The Icon Bar: General: What's your next computer?
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What's your next computer? |
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John Hoare |
Message #95323, posted by moss at 15:44, 5/12/2006 |
Posts: 9348
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I am currently drooling over Macbook Pros. Although I'll probably wait until the next model is released, because, erm, I haven't got any money 
What are you currently looking at? |
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Jeffrey Lee |
Message #95325, posted by Phlamethrower at 15:52, 5/12/2006, in reply to message #95323 |
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What are you currently looking at? My monitor, because I can touch-type.
What, you expected me to give a sensible answer?  |
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John |
Message #95334, posted by mr-mac at 16:39, 5/12/2006, in reply to message #95323 |
Member
Posts: 148
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SA RPC 
Well I have been infuriated with windoze and constant re-installing from scratch every so often - not that fussed with mac's either as I can't game on them so for what I do at home they don't offer much over Risc OS for me.
Yeah I'll keep my PC for games and a few other bits and bobs but I will use Risc OS for DTP, Word processing, email, basic web, MP3 etc.
Got an RPC600 not that long back and am starting to enjoy to use it a little here and there (though it's now developed an intermitant fault) so I am currently looking for a well priced SA machine (and keep the 600 for spares)....
And before anyone says it I don't have the money for an Ionix or A9 at the moment and it would be folly for me to make that sort of outlay while dipping my toe in the water.....
You read a lot about people leaving Risc OS well I am returning
John
[Edited by mr-mac at 16:44, 5/12/2006] |
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Andrew Poole |
Message #95347, posted by andypoole at 17:44, 5/12/2006, in reply to message #95323 |
Posts: 5558
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Depending upon what happens in the meantime (it'll be one of two things to be revealed when the time comes....) it'll likely either be an iMac or a MacBook. |
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Simon Wilson |
Message #95350, posted by ksattic at 17:49, 5/12/2006, in reply to message #95323 |
 Finally, an avatar!
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I am currently drooling over Macbook Pros. Although I'll probably wait until the next model is released Yep, definitely wait for the "Core 3 Duo" or whatever Intel decide to call it. Rumour has it that it will be a much better improvement over the Core 2 Duo than the "2" was over the original Core Duo.
Waiting for a PS3. I should be getting mine in two weeks - I got my friend a Wii, so he gave me his spot in line for a PS3 (a list, not a literal queue outside a shop). |
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Jason Togneri |
Message #95362, posted by filecore at 19:06, 5/12/2006, in reply to message #95350 |
Posts: 3868
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Dunno, my spec is so nice for everything that I do at the moment, I'm not looking to upgrade anytime soon. |
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Jeffrey Lee |
Message #95367, posted by Phlamethrower at 19:15, 5/12/2006, in reply to message #95362 |
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My spec is fine at the moment too. And I won't buy an entirely new computer, I'll just upgrade the relevant bits of this one.
AFAIK this PC started its life working in my dad's shop around 1993. |
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Matthew Somerville |
Message #95402, posted by Matthew at 00:15, 6/12/2006, in reply to message #95323 |
Posts: 520
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My laptop has a crack in the screen lid, so not sure how much longer it's going to last. :-/ My next computer will probably be another (Windows) laptop (perhaps dual-boot Linux if I can be bothered), slightly smaller than this hulk so I can carry it more easily.
I've tried Macs a number of times, but just don't like them. But that's just me, I don't care about anyone else.  |
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Jeffrey Lee |
Message #105852, posted by Phlamethrower at 01:23, 4/1/2008, in reply to message #95402 |
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I can't find the thread that I was looking for, but since this one covers the same topic I might as well talk about it here.
My PC just about survived all the Christmas games releases without requiring an upgrade, which is nice. So now I'm playing the waiting game to see when a game comes out that will push my PC too far and require an upgrade.
But that doesn't mean I can't start browsing shop websites and making a list of shiny things to get!
A quad-core CPU, a gig or two more RAM, and a 24" 1920x1200 monitor should last me for a good few years. It'd also leave me ready for watching HD movies (assuming something worth watching appears. Plus I'd need to buy a drive to watch it with, but prices shouldn't be too bad by the time something worth watching appears). And if I'm lucky, the computer may actually sleep/hibernate/WOL properly!
