Sigh... I'll say it again, Intel is NOT shipping true dual core chips. They slapped 2 dies onto one package. And if you understand manufacturing, it's much more expensive to do this, and Intel would not do this in large volume without charging a massive amount of cash for each chip. And by the way, when you say shipping, can you show where you can currently purchase one of these chips? I didn't think so. It's called a paper launch, and Intel, Nvidia, ATI, and AMD are all notorious for using them. Intel might make a few of these chips and provide them to Dell for the high end gaming segment, which Dell might sell 100 of these machines for PR. When Intel can put two cores on a single die, and can actually ship them and people like us can buy them from places like Newegg.com, then you can claim Intel as shipping dual core chips. I'm not a processor fan boy either - I'm also telling you AMD is not shipping chips either, and when they do, it won't count until we can actually purchase and use them. What I am saying is that AMD will be first out of the door to ship true dual core chips. But you know what? It doesn't matter who is first - it matters who makes the best chip for the least amount of cash. Then we'll see who succeeds and who doesn't. Paper launches don't count.
You don't seem to understand... Intel isn't selling dual core chips either - they are selling chips with two normal P4 dies on them, which are now forced to share I/O bandwidth from a single socket. These dies are also very underclocked (3.2 GHZ) compared to the standard P4, which comes in at around 3.8 GHZ now. Another tidbit of info for you - the new dual core P4s won't be compatible with a majority of Intel boards on the market... not even bios updates can correct a lot of the existing boards out there, new chipsets will be required on new boards. Now let's talk about AMD's offering... First off, it's true dual core - basically a single die with two cores on it, hence the name dual core. The two cores use hyper transport to communicate with various system devices. These chips won't be much slower, if not faster even, than the current single core chips on the market. Now for the best part - anybody with an existing Socket 939 AMD based motherboard will be able to use one. Worst case, you'll have to download a bios update to enable it, but it will work. AMD designed the K8 core to be dual ready out of the box, so this whole thing about them having an extra year isn't exactly true - they've had much longer than that.
In your first post, you put down system builders as if they were somehow inferior to you because you can program in assembly and know the difference between double density floppy disks. I'm no kid.
Just because you prefer your archaic old system building to new, doesn't mean the systems I build are "uselessly fast". Again, cheapo doesn't desribe what I build. I build very reliable and very useful systems which people use on a daily basis. You won't find many people using a 2 mhz computer these days. You may wish to waste hours/days of your life working with such old crap because it makes you feel superior over people like me who actually do productive work in our spare time, but most of us don't. I can picture you 30 years ago:
"Computer? You don't need a computer - this slide rule I carved from a birch tree works just fine. My daughter uses it to do her math homework everyday. Computers are just useless wastes of electricity, real men don't need them."
No, cost is the main factor. Read some of my posts above and you'll understand what I'm talking about. I don't have $1500+ to spend on a mac, and no, a Mac-mini doesn't count as a PC that can do what I need.
http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=2328
You would need atleast 512 megs of ram, which I would have anyhow - but that raises the cost of the machine a lot. If I were going to spend that much money, I would then have to consider building my own again with much better specs in the first place.
I understand windows can be very frustrating - XP though is the "best" version to date in terms of reliability, but "best" is a very relative term. About Windows and drivers - you're right, anything from video card drivers to nic drivers could crash your system in a heartbeat... which brings me to a very important point: buy only good gear from companies you trust very much. I am responsible for about 50 workstations at work, each one I built. The key to the success of the build and installation of these machines required that I know what hardware will be the most likely to be trouble free. I'm not trying to start a flamewar here, I'm just stating facts as I have seen them in my business - Nvidia makes great drivers *most* of the time, thus if you buy a Geforce based graphics card for a workstation, and you use the Nvidia driver set as instructed, chances are you will have zero problems. I also use AMD processors and Nvidia motherboard chipsets, ranging from Nforce 1 through 4 at my company. The only issues I have ever seen with these are the occasional onboard nic dying, which seems to be more related to the board manufacturer than Nvidia, and sometimes the sound drivers can be messy with Nforce 3 and 4 boards. Other than that, I have never had an nvidia driver cause a BSOD on it's own. About your Adobe Acrobat problems.... yes, you're right - the autostart feature of the full version of Acrobat 5 through 7 is a nightmare. You simply have to click on start -> run -> msconfig, which brings up a little utility. Find the tab called something like "start up items" on the far right, and uncheck Adobe stuff. Restart, and wa la, you're computer shouldn't have adobe problems anymore. I firmly believe that with decent hardware, clean power, and a spyware-free system, Windows 2000/XP is incredibly stable.
