2008 would be a Core2Duo or Core2Quad, probably running near 3 GHz.
It depends of course on what you're doing with it, and if you care about power consumption, but a Core i7-4790k will kick the pants off the Core2 line all day long for CPU intensive work.
Same here, SATA3 would be nice over my SATA1 for my SSD, but my i7-920 is not very far behind the current crop of CPU's considering it is 6 years old. I at least had hope for 6-8 cores by now, but 4 is still considered plenty so that is what can be gotten without getting too gouged.
If you're wondering where all the "improvements" went over the past 6 years...
Your i7-920 is a 130W CPU running at 2.66 GHz. This new Broadwell chip is a 65W CPU running at 3.3 GHz turboed to 3.7 GHz, and it is about 20% faster per clock cycle, making it about as fast as your current system if it were running at 4 GHz, while pulling half the power and having a nearly 10 times better iGPU.
You may not think much has changed, but that is actually a huge change, and it is where the improvements have gone.
If you want a 130W chip, get the Haswell-E, it isn't much more than the i7-4790k and it gives you 6 cores, 12 threads, and all those nice things you want on your motherboard.
AMD looks better in benchmarks than they actually perform for a lot of applications.
Let me be clear. If you're doing something like image processing, compression, video work, an 8 core AMD chip is likely to be faster than a 4 core Intel chip. Except... the 4 core, 4 HT i7 chip is likely to be faster than anything AMD makes and if you're REALLY doing that kind of work, another $100 or so in computer cost is nothing compared to time saved.
If you're doing basic Internet surfing, e-mail, Angry Birds, etc. Then frankly ANYTHING modern is likely fine, get an Intel Pentium Anniversary chip for $70 and rock on while sipping power.
Where AMD falls apart is, frankly, everything in the middle. A $100 AMD chip appears to be faster than a $100 Intel chip, so long as you're either running an intensive benchmark that doesn't sit and wait for human input, or running massively threaded applications that need 4 real cores. Except, see above, people doing that shouldn't be buying $100 CPUs anyway.
Some games appear to run well on AMD chips, others do not due to their poor single core performance. It generally takes a 4 core AMD chip to equal a 2 core Intel chip. Which is fine if you're running something that will use 4 cores. If you're not, the Intel chip runs away from the AMD chip, all while using just over half the power.
---
I used to be a big AMD fan, Athlon XP was wonderful, Thunderbird was wonderful, but those days are long in the past now. Since Core2Duo came out, AMD has simply been behind.
I honestly wish AMD could do better, I think the past few years have been slow due to a lack of real competition.
The result was I paid $200 for an FX-8350, which probably wasn't AMD's fastest chip at the time
That same $200 would have bought you a Core i5, which is faster in most respects to the AMD chip while using less power.
Yes, there are edge cases where the AMD chip is faster. Are you one of those edge cases?
$120 for an ASRock moberboard with onboard raid.
You can get nice Intel boards for about the same money, the $190 boards are overkill.
Of course, I was already planning a large case with a large heatsink/fan combo, so thermal concerns were not part of my calculation. If I wanted a reasonably sized computer, I would almost have to buy Intel.
Thermal may not matter, but how about your power bill?
The Intel chip will use less power, over 3 years of owning it, the power bill difference can easily wipe out any up front price difference.
And the FX-9590 is 220 Watts?? At this point I should be looking at price/W instead of price/$.
Insane, isn't it? These new Intel chips max out at 65w, and use less when the GPU isn't in heavy use.
However much time your computer is actually in use, times 150w of power, times three years, is how much in your power bill?
---
I'll be frank, a few years ago I didn't much consider the power consumption either, until I replaced my HVAC system with something from this century and then replaced all my incandescent bulbs with LED bulbs. I've started to do the math on how much of my monthly power bill is due to electronics, and the percentage is growing.
So I do now consider the typical lifetime power cost of something before I buy it, something I never used to do.
Depends where you live. In California you can have "Time of Use" plans TOU where it costs.46 cents/kwh at peak and only.09cents off peak. If the battery charges up at 9 cents and then powers the house at.46cents there will be a significant savings.
How long will those plans last once more than a small number of people buy these?
I don't know where this Myth got started that Cable TV initially promised No Advertising. I defy anybody to show me such a claim in any of the Print or Broadcast media of the era. Certain _Channels_ like Bravo had no Advertising at first, but they never promised that this situation would continue.
