMachines use normal/standard ATX power supplies and they are not 90 watts. This has been the standard for a while. Most have at least 4 PCI slots and an AGP slot. The only exception to this are the Celeron machines which lack an AGP slot, the rest of the eMachines line is just as upgradeable as your average Dell, HP, or Compaq. On any given day, I see more Compaqs or Gatesway come in for serivce than I ever do eMachines.
Sorry to burst your Geek bubbles but this machine might actually not be a complete failure for low class workstations. (is that an oxymoron?) I'll have to see it for myself.
More aggressively with game developers. I mean its sort of sad that even though there are a handful of active commercial (and non-commercial albeit high quality as in my sig) game developers who are supporting Linux there is still the perception that Linux doesn't have games.
Gentoo seems to get it, but I'd expect to see a more aggressive commercial distribution seriously pimping this and I believe in we really need some good exposure like this.
Quack, quack.
Of course Linux has been able to run on 64-bit platforms for quite some time now.
Kind of off-topic here, but so has Microsoft, at least on the server platform. They've kept it away from the consumer platform up until now for deliberate marketing reasons.
Incidentally, once you've got Windows 2000 64 bit edition running on your 64 bit server, what killer app are you going to run on it? Why, 64-bit SQL Server, of course!
Scratch the card reader, eMachines has a multi-card reader on the front of their new machines and they also put some of their usb ports on the front (they have had the frontside ports for alot longer than most companies)
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
My manager just recently discovered the joys that saving money by deploying oracle on linux/intel servers instead of our previous oracle/sparc strategy. I can just see him in a save money frenzy... "6k for these hp intel boxes or 1k for these emachines and I get a 64bit chip to boot! Twice the bits for 1/6th the price, how can we go wrong?!?!?"
now, i might be STUPID and IGNORANT and a FOOL, but in my world half the mem, half the harddrive, suckier gfx card.. they don't really count as tons of more.
The memory is definitely an issue, there's no question that the G5 should come with 512MB minimum. The hard disk space - well, depends on the user. Unless you're a hardcore gamer, the gfx card is fine. If you are a hardcore gamer, you're probably not going to buy a G5 anyway.
You also neglected to mention that the G5 does have FireWire (including one FireWire 800 port) and USB 2.0, although you did mention them on the eMachines box.
Now, for the "tons more" on the G5. It has next-generation PCI-X slots. It has gigabit ethernet built in. It has optical digital audio in and out. It has Superdrive, which is a CD/DVD burner. And, (ducking to avoid flames) it has a real operating system, not a Microsoft toy.
Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
I wish to order 2 of them. Please send link to me by email as I do not read this forum.
the OS that it ships with, at least in the article. However, we can all assume that the price is $200 HIGHER for the mandatory XP that'
s preloaded and comes with a "system restore" CD (AKA the "loose all your shit CD")
Also of interst, this little turd of wisdom;
"Microsoft has plans to deliver a 64-bit version of its Windows XP operating system for Athlon 64 desktops. Once that software is available, consumers will be able to make the step up to 64 bits. "
So, only by the grace of M$ are users allowed to "step up to 64 bits"...
How considerate of M$ to bless with their oh so wonderful 0$....
Um, hello.. There is an alternative out there to M$....
Mandrake has a 64bit package NOW
as does
Suse Professional 9.0 64bit
as do several other distros, check them out here,
http://www.distrowatch.com/
does the eMachine come with equivalent software
Well, with the $1,000+ I'd have saved by buying a PC instead of a Mac, I'm sure I could buy one or two cool packages that might outperform your OSX freeware.
Da Blog
After reading most the responses I noticed the only caveat that Emachines seemed to be facing was the issue of a power supply. Buy the cheap $1299 system, and pop in a $40 - $50 new power supply. Unless the case has some issues with fitting a new power supply in, this seems like the obvious preventive measure.. Or you could spent $$$ when you take it to a repair center.
AFAIK they are USB 2 ports, since that is what they have on their other machines (even their $400 unit has 4 USB2 ports)
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
Why would you get Windows with a 64-bit PC? Isn't that kind of defeating the point?
Apparently no one has read the recent business week about emachine's new CEO. He plans on making emachines a competitor in the higher end pc market. This obviously is a first step. Emachines sucked before, but I would not be suprised to see them put out some nicer/cheaper alternatives in the mid to high end market.
I'll admit it, I always kind of liked e-machines. For a few hundred bucks you could get a decent mobo and some stock PCI's. I got two "eMonster 800"s for $200 per at CompUSA, added a little memory, and they run SuSE great.