I was going to say the same thing. Also, if you have to routinely reinstall Windows, you're not as good at working with computers as you thought you were. That might be his point though, if the average person screws windows up so badly that it requires a reinstall, then there is a problem. Most of the time it's called spyware. If you're not retarded though, you can avoid it on Windows and just use Firefox. Also, just partition the damn hard disk if you can't boot off something larger than 137 gig. However, it sounds like a bios problem to me....
Where in the hell did you get the idea that I don't an "apparent need" for the machines I build? You're insane if you think I go around spending money on a machines that I don't need. Nowhere in my post did I give that indication. Here is what I use my current machine for:
Web programming and site design, this involves my workstation being a dev web server running CFMX 6.1, SQL Server, etc. I also do flash design and graphics stuff, using Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. Using CFMX, I write java apps to run on the web server, so I use the Netbeans 4.0 IDE to run and compile these.
Gaming. UT2004 is my favorite and runs very nice on my AMD 64 3200+ with 1 gig of dual DDR 400, combined with my Geforce 6600 GT PCI-X.
Video editing - I have a camcorder with firewire on it and a motherboard with firewire onboard. I take many, many videos of special family occassions for example, and I use programs like Adobe After Effects 5.5 to put nice effects into them and then burn them onto DVD.
Word processing and other office apps - I work for a tax company, so reguarly I need access to things like word and excel.
Web browsing and email access. I think any modern day computer does this, so it goes without saying.
Virtual PC 2004 and VMWare - I use these to emulate about 4 different Linux distros I use at work for servers. I need a test environment at home and work to make sure things fly before putting them into production obviously.
I didn't even mention things like CD burning, digital photography, and a host of other things my wife and I use our computer for. I'm constantly amazed at the sheer arrogance of people on slashdot these days, assuming they know my situation better than I. But back to my original point - HELL YES macs are expensive compared to what I built for under $100 with an OEM copy of Windows XP Pro on it. Apple doesn't even sell a computer in the same class as the one I built. I don't need dual CPU, but that's what I would have to get if I wanted the same speed of a CPU as I have now. The only single cpu they sell in the G5 is 1.8 GHZ, and if you carefully study benchmarks, a 1.8 GHZ G5 can't touch my AMD 64 3200+ - and even if it could, the system costs $1499 at the cheapest, and goes up with memory upgrades, etc. You're arguing a completely futile point - everybody knows Macs are more expensive. I never said they were inferior, just more expensive, which was my point the whole time, and no matter how much you argue with me, you can't win.
I think you're asking the wrong crowd. What I mean is, for myself, I enjoy "building" computers. I do it at work, and I enjoy putting together slick systems for myself and others I know. If I could install Mac OS X on these machines, I would in a heartbeat. I do use Linux in some cases, but Windows ends up being the defacto standard because people know it more than Linux. I'm willing to bet many slashdotters, besides the current Apple users, probably like building computers as well. If I could get an IBM PPC chip on a stock motherboard I could buy online and build myself a Mac clone, I might do it.... but what I know for sure is that AMD 64 chips are amazingly fast, fairly cool, and cheaper than most alternatives on the market right now. So, what I REALLY want, is Mac OS X ported for x86. Then I would definitely switch, and possibly a large number of other slashdotters would give it a try as well. But, I know Apple makes cash off of very expensive hardware, and they would never give that up. So, what I'm trying to say is, it would take a hell of a lot more than a fancy MP3 player (that works fine with Windows BTW) to switch both software and hardware for me. I'm not saying I'm the average slashdotter, but I'm willing to bet many people share some of the same preferences I do (even though there is no question somebody will violently disagree with this post like always).