However the bad news is that I can't think of any games that have been announced for this year that will be too much for my PC to handle. So I may just give in and upgrade for the sake of it, rather than because I need to. Which will probably end up backfiring, like it did with Rich's gaming machine (Bought so he could play his current games on it, not new ones - and despite being superior to my PC in every way, it apparently required two(?) graphics cards upgrades to play Crysis properly, even with the graphics settings reduced, whereas I managed to play Crysis just fine). |
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Mike |
Message #105854, posted by MikeCarter at 07:56, 4/1/2008, in reply to message #105852 |
Posts: 401
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What ever expandable RISC OS desktop machine comes out next.Untill then iv got my SA RPC;which is in use as my primary computer, and for DVD playback and the rare trip to youtube iv got my Linux machine. |
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Andrew Poole |
Message #105855, posted by andypoole at 08:11, 4/1/2008, in reply to message #105854 |
Posts: 5558
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What ever expandable RISC OS desktop machine comes out next. Not planning on a new computer anytime in the... future.., then? |
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Jason Togneri |
Message #105856, posted by filecore at 08:16, 4/1/2008, in reply to message #95367 |
Posts: 3868
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My spec is fine at the moment too. And I won't buy an entirely new computer, I'll just upgrade the relevant bits of this one. I've pretty much reached the end of the road on that one (2.8GHz P4, 4x512 PC2700, 2x500GB SATA2 drives running on a SATA1 interface, AGP nVidia 7600GS) so if I want to go further, upgrading with similar parts is a waste of cash.
If I want to upgrade anything, I'll need a PCIe board, which means a new processor, which means new memory and of course a new graphics card. The only things I can keep are my hard and optical drives, and other peripherals (PCI cards, card reader, etc). My next machine will be the first one ever without a floppy drive! Cuz now I have a USB floppy drive so that'll do nicely (BIOS upgrades aside). |
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Richard Goodwin |
Message #105869, posted by rich at 16:06, 4/1/2008, in reply to message #105856 |
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Posts: 6828
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I've pretty much reached the end of the road on that one I know that feeling. I wanted to upgrade a graphics card a few years back - AGPx8 card, AGPx4 motherboard. New board required, which of course wouldn't take the old memory, CPU etc. Then I wanted to upgrade the graphics card in that machine - everyone had moved on to PCI-E.
I keep kidding myself that I can upgrade this machine (I already have a better graphics card and bigger drives) - maybe swap the dual core CPU for a quad. But I just know that by the time this becomes pressing, everything else will be outdated.
My next machine will be the first one ever without a floppy drive! Cuz now I have a USB floppy drive so that'll do nicely (BIOS upgrades aside). I managed to un-brick my old laptop using a USB floppy drive to re-do a BIOS update - seeing as there wasn't a built-in floppy drive it was the only way. Just a pity I dropped that laptop a couple of months later 
Strangely I now have a floppy drive in my main machine, after many moons of not having any other than borrowing my Dad's aforementioned USB one. And it was put there by Dell. But it is one of their games machines and not a standard office type box.
________
 Cheers,
Rich.
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Richard Goodwin |
Message #105871, posted by rich at 16:21, 4/1/2008, in reply to message #105852 |
Dictator for life
Posts: 6828
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Which will probably end up backfiring, like it did with Rich's gaming machine (Bought so he could play his current games on it, not new ones - and despite being superior to my PC in every way, it apparently required two(?) graphics cards upgrades to play Crysis properly, even with the graphics settings reduced, whereas I managed to play Crysis just fine). Not true. At the time I bought the best computer I could afford, with the best graphics card I could afford (well, it was built in as the machine was ex-Dell stock, so I didn't have much choice, but it's one of the reasons I bought that machine). After nearly a year of good service, Crysis at full whack taxed it so I upgraded to a DX10 card. It ran fine until the quarry scene, and it was only really a problem right at the end.
The new machine still has so much memory that XP and Vista can't access it all, twin monitors, and a terabyte of drive space (with slightly more than that in the fileserver/backup machine, when I get round to rebuilding it). And as mentioned above, it should be able to take a quad core in place of the dual it currently has - the old machine had a CPU clocked at the same speed as just one of these cores.
You might be confused that the 7950 is technically two cards fused together using internal SLI magic, giving a 1GB dual core card that only takes up 1 PCI-E slot; I thought would last me more than a year, but Crysis won't go above medium settings on anything that isn't DX10, so no card from that era is good enough. Hence ordering a 8800GT the month it was released (not being able to afford the GTX).
I did fit a second graphics card in the second PCI-E slot, so I could run 3 monitors at once (the third being the TV), but it was a shit 20 quid one and Vista doesn't seem to like mixing and matching. Although there may have been a good reason for that (dodgy OS!) and I might try again in a bit. Come to think of it, running two monitors off one card might have been why Crysis had problems in the first place.
So, no backfiring at all - a year on and I wanted to have a bleeding-edge graphics card for once, which will hopefully future-proof it for another year or so. That was the whole point of getting a multi-core, PCI-E and SLI capable machine to replace my AGP one - not falling behind the times.
The main problem I've had is both my games and fileserver machines (and my PVR!) having drive problems at the same time, which points to some kind of power problem. New drives and surge protection on the sockets should solve that. Kind of put me off computers for a while though, my whole living room being covered in disassembled hardware.
________
Cheers,
Rich.