The way I see it, eMachines are just as crappy as Dell desktops only you don't try to pretend they're good and charge you an arm and a leg like Dell does.
All's true that is mistrusted
OK, I'll bite
I just got one Saturday. Perhaps I got taken, it seems decent to me. They used the components I would have were I building one for a similar price (I didn't expect 2 case fans and round IDE cables). WD hard drive, NEC DVDRW, NVidia chipset motherboard. Seems solid, everything works. We'll see in a year.
There price was good enough that several pieces could burn out and I'd still be ahead.
Dewey
Porn and tons of it!
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
...c'mon, hasn't anybody imagined a Beowulf cluster of these suckers yet?
Imagine a Beolwulf of these!
(always wanted to say that)
--AROS is an Open Source AmigaOS clone, and source compatible with AmigaOS! Try the x86 build at http://www.aros.org
I cheap unreliable computer that will burn it's self out in 6 months. I would perfer getting a sweater I would never wear then getting an emachine and trying to support it/ keep it running.
TruePunk | Games
solitaire on Windows is far superior to solitaire in the KDE/Gnome environments. Linux also needs Freecell, Hearts, and minesweeper.
:(
Seriously.....
Linux needs the support of OEMs. Most consumers use what is shipped with their PC. With OEMs in binding contracts with Microsoft, Linux will be forced to wait until Microsoft decides to release their own distro.
Apple customers, particularly a significant percentage of the salon-bound flounces who buy anything new from Apple immediately, tend to be hard on the equipment. It's not their fault, they were born that way.
I've been reading about the AMD 64 bit processors with great interest. I really like many of the things AMD has done in the x86-64 designs. But the one thing that blows me away is that many of the "desktop" mobos for AMD 64 still only allow a maximum of 2 or 4GB of phyisical RAM. What the hell is the point of a 64bit architecture if you can't use more of the address space than with IA32 processors? Surely not 64bit math?
I would think that machines with 2-16GB of RAM would be the natural zone where AMD64 starts to really do things that are a pain in the ass on IA32. As far as I can tell, few of the current AMD 64 motherboards fall into that space. Bah.
"If the Linux community _really_ wants to invade the desktop space, we need some killer games."
:-)
True. But what we need even more is a killer Linux-exclusive game. Sadly, though, no company that attempts it will survive for more than a couple months past release
(wow, we're so far offtopic I can't get a radar fix on the original discussion! Let's see...ah! A 64-bit Emachine with Linux can make buying the machine now instead of running Windows 64-bit later in the future...there we go...mod me up
Maybe the Mac is the answer. If companies would ship Transgaming's WineX then all the Mac OSX users can play PC games without further development. And _also_ would include Linux as well.
Ruby on Rails Screencast
imagine a beowulf cluster of cheap e-machines, you insensitive clod.
good rebutal
While not generally a super-speedy desktop, another 700-1000 dollars, and you have comparable speeds to that of a $3000 dollar pc.
Just because the name is cursed, doesnt mean that the parts suck. This has real potential, and even if not upgraded, it contains a r9600 graphics card. This is a pretty hefty chip for a bargain-bin pc.
Wine (and WineX) are x86 only. That's because Wine Is Not an Emulator.
While the Athlon64 is a great chip I'd like to see a faster FSB, increase in clock speed and more chipsets available for this CPU.
I'd say give it 6 months to year before you updgrade. Unless of course you're just dying to have one. In that case, have fun.
I think I think, therefore I think I am.
They broke NDA and will get bitch slapped by AMD. The price is higher than you will find it for in less than a week, so buy early, buy high.
-Charlie
I can't comment yet though, read the Inq, it will be there first. Athlon64s will be very cheap and very plentiful soon. By the time the 939s come out in late January/early Febuary, they will be all over the place, and they will get a good speed kick also. Can't talk about that either though, but it is not much of a secret at this point.
-Charlie
Excuse me, but, I don't think 90w can even fully power the Athlon 64 bit chip and it's fan.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
sorry, I dont want to see an E-machines advert for 3 minutes every time I boot the machine.
you're right. that was the point. bargain PC's are known for their under powered power supplies. The fact that I said 90 was sarcasm.
---- "Excuse me. Where's the children's gun section?"
that the only reason Linux hasn't captured 85% of the desktop market yet is because windows has been holding it down with its anti-competitive marketing tactics...