It isn't a myth, I remember it... (yea, I'm old)
Cable more than 30 years ago largely had no ads on it. That changed over time, but I remember watching back in the early 80s, almost no ads.
Meanwhile I get nothing in Windows 10 other than an interface I don't care for. If XP had been nothing more than a re-skinned Windows 95 with all the same features, I wouldn't have upgraded then either. I'll stick with 7 until they EOL it or introduce a compelling reason to upgrade. I suspect that they've run out of compelling features to add. It would require a sea change in core hardware that we're unlikely to see in the near future -- 128 bit processors, or quantum computing. The feature set of OSes seems to be mature at this point, much like the core controls of vehicles. At this point it's just change for the sake of change, which is a waste of resources.
You might thing so, and it may even be true for you... but it sounds like you haven't even tried 8 or 8.1..
8.0 was rough and we didn't deploy it, but 8.1 fixed most of the issues and it is on a majority of our computers now. There are some compelling reasons to consider 8.1 over 7 at this point.
10, even more so. You of course don't have to make the switch, if it does nothing for you, but give it a try, you might find 7 feeling very old very quickly.
You're right of course, Vista did get better... I still don't think it was ever really fixed to the point of 7 however, but if it is all you have, by all means, use it at this point. I'm well aware that 7 is just a tweaked version of Vista with a new name.
Kinda like 8.1 is just 8.0, with some minor tweaks, but they do make a difference. What I find interesting is that 8.1 is not a service pack, it is a "full new version", when you "upgrade", you get a windows.old folder and everything.:)
You can do that, just like you could have kept Windows XP until April of 2014.
But frankly, Windows 7 was a superior upgrade to XP, while I largely skipped Vista, 7 was worth the upgrade.
So it is with 10. Windows 7 will be just as badly outdated in 2020 as XP was last year. Frankly it is already showing a bit, I've got 8.1 on a few machines and in many ways I prefer it over 7. 10 fixes most of the remaining complaints.
Yes, yes, I'm sure you're special, your computer never gets a virus, never has a problem.
Like I said, most people overrate their own abilities. But not you, I'm sure you're special.
The worst attitude in the world is "it won't happen to me".
I suppose you'll be totally safe going back to DOS 5.0. The same logic that says "I don't wanna upgrade, I want to keep my Windows Version XXX forever!" is the same one that people said back then.
The complaint is that I don't want to change my OS if I don't want to, and that should be my choice - plain and simple.
It is your choice... plain and simple...
However, if you wish to remain connected to the Internet, at some point you're going to have to upgrade if you have any sense.
No amount of "safe surfing" is going to make up for the fact that XP is EOL and 7 will be EOL in 2020.
So don't upgrade, keep using whatever you're using, but be mindful of the consequences.
In my experience, most people overrate their own abilities and skills and underrate the threat. I've cleaned too many infected PCs to be ignorant of the threat.
That one is from 2007, it asks "Is 2008 the Year of the Linux Desktop?"
---
NO IT IS NOT AND IT NEVER WILL BE. Yea, yea, a few techies use it and will probably always use it. It will run millions of servers and continue to do so. And 10 years from now, 95% of desktop and notebook PCs will continue to run Windows.
I would suggest that this might be an issue that David Cameron used for the elections and for politics and that it isn't a core issue that he'll defend against such pushback.
Yep. Eventually your lenders want to be repaid. This is why most sovereign debt is rolled over. The EU has put Greece in a situation where it can't roll over its debts and must pay them as they come due. Almost no nation can do this for all of its debt. Think of it like this, you can payoff your home mortgage over thirty years, if the bank suddenly accelerates it and demands all of the money tomorrow that isn't going to be doable unless you can find another lender. Unfortunately, the sovereign debt markets tend to dislike long maturity bonds. This means the only loans many nations can get need to be repaid in five or ten years. In normal circumstances a nation can roll their debt over.
^ all true...
How many nations could? Germany *might*, given their huge hard currency reserves, plus their gold and other physical assets. (Many people don't know this, but after the United States, Germany holds the world's largest gold reserves)
China probably could, given the massive foreign currency they hold.
The US of course could, given that the US Dollar is the world's reserve currency, we could print enough to pay it all off tomorrow, abit at the cost of inflation, but we could.
If Germany paid war reparations for the brutal occupation and raping of the country of Greece, it would amount to something like $150-200 Billion owed.
Do you actually believe that, or are you a paid member of the Greek government?
Actually, I'm not such which would be worse...