OH MY GOD YOU MAKE ME LAUGH. Let's go back to my first post, shall we? The person I was referring to was a woman driving a minivan with a stock stereo. She simply had the windows rolled down on a hot sunny day. She was ticketed. YOU COULD NOT HEAR THE MUSIC FROM 200 FT AWAY, AND BESIDES I SAID "A PERSON I KNEW", SINCE WHEN DOES THAT EQUAL ME? Absolutey nobody's rights were being violated as you so incorrectly assumed. Why don't you go back to watching matlock, take out your dentures, and remember to change your depends - they must be full because you are incredibly over-assuming and grouchy.
I agree with you completely - and I'd also like to add that I know a person who got a ticket for having a loud stereo, which pales in comparison to the sound of a Harley.... yet a Harley can drive up my street at 2 AM and not be considered a problem, while this person was on the way to work in the morning and got ticketed because the windows were down in the car and the cop could hear the music. What a f*cked up society we live in.
I was thinking the same thing - who would buy this stuff? Ok, maybe a customized contacts app, but I highly doubt anybody would have a use for a custom written web browser - which BTW, how is it possible with any language to write one in 4 hours? I'm sure there are libraries to incorporate the HTML/XML parsing side of things.... but still, 4 hours seems unrealistic.
I agree - WinFS scares me. I believe ext3 is sort of like WinFS, is it not? I was scared of ext3 but I heard that since it was "journaled", it would eliminate files going missing if your machine was hard powered off. I've had very good luck with ext3, and if WinFS is going to be similar, it might not be all that bad - but then again, look who's actually developing it.
Keep dreaming. Most spammers are not in U.S., or if they are, they are untraceable unless your the FBI who has bigger fish to fry. No legal tactic on the planet is going to solve this problem. A technical solution is all you can hope for - which when you think about it, should be very possible and is getting closer all the time.
That's nice in this case, but let's talk about a different scenario. Say I'm an ISP in rural Iowa that has roughly 15 customers because I'm small, and again in rural Iowa. Now let's say that you only had a single T1 or a fractional you were working with. Then imagine all 15 of your clients making VOIP calls at once. Your bandwidth would drop to nothing, and the clients would complain. Your only choice would be blocking vonage's ports so your clients can still "surf the net" at decent speeds. It's no different than blocking P2P traffic if you have to speed things up.
Uh, no. I guess you're assuming firewalls only block one way.... think outgoing traffic here. You couldn't "browse the 'net" at a company where port 80 is blocked.
Slashdot Mirror
Ok, so you miss the "No" and expect me to take your post for what you meant? Sorry, but I'm used to speaking in english.
No, there is not a northbridge for the K8 core. Everything related to memory is on the chip itself.
Sigh... I'll say it again, Intel is NOT shipping true dual core chips. They slapped 2 dies onto one package. And if you understand manufacturing, it's much more expensive to do this, and Intel would not do this in large volume without charging a massive amount of cash for each chip. And by the way, when you say shipping, can you show where you can currently purchase one of these chips? I didn't think so. It's called a paper launch, and Intel, Nvidia, ATI, and AMD are all notorious for using them. Intel might make a few of these chips and provide them to Dell for the high end gaming segment, which Dell might sell 100 of these machines for PR. When Intel can put two cores on a single die, and can actually ship them and people like us can buy them from places like Newegg.com, then you can claim Intel as shipping dual core chips. I'm not a processor fan boy either - I'm also telling you AMD is not shipping chips either, and when they do, it won't count until we can actually purchase and use them. What I am saying is that AMD will be first out of the door to ship true dual core chips. But you know what? It doesn't matter who is first - it matters who makes the best chip for the least amount of cash. Then we'll see who succeeds and who doesn't. Paper launches don't count.
I don't think so - AMD boards don't have a northbridge... the memory controller is on the CPU itself.
0 6
http://www.anandtech.com/memory/showdoc.aspx?i=20
See the last paragraph
You don't seem to understand... Intel isn't selling dual core chips either - they are selling chips with two normal P4 dies on them, which are now forced to share I/O bandwidth from a single socket. These dies are also very underclocked (3.2 GHZ) compared to the standard P4, which comes in at around 3.8 GHZ now. Another tidbit of info for you - the new dual core P4s won't be compatible with a majority of Intel boards on the market... not even bios updates can correct a lot of the existing boards out there, new chipsets will be required on new boards. Now let's talk about AMD's offering... First off, it's true dual core - basically a single die with two cores on it, hence the name dual core. The two cores use hyper transport to communicate with various system devices. These chips won't be much slower, if not faster even, than the current single core chips on the market. Now for the best part - anybody with an existing Socket 939 AMD based motherboard will be able to use one. Worst case, you'll have to download a bios update to enable it, but it will work. AMD designed the K8 core to be dual ready out of the box, so this whole thing about them having an extra year isn't exactly true - they've had much longer than that.