Slightly OT, but for a bit more, you can get the Arima Athlon64 laptop even - Check out http://www.hyperdatadirect.com/autoquote/laptop/83 50quote.cfm
A good $1400 or so less than the voodoopc of the same make.
If video apps weren't so lame and weren't written as if everybody in the world only had 384MB of RAM, they'd use more RAM and get the job done a lot faster. What sucks about video is all the HDD thrashing that gets done -- why not read a 512MB block of video, process it in RAM, and then write it out?
It just drives me nuts that we've got gigs of RAM and the apps still think they're running on a 1965 system with 128k of core.
...then why would they even bother with an early-entry 64-bit system if they're not trying to get past the "eMachines suck" perspective.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
proof: heat sink and fan being pulled off of athlon64 and p4 (big d'load - 20MB)
oh, and shame on you for not chastizing him for putting two A's in athlon.
The powermac will be upgraded in less than a month at MWSF
www.macworldexpo.com
rumors are
low-end
2Ghz x2
128Mb Gforce
superdrive
512Mb RAM up to 8Gb
PCI-X
160Gb HD
top-end
2,6Ghz x2
256Mb Radeon (Optional: Quadro, FireGL and 3Dlabs)
2Gb RAM up to 8Gb
PCI-X
250Gb HD
Same prices
You pc guys always do the same thing, in the apple world there is a 6 month cicle for upgrades.
You always make biased comparisions 1 month before the upgrade. Try to do it in january.
sorry for my english, i'm spanish.
Better than a weekly patch...
You call that tons more? It sounds like your gasping for air.
there's no question that the G5
should come with 512MB minimu
Yeah, as a 256MB stick is nothing in cost.
The hard disk space - well, depends on
the user.
80 GB drives are at rock bottom prices now. You'd only buy it, or a machine with it, if you don't want to spend hardly any money. 160 GB drives are the closest to mainstream now.
Unless you're a hardcore gamer, the gfx card is fine.
GF FX 5200?? It's the lowest model (almost as slow as the GF4 MX 420, and GF2 MX 200), and it's meant to be the lowest model. No one in their right mind would buy it, except if they're extremely cheap, (and since Apple is in business of selling cheap hardware for high price...). At most it would cost $50, but it's not even worth that. System builders or hardware manufacteres probably get it for pennies. ATI 9600 is near the top, a decent mainstream card. ATI 9000 is ATI's lowest model, but this is just for comparison. You could even explain the difference to casual computer users. This is no advocation of what a casual person should buy, but if you explain the eMachine versus a Mac, you know who comes up lacking, especially in cost.
You also neglected to mention that the G5 does have FireWire
(including one FireWire 800 port) and USB 2.0, although you did
mention them on the eMachines box.
Yeah so? No difference.
the G5. It has next-generation PCI-X
Most K8 boards are gonna have PCI-X, I think they already have some. Whatever emachine chose to put in it they did, hopefully what they feel is best for use. I don't see any PCI-X hardware available in retail stores. Only high end systems have them if there is anything at all. So PCI-X is not going to be used in your all-in-one type Mac setups for a while. But when the hardware does hit, it's trivial to add, as it's already available. Truly, if you want to price out a PC system with PCI-X right now, you could get one for about the same cost. Buses don't matter unless your gonna use it, and I don't see the hyped up mac users buying PCI-X hardware, when mac users are the least likely to even think about doing that.
It has gigabit ethernet built in.
You can get boards with gigabit for not much more. Having gigabit built in is nice to say, but try setting up a gigabit network that you can actually use gigabit speeds. You can't. You can barely use 100 MBit nets. (We're talking about home use here.) So sure if you do want gigabit, you can buy a board easily, but lets not forget that there's more to gigabit than just having the plug-socket. You have to have intent to use it at that speed in the first place. So this isn't a point at all.
It has optical digital audio
Every computer has this any way. What doesn't? I have a machines that support it already (one is four years old). It's pennies to add, if you want to use it.
It has Superdrive, which is a CD/DVD burner.
? Don't many computers have this now? What doesn't?
it has a real operating system, not a Microsoft toy.
If you're buying a 64bit chip to put windows on, then you probably don't know what your buying. But I can very well buy AMD-64 because linux is a real 64bit OS.
"Emachines, HP, Dell, Gateway and others are aiming for those markets with their Athlon 64 desktops"
Since when the hell did Dell start selling AMD CPU's? Haven't they always been an intel-only shop? A quick search on their web site yielded no AMD-cpu machines, much less an Athlon64.