Germany did pay, nearly 50 years ago, and settled its legal obligations at the time, money which Greece accepted.
The issue is closed, it doesn't get reopened every few decades for convenience. Frankly, most of the people alive in 1945 are no longer here, it has passed into history, let it go...
That isn't what I meant of course... Anything a company has to write a check for is either an expense, a capital investment, or a dividend to shareholders...
Which of those three would you consider taxes to fall into?
They would try to raise the price (not likely possible because, as stated above, if they could get away with a higher asking price, they would have done so on their own, why not rake in more if you can?) but they might go out of business. With a 90% tax, it's actually likely.
They can't raise prices all by themselves.
This is why Walmart can't just raise their base pay to $15/hr, because Target doesn't have to.
If ALL companies were suddenly forced to do so, then they would all raise their prices.
If all companies are taxed more, prices will go up across the board, just like if the min/wage was raised to $15, or even $50/hr.
If everyone has to pay it, then everything gets more expensive.
Slashdot Mirror
2008 would be a Core2Duo or Core2Quad, probably running near 3 GHz.
It depends of course on what you're doing with it, and if you care about power consumption, but a Core i7-4790k will kick the pants off the Core2 line all day long for CPU intensive work.
The 100% speed boost is there, if you need it.
Same here, SATA3 would be nice over my SATA1 for my SSD, but my i7-920 is not very far behind the current crop of CPU's considering it is 6 years old. I at least had hope for 6-8 cores by now, but 4 is still considered plenty so that is what can be gotten without getting too gouged.
If you're wondering where all the "improvements" went over the past 6 years...
Your i7-920 is a 130W CPU running at 2.66 GHz. This new Broadwell chip is a 65W CPU running at 3.3 GHz turboed to 3.7 GHz, and it is about 20% faster per clock cycle, making it about as fast as your current system if it were running at 4 GHz, while pulling half the power and having a nearly 10 times better iGPU.
You may not think much has changed, but that is actually a huge change, and it is where the improvements have gone.
If you want a 130W chip, get the Haswell-E, it isn't much more than the i7-4790k and it gives you 6 cores, 12 threads, and all those nice things you want on your motherboard.
AMD looks better in benchmarks than they actually perform for a lot of applications.
Let me be clear. If you're doing something like image processing, compression, video work, an 8 core AMD chip is likely to be faster than a 4 core Intel chip. Except... the 4 core, 4 HT i7 chip is likely to be faster than anything AMD makes and if you're REALLY doing that kind of work, another $100 or so in computer cost is nothing compared to time saved.
If you're doing basic Internet surfing, e-mail, Angry Birds, etc. Then frankly ANYTHING modern is likely fine, get an Intel Pentium Anniversary chip for $70 and rock on while sipping power.
Where AMD falls apart is, frankly, everything in the middle. A $100 AMD chip appears to be faster than a $100 Intel chip, so long as you're either running an intensive benchmark that doesn't sit and wait for human input, or running massively threaded applications that need 4 real cores. Except, see above, people doing that shouldn't be buying $100 CPUs anyway.
Some games appear to run well on AMD chips, others do not due to their poor single core performance. It generally takes a 4 core AMD chip to equal a 2 core Intel chip. Which is fine if you're running something that will use 4 cores. If you're not, the Intel chip runs away from the AMD chip, all while using just over half the power.
---
I used to be a big AMD fan, Athlon XP was wonderful, Thunderbird was wonderful, but those days are long in the past now. Since Core2Duo came out, AMD has simply been behind.
I honestly wish AMD could do better, I think the past few years have been slow due to a lack of real competition.
The result was I paid $200 for an FX-8350, which probably wasn't AMD's fastest chip at the time
That same $200 would have bought you a Core i5, which is faster in most respects to the AMD chip while using less power.
Yes, there are edge cases where the AMD chip is faster. Are you one of those edge cases?
$120 for an ASRock moberboard with onboard raid.
You can get nice Intel boards for about the same money, the $190 boards are overkill.
Of course, I was already planning a large case with a large heatsink/fan combo, so thermal concerns were not part of my calculation. If I wanted a reasonably sized computer, I would almost have to buy Intel.
Thermal may not matter, but how about your power bill?
The Intel chip will use less power, over 3 years of owning it, the power bill difference can easily wipe out any up front price difference.
And the FX-9590 is 220 Watts?? At this point I should be looking at price/W instead of price/$.