In your first post, you put down system builders as if they were somehow inferior to you because you can program in assembly and know the difference between double density floppy disks. I'm no kid.
Just because you prefer your archaic old system building to new, doesn't mean the systems I build are "uselessly fast". Again, cheapo doesn't desribe what I build. I build very reliable and very useful systems which people use on a daily basis. You won't find many people using a 2 mhz computer these days. You may wish to waste hours/days of your life working with such old crap because it makes you feel superior over people like me who actually do productive work in our spare time, but most of us don't. I can picture you 30 years ago:
"Computer? You don't need a computer - this slide rule I carved from a birch tree works just fine. My daughter uses it to do her math homework everyday. Computers are just useless wastes of electricity, real men don't need them."
You're sadly mistaken if you think I work with Alienware machines...
No, cost is the main factor. Read some of my posts above and you'll understand what I'm talking about. I don't have $1500+ to spend on a mac, and no, a Mac-mini doesn't count as a PC that can do what I need.
8
http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=232
You would need atleast 512 megs of ram, which I would have anyhow - but that raises the cost of the machine a lot. If I were going to spend that much money, I would then have to consider building my own again with much better specs in the first place.
Right - which is why you use a slipstreamed version of XP to install from. If you don't know how to slipstream a service pack into Windows, look here:
s p2 _slipstream.asp
http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/windowsxp_
It only takes a few minutes to do, and will save you hours of trouble shooting stupid issues like this.
I understand windows can be very frustrating - XP though is the "best" version to date in terms of reliability, but "best" is a very relative term. About Windows and drivers - you're right, anything from video card drivers to nic drivers could crash your system in a heartbeat... which brings me to a very important point: buy only good gear from companies you trust very much. I am responsible for about 50 workstations at work, each one I built. The key to the success of the build and installation of these machines required that I know what hardware will be the most likely to be trouble free. I'm not trying to start a flamewar here, I'm just stating facts as I have seen them in my business - Nvidia makes great drivers *most* of the time, thus if you buy a Geforce based graphics card for a workstation, and you use the Nvidia driver set as instructed, chances are you will have zero problems. I also use AMD processors and Nvidia motherboard chipsets, ranging from Nforce 1 through 4 at my company. The only issues I have ever seen with these are the occasional onboard nic dying, which seems to be more related to the board manufacturer than Nvidia, and sometimes the sound drivers can be messy with Nforce 3 and 4 boards. Other than that, I have never had an nvidia driver cause a BSOD on it's own. About your Adobe Acrobat problems.... yes, you're right - the autostart feature of the full version of Acrobat 5 through 7 is a nightmare. You simply have to click on start -> run -> msconfig, which brings up a little utility. Find the tab called something like "start up items" on the far right, and uncheck Adobe stuff. Restart, and wa la, you're computer shouldn't have adobe problems anymore. I firmly believe that with decent hardware, clean power, and a spyware-free system, Windows 2000/XP is incredibly stable.
I was going to say the same thing. Also, if you have to routinely reinstall Windows, you're not as good at working with computers as you thought you were. That might be his point though, if the average person screws windows up so badly that it requires a reinstall, then there is a problem. Most of the time it's called spyware. If you're not retarded though, you can avoid it on Windows and just use Firefox. Also, just partition the damn hard disk if you can't boot off something larger than 137 gig. However, it sounds like a bios problem to me....
Correction, I said "under $100" - obviously, I meant $1000
I didn't even mention things like CD burning, digital photography, and a host of other things my wife and I use our computer for. I'm constantly amazed at the sheer arrogance of people on slashdot these days, assuming they know my situation better than I. But back to my original point - HELL YES macs are expensive compared to what I built for under $100 with an OEM copy of Windows XP Pro on it. Apple doesn't even sell a computer in the same class as the one I built. I don't need dual CPU, but that's what I would have to get if I wanted the same speed of a CPU as I have now. The only single cpu they sell in the G5 is 1.8 GHZ, and if you carefully study benchmarks, a 1.8 GHZ G5 can't touch my AMD 64 3200+ - and even if it could, the system costs $1499 at the cheapest, and goes up with memory upgrades, etc. You're arguing a completely futile point - everybody knows Macs are more expensive. I never said they were inferior, just more expensive, which was my point the whole time, and no matter how much you argue with me, you can't win.