Someone correct me here if I'm wrong. (Not like I have to ask, but...)
I'd rather be a conservative nutjob than a liberal with no nuts and no job.
"some sort of shopping toolbar installed and a bunch of other junk. I'd never recommend an emachine, that's for sure."
It's optional, Bozo! I have an older E-machine, ran into what you described and said No to it. It's OPTIONAL.
I HIGHLY recommend e-machine, IF you plan on not upgrading it. I've read horror stories; noted that even on their own site they sell memory upgrade WITH a newer bigger power supply; so I only add onto the USB bus and add nothing that would use the existing power supply even tho it has three unused card slots. It does what I need it to do. My two laptops do what I need them to do. And when I upgrade, it'll probably be to a used machine being sold right now to one of you guys who trades in every year so you always have the best on your desk.
You keep saying, "you can get that" in many of your posts, after "getting all of that", what would the price be? Plus, does the eMachines have FireWire 800? or just 400? Also, the hard drive is SATA, much better than traditional IDE hard drives.
Sig: I stole this sig.
we are?
dude, when you're doing biased comparisions it doesn't matter when you make them. and really, you state RUMOURS of FUTURE products and accuse me of making biased comparisions? well maybe i should have waited for one month before replying that it's wrong to say that the g5 has tons of more for just a little bit bigger price(that price difference buys a nice monitor for example, and really, it's still not tons of more unless you count the other system being x86, and hence probably used with microsoft windows, a serious setback).
my comment had _nothing_ to do whats possibly coming up. neither had the poster i was replying to.
g5's are fine machines(and macosx is fine os), but they aren't exactly budget machines(up front cost, the extra you pay for having a quite well thought system thats just meant to 'work').
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Considering that cost wise for the price of a few meager systems, I'm jumping the gun and both barrels with a 64 bit system and will be able to use the (huge) pocket different to plan out and phase in other components on my network.
Between this and customize kernel tweaking I've just stumbled into my own personal Shangri-La of networking.
Let's keep in mind that patents are in place to keep lawyers employed and keep them litigating. -CatGrep
An operating system for starters...
(much less a 64 bit one...)
The athlon 64 is ok, but the FX is really what you need to for real performance. and a Emachines powered by AMD Athlon 64 is like a yugo w/ a ferrari engine... might be fast but wont be pretty to look at.
actually I am happy to see you, however that is in fact a banana in my pocket.
This is right on the money, and it does seem logical that the more game consoles take off, the less critical it will be that Linux doesn't have a great compliment of games. The fact that this was moderated down indicates the absurdity of Slashdot moderation ("When will people learn...democracy doesn't work!")
emachines arent THAT bad..
the older ones (like I have.. sadly... )
are shoddy.. the newere ones actually are pretty decent.. still beats a gateway or most OEM's
still, I like making a custom machine.
Gigabit ethernet is cheap (not to mention useless for most people) and you get optical audio with most soundcards these days (which again is useless for many people).
So with a few hundreds more you get:- Superdrive
- PCI-X
So you pay a few hundreds more for a DVD burner and a bus that you will have trouble finding hardware for it.What a deal! Not to mention you get an OS from a vendor that offers upgrades at reasonable prices (NOT). Heck, even MS offers minor upgrades for free.
The G5 is a great machine and MacOSX is a great OS but they are certainly not cheap.
he wasn't posting your decoded email address because he wanted to play a guessing game... expect to see a shitload of spam next week.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
The price would be *much* lower than if you
add a new hard drive, more mem, new 3d-card
and everything else. SATA is great, but
performance is marginally better than PATA.
What he was trying to explain is that the PC
has better parts in average with a lower price.
You may like the "Mac experience" better, and
that is great for you! But the point here was
price and hardware parts, and it is *not* better
on the mac.
Jesus christ that's not the kind of juicy tidbits you keep to yourself!
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
OpenVMS is better, dammit!
Ron Paul 2012
Windows 64-bit for AMD64 exist in Beta.
Windows for other 64-bit architectures has been
around for ca 10 years.
Mac OS X is now multitasking and has
memmory protection (*FINALY*) but
where is that 64 bit OS you are talking
about?
Computing Inc.
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RBC Think i2600 Silent Desktop System (INTEL) (Price
Yeah like MacOS X, just a waste.