Insane, isn't it? These new Intel chips max out at 65w, and use less when the GPU isn't in heavy use.
However much time your computer is actually in use, times 150w of power, times three years, is how much in your power bill?
---
I'll be frank, a few years ago I didn't much consider the power consumption either, until I replaced my HVAC system with something from this century and then replaced all my incandescent bulbs with LED bulbs. I've started to do the math on how much of my monthly power bill is due to electronics, and the percentage is growing.
So I do now consider the typical lifetime power cost of something before I buy it, something I never used to do.
Depends where you live. In California you can have "Time of Use" plans TOU where it costs .46 cents/kwh at peak and only .09cents off peak. If the battery charges up at 9 cents and then powers the house at .46cents there will be a significant savings.
How long will those plans last once more than a small number of people buy these?
Cable wasn't promising no adds on broadcast TV, it was the cable only channels that would be ad free.
I remember in the 80s, watching movies on the Disney Channel, no ads...
I miss those days...
I don't know where this Myth got started that Cable TV initially promised No Advertising. I defy anybody to show me such a claim in any of the Print or Broadcast media of the era. Certain _Channels_ like Bravo had no Advertising at first, but they never promised that this situation would continue.
It isn't a myth, I remember it... (yea, I'm old)
Cable more than 30 years ago largely had no ads on it. That changed over time, but I remember watching back in the early 80s, almost no ads.
I'll upgrade to whatever's current when they EOL 7, but not before.
Fair enough, that is your choice...
Many people running XP said the same thing, but frankly XP was WAY out of date in 2014 when it EOLed.
7 was worth the upgrade, Vista was easily skipped. 8.0 was easily skipped, 8.1 is worth the upgrade in some situations.
10 will be worth it. 7 is getting long in the tooth.
If you honestly run 7 until 2020, it is going to be just as bad as XP was last year.
Meanwhile I get nothing in Windows 10 other than an interface I don't care for. If XP had been nothing more than a re-skinned Windows 95 with all the same features, I wouldn't have upgraded then either. I'll stick with 7 until they EOL it or introduce a compelling reason to upgrade. I suspect that they've run out of compelling features to add. It would require a sea change in core hardware that we're unlikely to see in the near future -- 128 bit processors, or quantum computing. The feature set of OSes seems to be mature at this point, much like the core controls of vehicles. At this point it's just change for the sake of change, which is a waste of resources.
You might thing so, and it may even be true for you... but it sounds like you haven't even tried 8 or 8.1..
8.0 was rough and we didn't deploy it, but 8.1 fixed most of the issues and it is on a majority of our computers now. There are some compelling reasons to consider 8.1 over 7 at this point.
10, even more so. You of course don't have to make the switch, if it does nothing for you, but give it a try, you might find 7 feeling very old very quickly.
You're right of course, Vista did get better... I still don't think it was ever really fixed to the point of 7 however, but if it is all you have, by all means, use it at this point. I'm well aware that 7 is just a tweaked version of Vista with a new name.
Kinda like 8.1 is just 8.0, with some minor tweaks, but they do make a difference. What I find interesting is that 8.1 is not a service pack, it is a "full new version", when you "upgrade", you get a windows.old folder and everything. :)
You weren't using a nVidia card in Jan 2007 on a Vista machine then, were you?
Their drivers sucked. AMD wasn't perfect, but their launch drivers were better than nVidia.
Both companies have had periods of issues, at the moment, both are doing pretty well.
You can do that, just like you could have kept Windows XP until April of 2014.
But frankly, Windows 7 was a superior upgrade to XP, while I largely skipped Vista, 7 was worth the upgrade.
So it is with 10. Windows 7 will be just as badly outdated in 2020 as XP was last year. Frankly it is already showing a bit, I've got 8.1 on a few machines and in many ways I prefer it over 7. 10 fixes most of the remaining complaints.
Yes, yes, I'm sure you're special, your computer never gets a virus, never has a problem.
Like I said, most people overrate their own abilities. But not you, I'm sure you're special.
The worst attitude in the world is "it won't happen to me".
I suppose you'll be totally safe going back to DOS 5.0. The same logic that says "I don't wanna upgrade, I want to keep my Windows Version XXX forever!" is the same one that people said back then.
The complaint is that I don't want to change my OS if I don't want to, and that should be my choice - plain and simple.
It is your choice... plain and simple...
However, if you wish to remain connected to the Internet, at some point you're going to have to upgrade if you have any sense.