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Jeffrey Lee |
Message #105872, posted by Phlamethrower at 17:57, 4/1/2008, in reply to message #105871 |
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but Crysis won't go above medium settings on anything that isn't DX10, so no card from that era is good enough. Well you didn't say that earlier!
I thought it was just poor performance of your impressive-sounding DX9 card that led you to upgrade, not that you were unhappy at being unable to go above Medium settings.
So, no backfiring at all - a year on and I wanted to have a bleeding-edge graphics card for once, which will hopefully future-proof it for another year or so. I wouldn't class a 1 year lifespan as future-proofing. My current PC wasn't bought with future-proofing in mind, but it looks like it will last me around 3 years (Apart from the graphics card, which has been replaced a couple of times due to hardware failure). So if I was looking for something future-proof I'd want something that can last at least 3 years - not a measly one or two. |
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Peter Howkins |
Message #105873, posted by flibble at 18:04, 4/1/2008, in reply to message #105871 |
Posts: 892
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It's nearly time for me to upgrade my PC again, it's about 4 years since I bought my last and 4 more since I bought the one before that.
The Gfx card in my current box (a Radeon 9600) is considered the 'minimum' requirements for some new games (not even the 'recommended' level).
I'll probably wait until I find something completely unplayable though. The best time to buy a computer is always six months from now. |
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Jason Togneri |
Message #105874, posted by filecore at 18:42, 4/1/2008, in reply to message #105869 |
Posts: 3868
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Strangely I now have a floppy drive in my main machine, after many moons of not having any other than borrowing my Dad's aforementioned USB one. I've always had one. Useful for just so many things, even now, as boot from USB is far far from being standardised, and you can't flash a BIOS from a CD (waste of space anyway). As for laptops, I got a Compaq Presario 2500 variant as my mobile working machine, and in addition to a DVDRW, 1GB of PC2100 and a 3GHz mobile P4, it still has a built-in floppy! Shame its graphics card sucks, but it can struggle along just fine with HL2, and I rarely would play anything more demanding on my main machine (I think Doom 3, C&C3 and Gothic 3 - all 3, that's funny - are at the top end right now), let alone on my laptop. |
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Jason Togneri |
Message #105875, posted by filecore at 18:48, 4/1/2008, in reply to message #105873 |
Posts: 3868
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The Gfx card in my current box (a Radeon 9600) is considered the 'minimum' requirements for some new games (not even the 'recommended' level) Eewwww. The 9600 is a horrid card, and I used to have it in my wife's machine. It's the one that started my dislike of ATi cards. I had to swap it out for an N6600 because it wasn't sending good signals to the TV, and it was more graphically sluggish. Now both of my main boxen use nVidia cards, and I don't regret it. The nView stuff is good too, like context-menu options for things on the Task Bar (transparency, always on top, etc). |
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Andrew |
Message #105877, posted by andrew at 19:04, 4/1/2008, in reply to message #95334 |
 Handbag Boi
Posts: 3439
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SA RPC
Well I have been infuriated with windoze and constant re-installing from scratch every so often - not that fussed with mac's either as I can't game on them so for what I do at home they don't offer much over Risc OS for me.
Yeah I'll keep my PC for games and a few other bits and bobs but I will use Risc OS for DTP, Word processing, email, basic web, MP3 etc.
Got an RPC600 not that long back and am starting to enjoy to use it a little here and there (though it's now developed an intermitant fault) so I am currently looking for a well priced SA machine (and keep the 600 for spares)....
And before anyone says it I don't have the money for an Ionix or A9 at the moment and it would be folly for me to make that sort of outlay while dipping my toe in the water.....
You read a lot about people leaving Risc OS well I am returning
John
[Edited by mr-mac at 16:44, 5/12/2006] Good for you. I'm tempted by a laptop but I don't really need one at the moment so the next would be an Iyonix unless Castle release a successor. The main detractors are lack of decent web video support e.g. Flash, WMV, RealPlayer. |
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Richard Goodwin |
Message #105882, posted by rich at 14:40, 5/1/2008, in reply to message #105872 |
Dictator for life
Posts: 6828
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So, no backfiring at all - a year on and I wanted to have a bleeding-edge graphics card for once, which will hopefully future-proof it for another year or so. I wouldn't class a 1 year lifespan as future-proofing.
Well, Moore's Law kicks in after 1 and a half, so we'll probably all be using different motherboards for different CPUs and memory in two years. Don't forget I've already had my machine a year, and it was an old model when I bought it, so another year or so it the best I can expect before it's looking second rate.