Add a 64-bit OS like Linux or BSD.
then you probably want at least some of the clips you're actively manipulating fully in the buffer cache to keep the hard drive from working overtime. It helps immensely to have 1GB+ in that sort of situation; you wait around a lot less waiting for previews to kick off after a change.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
its deliberate. I hate companies that make up names by deleting consonants or mis spelling regular words (cierra) so I put them back.
Xenon - N = Xeon.
Athalon - A = Athlon
Still pissed off at prebuilt machines with their shoddily done assembly line cheapo hardware? Build your own. Christ, from the specs they're talking here, I went to Pricewatch.com about a month ago and figured that a fully loaded Athlon64 machine would cost about $200 less than what E-Machines is talking, and that's with a monitor and everything. If you don't know how to build a computer, go to your local LUG or university campus or something, make a couple friends, then give one $40 to throw everything together. It's about two steps up from lego these days anyways and all you really need to worry about is grounding yourself, which isn't too hard (plug in power supply, switch to the "1", touch power supply case, switch back to "0" and don't rub any socks on carpets anytime soon.)
Karma: Non-Heinous
I... think you'll get significantly better results from a refurb than from an "open box."
E-machines are utter trash anyone going to/. should have enough brains to build a better and cheaper pc than an e-machine!!!!!!!!!
1.6GHz PowerPC G5
... :-) [i think the FW800, built in wifi abilities, PCI X and all the other stuff may prove usefull in the future]
1GB DDR333 SDRAM (PC2700) - 2x512
160GB Serial ATA - 7200rpm
ATI Radeon 9600 Pro
SuperDrive (DVD-R/CD-RW)
Apple Keyboard & Apple Mouse - U.S. English
Mac OS X - U.S. English
Subtotal
$2,320.00
with 512MB RAM it would be
$2,070.00
> the eMachines doesn't have OS so subtract some $$ to be fair.
the G5 is not less expensive, but i think you get what you pay for.
I would really like to hear if the eMachines Athlon64 is as quiet as the G5
result> emachines wins on price by cca 700$
Mac is still better
...with technology the way it is these days, you can extract the crap out of the second and end up with a barrel of wine again. May not be fine wine, but it'd be very drinkable (Well, as well as the wine was in the first place- we can't do THAT miracle yet... :-) again once you got past the thoughts of the crap being in it.
In the case of an Athlon 64 eMachine Craputer, you take any Linux distribution disc set you care to use (Mandrake 9.2 AMD64, or SuSE 9.0 AMD64, preferably...) and burn the SOB down and purify the box of all Craputer aspects- so long as the box happened to have an NVidia or mid-to-low end ATI Radeon since there's 64-bit support for those (If you use a 32-bit distribution, all Radeons are supported in one way or another...).
The alternative choice would be to take a copy of XP Pro and do the same thing, but it does cost quite a bit more to do things that way and might not be profitable for someone to do things that way.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Uh, seems like a deviation in their typical fare- at least on the surface.
It sounds more like they scored a volume deal with one of the bargain makers of mobos (say ECS or similar) and the other suppliers. The only thing that MIGHT be noisy would be the HD and possibly the DVD-ROM if they went on the cheap on those. The rest of the parts are high-end or high-mid-end.
Considering that it'll set you back anywhere from about $1600-2000 to obtain an Athlon64 machine with 512Mb of DDR memory, etc. it's not such a bad deal if it weren't for the fact that they load the poor damn thing down with all kinds of crap software.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Linux is really largely ready for the "Desktop" now. It's all you claim and more- so WHY hasn't there been anything other than a slowly growing desktop market?
Because of a lack of some "critical" apps and driver support for devices that keep many people from forsaking Windows forevermore. The drivers can only be helped, I'm afraid by education and a much larger clamor for the same than we already have. The apps is a much easier to fix thing, though- and what's one of the LEADING app classes that comes up each time as the subject gets broached?
GAMES
It's not the only answer, nor is it one of the largest ones. Though for home use, it's one of the top ten all the time.
64-bit games and other applications which can be as much as 40% faster over the 32-bit code (of which, execution on an Athlon64, is already VERY fast...) can win people over.
Just because YOU don't see it as part of the problem to be solved, doesn't mean it isn't one all the same.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
So does it ship with 32 bit winXP and then you need to pay to upgrade?
good rebutal
Says who?
The problem is:
:(
In june 2003 there is no emachine for 1299
In the pc world normal upgrades of processors and branded machines (Dell, hp, ibm) happens every 3 months, in the apple world every 6 months. Apple upgrades are more big. for example:
in pc world: 80gb >3months>120Gb>3 months>160Gb
in Apple World: 80Gb>6 months> 160Gb
The same with, sun's, sgi's, ibm power4's. they are very different platforms.