I think you're asking the wrong crowd. What I mean is, for myself, I enjoy "building" computers. I do it at work, and I enjoy putting together slick systems for myself and others I know. If I could install Mac OS X on these machines, I would in a heartbeat. I do use Linux in some cases, but Windows ends up being the defacto standard because people know it more than Linux. I'm willing to bet many slashdotters, besides the current Apple users, probably like building computers as well. If I could get an IBM PPC chip on a stock motherboard I could buy online and build myself a Mac clone, I might do it.... but what I know for sure is that AMD 64 chips are amazingly fast, fairly cool, and cheaper than most alternatives on the market right now. So, what I REALLY want, is Mac OS X ported for x86. Then I would definitely switch, and possibly a large number of other slashdotters would give it a try as well. But, I know Apple makes cash off of very expensive hardware, and they would never give that up. So, what I'm trying to say is, it would take a hell of a lot more than a fancy MP3 player (that works fine with Windows BTW) to switch both software and hardware for me. I'm not saying I'm the average slashdotter, but I'm willing to bet many people share some of the same preferences I do (even though there is no question somebody will violently disagree with this post like always).
Oh, I'm not yelling - some people just need certain text emphasized since they forgot their spectacles at the nursing home.
OH MY GOD YOU MAKE ME LAUGH. Let's go back to my first post, shall we? The person I was referring to was a woman driving a minivan with a stock stereo. She simply had the windows rolled down on a hot sunny day. She was ticketed. YOU COULD NOT HEAR THE MUSIC FROM 200 FT AWAY, AND BESIDES I SAID "A PERSON I KNEW", SINCE WHEN DOES THAT EQUAL ME? Absolutey nobody's rights were being violated as you so incorrectly assumed. Why don't you go back to watching matlock, take out your dentures, and remember to change your depends - they must be full because you are incredibly over-assuming and grouchy.
I agree with you completely - and I'd also like to add that I know a person who got a ticket for having a loud stereo, which pales in comparison to the sound of a Harley.... yet a Harley can drive up my street at 2 AM and not be considered a problem, while this person was on the way to work in the morning and got ticketed because the windows were down in the car and the cop could hear the music. What a f*cked up society we live in.
I was thinking the same thing - who would buy this stuff? Ok, maybe a customized contacts app, but I highly doubt anybody would have a use for a custom written web browser - which BTW, how is it possible with any language to write one in 4 hours? I'm sure there are libraries to incorporate the HTML/XML parsing side of things.... but still, 4 hours seems unrealistic.
I agree - WinFS scares me. I believe ext3 is sort of like WinFS, is it not? I was scared of ext3 but I heard that since it was "journaled", it would eliminate files going missing if your machine was hard powered off. I've had very good luck with ext3, and if WinFS is going to be similar, it might not be all that bad - but then again, look who's actually developing it.
Keep dreaming. Most spammers are not in U.S., or if they are, they are untraceable unless your the FBI who has bigger fish to fry. No legal tactic on the planet is going to solve this problem. A technical solution is all you can hope for - which when you think about it, should be very possible and is getting closer all the time.
That's nice in this case, but let's talk about a different scenario. Say I'm an ISP in rural Iowa that has roughly 15 customers because I'm small, and again in rural Iowa. Now let's say that you only had a single T1 or a fractional you were working with. Then imagine all 15 of your clients making VOIP calls at once. Your bandwidth would drop to nothing, and the clients would complain. Your only choice would be blocking vonage's ports so your clients can still "surf the net" at decent speeds. It's no different than blocking P2P traffic if you have to speed things up.
Uh, yeah - that's what I said:
think outgoing traffic here
Uh, no. I guess you're assuming firewalls only block one way.... think outgoing traffic here. You couldn't "browse the 'net" at a company where port 80 is blocked.
Where do you feel more productive?
:)
Behind a firewall that blocks port 80