No amount of "safe surfing" is going to make up for the fact that XP is EOL and 7 will be EOL in 2020.
So don't upgrade, keep using whatever you're using, but be mindful of the consequences.
In my experience, most people overrate their own abilities and skills and underrate the threat. I've cleaned too many infected PCs to be ignorant of the threat.
You think so? My understanding is that Secure Boot can be turned off in the BIOS.
I also thought that you could get a "secure boot" version of Linux.
If I'm mistaken, please let me know.
Wait, I thought that any time now we'd have the "Year of the Linux Desktop!" It has only been promised to us for 20 years now.
http://www.zdnet.com/article/2...
That was from 2004.
http://tech.slashdot.org/story...
That is from 2005, but has some interesting observations from years past
http://linux.slashdot.org/stor...
That one is from 2007, it asks "Is 2008 the Year of the Linux Desktop?"
---
NO IT IS NOT AND IT NEVER WILL BE. Yea, yea, a few techies use it and will probably always use it. It will run millions of servers and continue to do so. And 10 years from now, 95% of desktop and notebook PCs will continue to run Windows.
The one thing they don't need to do is issue derpy coupons.
To sell to you, no.
But you aren't the market... Go hang out at a Football game, or a NASCAR race, and tell me if you think that is really true...
The majority of the people in this county buy on "deals", anyone who works in advertising or marketing can tell you that.
Tesla is not yet making money, they currently lose about $15K on every car sold.
They are also selling to a very narrow section of the market.
Ford and GM could never do what they are doing. If Tesla wants to become mass market, they'll have to change.
If you run 120 VDC in your existing home, you'll have a house fire before too long.
Everything from your wall switches to your wires will cause you never ending problems.
Even if you replace your wall switches and outlets, your wires will degrade over time and develop holes and other blemishes that will cause a fire.
It is worth noting that in an airplane, parachutes are largely useless since the passengers are not trained in how to use them.
When it comes to protecting Earth, everyone doesn't need training, just those who will do something about it.
The risk to Earth, in our lifetimes, is very, very low. The risk over the next 50,000 years is much higher.
The thing is, we don't know when it will happen again. So should we do nothing?
I would suggest that this might be an issue that David Cameron used for the elections and for politics and that it isn't a core issue that he'll defend against such pushback.
Yep. Eventually your lenders want to be repaid. This is why most sovereign debt is rolled over. The EU has put Greece in a situation where it can't roll over its debts and must pay them as they come due. Almost no nation can do this for all of its debt. Think of it like this, you can payoff your home mortgage over thirty years, if the bank suddenly accelerates it and demands all of the money tomorrow that isn't going to be doable unless you can find another lender. Unfortunately, the sovereign debt markets tend to dislike long maturity bonds. This means the only loans many nations can get need to be repaid in five or ten years. In normal circumstances a nation can roll their debt over.
^ all true...
How many nations could? Germany *might*, given their huge hard currency reserves, plus their gold and other physical assets. (Many people don't know this, but after the United States, Germany holds the world's largest gold reserves)
China probably could, given the massive foreign currency they hold.
The US of course could, given that the US Dollar is the world's reserve currency, we could print enough to pay it all off tomorrow, abit at the cost of inflation, but we could.
Who else? Honestly, I think that might be it.
If Germany paid war reparations for the brutal occupation and raping of the country of Greece, it would amount to something like $150-200 Billion owed.
Do you actually believe that, or are you a paid member of the Greek government?
Actually, I'm not such which would be worse...
Germany did pay, nearly 50 years ago, and settled its legal obligations at the time, money which Greece accepted.
The issue is closed, it doesn't get reopened every few decades for convenience. Frankly, most of the people alive in 1945 are no longer here, it has passed into history, let it go...
That isn't what I meant of course... Anything a company has to write a check for is either an expense, a capital investment, or a dividend to shareholders...
Which of those three would you consider taxes to fall into?
They would try to raise the price (not likely possible because, as stated above, if they could get away with a higher asking price, they would have done so on their own, why not rake in more if you can?) but they might go out of business. With a 90% tax, it's actually likely.
They can't raise prices all by themselves.
This is why Walmart can't just raise their base pay to $15/hr, because Target doesn't have to.
If ALL companies were suddenly forced to do so, then they would all raise their prices.
If all companies are taxed more, prices will go up across the board, just like if the min/wage was raised to $15, or even $50/hr.
If everyone has to pay it, then everything gets more expensive.