Do u understand me?
U can't exclude *ANY* info in *ANY* comparison,, equal u can't exclude numbers in a equation.
If u do, the comparison will be biased.
Why? because u arent trying to compare today tech with today tech, u are comparing yesterday tech with today tech.
The specs of the powermac i've posted before, isn't fully a rumor of a future product, it's more in Apple world a RoadMap. Is standard in apple machines to upgrade every 6 months. IBM is now producing PPC970 from 2Ghz to 2,6Ghz in 0,9 micras. and the rest is standard pc pieces.
Anyway..
U are trolling, since the first post, why comparing this emachine Athlon64 based with a Apple Powermac? They are very different computers, architectures and company's.They have totally different cicles of upgrades..
And the powermac is 5 months old..
(The reality is that the athlon 64 emachine box will not be shipping in volume until january, so..)
Try comparing emachines to BOX...
"well maybe i should have waited for one month before replying that it's wrong to say that the g5 has tons of more for just a little bit bigger price"
But i think when u buy one, you can wait one month. at least is what Mac users do.
Probably, Virginia Tech should have to buy 1100 emachines that are better priced than the low-end powermac.. but there is no athlon 64 emachine at that time..
The same with the powermacs that will be announced in MWSF.
Today, the powermacs have half de graphic ram, general ram, and HD..
But this emachine do not have, gigabit ethernet, FW800, Serial-ATA, this things cost money, probably not 500$..
but..
80$ FW800 pci card
110$ Serial ATA pci Card
70$ gigabit ethernet card
200$ DVD-+RW / CD-RW + Software suite
U pay 460$ more and u lose the 3 pci bays.
It is not that cheap like in the post you have replied (a litle flamebait the truth..)
I think u will understand what i want to say this time, my english is really bad XD
I'm curious why this is news? Other than eMachines selling an AMD64 PC for $1299 I see no news. Hell Compaq has been selling AMD64 packages for a while. I just configured one on thier site for only $80 bucks more than the eMachines version. And thats only because I chose XP Pro and a DVD+RW drive.
Seriously eMachines? Sputter Sputter Wheeez.
Mac is still better :-) [i think the FW800, built in wifi abilities, PCI X and all the other stuff may prove usefull in the future]
Exactly!
This is the reason of why the durability of macs is longer, probably today you do not use gigabit ethernet, but u will do tomorrow.. and what will u do when u have all the pci slots occupied? buy another computer?
When u buy a system of 1300~1800$ u want to use it a few years.. and gigabit ethernet is not only 1000Mbps of network speed it's less ping time so better for gammers, streaming, video.. etc.. The same with all the other tech in the G5, i like this politic of Apple, they make my mac last longer and it can cost less than a pc if i buy with the cicles of 6months.
Old e-machines are bad. New e-machines are pretty good. Like any computer make good choices when you buy. Don't buy the 399 one, the mid-range e-machine is cheaper than hp's offerings and from what I've seen they are more reliable. The old e-machine's did come with spy-ware pre-installed, and had long term issues with stability (they had Windows ME for god's sake). The new ones have neither of these. If you can build your own, but if you don't know how e-machines are an affordable solution.
did you realise that i didn't start this conversation/trollfest? i wasn't the original parent(the original parent implied that the g5 was much more, as in mem/hd/devices, for a few bucks more). ok i might have falled for the original posters troll but i didn't like how he was modded up for something like that(slashdots decline and predictability annoy me, you can know beforehand what will get posted, and it annoys me greatly when such foreseeable comments get modded up. especially when they have no beef).
i just replied with some quick numbers and specs(and no, i don't read rumour sites of any kind apart from slashdot, i'm fucking bored of vapor). i don't care if a product is 5 months old or not, if that's the product they're selling at the moment of the comparision. in the world of computers if you keep doing comparisions to future(possibly vapor too, which could take months before actual market) devices you'll never buy anything because some cool thing is always a few months away. buy when you can afford what you need, that's my motto with pc(a mac is pc as well) hardware.
500$ would really be a barrier breaker for me(i _very_ rarely spend that much on one computer upgrade, and on a new computer that could have meant several hundreds of gigabytes of hd). a few hundred bucks doesn't matter for the usual high end mac buyer that much though, but those never even thought of the athlon64's as an alternative(if you want a mac you want a mac).
bleh i should go get some sleep.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
I know what you mean, man, I can assemble an Athlon 64 system with the same specs with quality equipment from reputable dealers (mostly newegg) for under $900, with a 3-year warranty on all parts. For a while last year, vendors like Dell had good systems cheaper than what you or I could buy the parts for on the open market, but now it's again at least $200 cheaper to build it yourself.
THE NERD IS THE COMPUTER.
Incidentally, once you've got Windows 2000 64 bit edition running on your 64 bit server, what killer app are you going to run on it? Why, 64-bit SQL Server, of course!
Yeah, I can see how joe sixpack has a need for 4+GB of ram and huge databases. Why take the testing hit for 64-bit until there's a demand for it?
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
probably today you do not use gigabit ethernet, but u will do tomorrow.. ...and when that happens, I'll buy a $15 gigabit ethernet card. Why spend more money now when I could spend less money later with no loss of capability?
and what will u do when u have all the pci slots occupied?
Take out whatever card I'm replacing. I don't really need 3 sound cards and 5 video capture cards.
buy another computer?
Or I could do that. Considering that I'm not buying macs, I can afford to.
When u buy a system of 1300~1800$ u want to use it a few years..
See, I don't understand that... I paid $100 for the MB+CPU+case that I'm using now, and I've been using it for several years. $1800 for a desktop machine? Go back to 1994.
gigabit ethernet is not only 1000Mbps of network speed it's less ping time so better for gammers, streaming, video.. etc..
Only if the entire route is at 1Gbps or better. So that means you can stream 10 times the stuff FROM ACROSS YOUR HOUSE. Woohoo.
Personally, I'll just walk. It ought to be good excersize considering how heavy my pockets will be from the wads of cash that I've saved.
they make my mac last longer and it can cost less than a pc if i buy with the cicles of 6months.
What?
It isn't freeware. If I buy a Mac, I'm paying for the software as well as the hardware.
bleh, why on earth do sites zip movie files!? IT DOES NOTHING. zip'ing this movie took it from 21,016kb to 20,400kb, an amazing 600k difference for the inconvinience of having to unzip and not being able to play partial / stream.
It is my belief that the software is exactly comparable. People that will find the utilities bundled of one system more useful than the utilities bundled with the other need to take that into consideration. If equivalent utilities are not available for no cost, then the price of purchasing software needs to be included in the evaluation.
But as you point out, this varies according to individual wants and needs. One system might present a better value for one person, but a lesser value for another.
The boss started buying them at work because they were like $500 after rebates. I was skeptical but they ran just fine for years. Over the years they've gotten cheaper and better. My mom wound up buying 2 for her job, and at my office we've got at least half a dozen now. The most recent ones were 2.4 Ghz, 256 MB RAM, 80 GB HD, CDRW drive, a NIC, and WinXp Home, for ~$450 with no rebates to mess with. All ready to go, no muss, no fuss.
When you think about it, you can pay $2500 for a PC or $400 for a PC, but it's the same damn Windows and the same damn CPUs, and probably a lot of the other components too.
The money saved (~$40) to buy that hub can help to buy some devices. USB flash drives were on sale for $10 for 64MB the other day.
-]Phreak Out[-
That's great. Except "Athalon" isn't a word.
So instead of being secure every week, you're only secure once a year?
You're right on most, if not all, counts. However, I think with a little modification, E-Machines's higher end offerings could actually prove to be decent little gaming machines (granted, no contest against a home built rig). They are starting to include AGP slots on the motherboard, which they hadn't until about 4 months ago. At any rate, you're dead on with everything else. These aren't the e-machines of 4 years ago that came free with internet service. They are perfect little machines for about 90% of the population.
:)
As a side note, I worked as a tech for Best Buy for the last two years. My store was right across from a place affectionally known as 'Seizure World'... a rather large retirement community. The residents of said community regularly bought E Machines because of their low cost... naturally we also sold many Compaqs and HPs. Now obviously, as a tech, I delt with computers that needed to be fixed. We saw Compaqs come back quite often... same with HP's. E-machines OTOH we hardly ever saw for any hardware related failures (with the exception of a bad batch of mice and the plastic springs on some of the power buttons would break if abused by kids) But by and large, drives and electronics tended to last until the computer was hopelessly out of date. Matter of fact, I like them so much I talked my brother into buying one instead of an HP/Compaq. They haven't had an issue since... which means fewer phone calls to me late at night
I recently purchased the M5312 which is the best $1,250 ive spent on a system (plus my $150 rebate helps =]) in a long time. I think eMachines are kind of like VW with the creation of the bug. it was cheep and worked but now they are a damn fine car. here is a blirp from emachines.com ....
The eMachines philosophy is simple: build affordable computers for everyone - no-compromise PCs that deliver incredible value and performance. It turns out we're really onto something.
You bought a compaq for double the price and got the same performance! eMachines have there nitch and just because they don't make systems that set the speed standard doesn't mean they are crap.
Homer: Oooh, that's bad.
Shopkeeper: But it comes with a free Frogurt!
Homer: That's good!
Shopkeeper: The Frogurt is also cursed.
Homer: That's bad.
Shopkeeper: But you get your choice of toppings!
Homer: That's good!
Shopkeeper: The toppings contain sodium benzoate. [Homer looks puzzled.] That's bad.!?
Homer: Can I go now?
from here
Well at least some of them
The availability of a 64-bit OS has nothing to do with AMD's ability to market, sell, give away, or eat it's 64-bit chips. You may recall, the 80386 and 80486 were 32-bit chips without a 64 bit OS for 7 Years until NT came out, and no one really used that - it was not until Windows 95, ten years after the introduction of the 80386 that we saw a mainstream 32-bit OS. There has always been lag, this time, the lag is likely to be shorter, and yes, thanks to Linux, more sophisticated users can get 64-bit jollies sooner rather than later.
Microsoft seems to be doing fine with their AMD64 OS. We will have to wait a bit more, but that's pretty normal...
That's news to me
The Cyrix 686 used the socket 7 format, while the VIA Cyrix 3 (really a next generation IDT Winchip) used the Intel Socket 370 format. Not a Duron compatible Socket A format anywhere to be seen
Mind you I'm not arguing with the point you're making.
I happen to work at a said 'small number of best buy stores', where a computer sales person asked if I had seen the 64 bit computer yet. I was like 'no-way, that's got to be a mistake', then he said 'yeah we just got it, it's an emachines', I just about laughed my ass off until I walked over and saw the sign...Emachines T6000 AMD Athlon 64 3200+...my curiosity peaked I opened it up.
It's a pretty plain affair inside. Emachines is using all standardized parts now days, which is real nice, the HPs/Sonys are terrible in this regard (but the build quality on the Sonys is really good (lots of locking washers on screws)). The T6000 (sounds like a robot from Terminator...) is using all the specs listed, but the interesting bit is the motherboard. It's a red MSI with a passive north bridge, so looking at MSI's website, I'd presume it's a K8T Neo-FIS2R. CPU has what appeared to be a solid aluminum heatsink (copper inset maybe?), with a (IIRC, this was like on 12/5 that I looked at it) thin (like 10/15mm) fan. All in all it's pretty quiet. Oh yeah the other thing I found interesting was that the video card (ati 9600) is entirely passively cooled.
Not a bad machine for $1300.
So - say I want a simple server computer I can run >4GB memory-mapped files on. Linux it has to be, obviously; and obviously not eMachines; ideas???
You need to relook at the definitions for backward and forward compatability.
For those of us stuck on dialup that maxes out at 26.4k, who don't have three hours to wait for a 20mb download this instant, could you please summarize the movie? Thankx!
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
...and I'm not doing anything work project related with my computer. (It's a PAIN holding down essentially three jobs- two startups(One based in the UK...) and a day job...)
I'm just annoyed that they don't provide a downloadable ISO for the AMD64 distribution so I can fire and forget the thing as I've only got so much HD space and part of it is dedicated to XP and a 32-bit distribution (for testing purposes of the games...) so I can only keep ONE dedicated and ONE floating install of AMD64 Linux. Right now the dedicated one is Mandrake since I've got to move forward with my dev efforts and I've found most of the sharp edges in that distribution. Doing the boot ISO and FTP is okay if you're not having to work with re-installing on a regular basis.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Some people do this because it's an easy (well, lazy) way to verify file integrity. Obviously md5sum is about 100x better for this purpose in every way, but oh well...
If emachines ran big ads promoting their AMD64 system and when you got to the store there were only the non-AMD64 emachines available, you'd be screaming "Bait and Switch".
Now when you go to the store and actually find one, you'll say, "this proves its a piece of shit, because no one has bought it".\
Or when you go to the store you will say, "see emachines are crap because they can't make them fast enough to keep them in stock".