My Dad's old machine could just about play Rome: Total War, but it chugged. I just upgraded him to a dual core, PCI-E machine and it's leaps and bounds better, almost a different game - but he probably still couldn't play Crysis at /any/ settings. Even with the best graphics card I could get, Stranglehold runs both processor cores at nearly 100% most of the time, so we're already at the point where dual core is becoming obsolete and quad core is required (look at the reviews for Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance on Amazon for further proof) . If you think your current computer - or even one you buy this year - will be playing the highest-end FPS at even a vaguely satisfactory level three years later, even with upgrades, then I think you're deluding yourself.
In about 3 years you probably won't be able to buy a even a hard drive that works in your current machine, at least without a BIOS upgrade or upgrade card anyway. Trust me - I'm trying to fit a 500GB SATA into my previous games machine, and it won't have it.
Edit: Bought a PCI SATA card. Will take 500, won't take 750.
Or, I could stop playing FPS games on PCs and get a console with no mouse. Nah...
________
Cheers,
Rich.
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Jeffrey Lee |
Message #106027, posted by Phlamethrower at 00:54, 16/1/2008, in reply to message #105852 |
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My PC just about survived all the Christmas games releases without requiring an upgrade, which is nice. So now I'm playing the waiting game to see when a game comes out that will push my PC too far and require an upgrade. Hmm, even if I'm not buying all the new computer bits now, perhaps it's time I bought the more cooling-friendly case I was planning on buying at the same time... |
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Jason Togneri |
Message #106029, posted by filecore at 07:52, 16/1/2008, in reply to message #106027 |
Posts: 3868
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My hard drives are at 34 and 38'C respectively (two 500GB SATA2s), but that said, my CPU is at 44'C and my GPU at 81'C - these are all idle temperatures. Of course, both my CPU, my GPU and my PSU are all passively-cooled, so I consider these to be very good temperatures. I have three slow-spinning 120mm fans in my case (an Antec P180) - one at the front of the lower chamber, dragging air across the HDDs and through the PSU, the second at the front of the upper chamber, blowing towards the GPU and the motherboard in general, and the third in the top rear, sucking air from the vicinity of the CPU. |
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Jeffrey Lee |
Message #106076, posted by Phlamethrower at 22:38, 17/1/2008, in reply to message #106029 |
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Why is it that computer cases seem to:
a) Have silly lighting, or
b) Have silly side windows, or
c) Are the wrong colour (most seem to be black - but all my drives are beige/white, damnit!), or
d) Are the wrong size (sure, I've got a microATX motherboard now, but that's only because I didn't realise it was a smaller one when I bought it. And no, I don't want a 12-foot tall tower case either, TYVM!), or
e) Have stupid flaps/doors covering up the external drive bays (The drives are external because I want to get to them, idiot!), or
f) Don't have the cooling system/arrangement that I'm interested in (CPU fan duct, 120mm front+rear fans, and no fans ontop because I like to put things ontop of the PC), or
g) Don't have the right number of external bays (specifically two 3.5" - sure, the floppy drive might not get used much anymore, but I can't see any reason to throw it out. And the other 3.5" is going to be for a card reader), or
h) Are out of stock.
After many days of searching I've managed to find a case which gets past everything except point H - the Gigabyte Triton 180 (Well, I suspect it's in stock somewhere, but since Amazon had it listed it seemed to be a lot easier just to order it from them rather than spend several more hours searching for somewhere that does have it in stock and then signing up for their website just to buy one item and nothing else ever again)
Unfortunately it also has tool-less installation (which I suspect means that everything falls out/apart as soon as you touch the case), but since I haven't had a tool-less case before (and can't be bothered looking at hundreds more shit cases to find one that uses screws) I'm just going to bite the bullet and find out whether it's any good or not.
Who would have thought that finding a good PC case could be so soul-destroying? |
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Jeffrey Lee |
Message #106422, posted by Phlamethrower at 23:04, 12/2/2008, in reply to message #106076 |
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Gigabyte Triton 180 It's here! (Although I did give up waiting for Amazon and ordered from Dabs instead, since they got some in stock and I managed to remember my password).
Apart from the usual problems of some components being a tight fit, the case does seem to be doing its intended job of keeping the computer cool and (relatively) quiet. Even after about an hour of heavy-ish disk usage the temperature still isn't anywhere near as high as it would have been before. The tool-less installation mostly works as well, although I don't trust the flimsy clips they use on the expansion slots (which didn't fit onto the graphics card properly anyway) so am using screws on those. And calling it tool-less is a bit of a lie anyway, since you obviously still need a screwdriver to fit the motherboard and PSU. |
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Chris |
Message #106423, posted by cterran at 00:13, 13/2/2008, in reply to message #106422 |
Member
Posts: 163
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Mine's this:
http://www.vermilionsands.eu/etc/IMG_0097.JPG |
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Jason Togneri |
Message #106424, posted by filecore at 06:05, 13/2/2008, in reply to message #106423 |
Posts: 3868
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I'm seriously considering ditching my old P4 2.8 for a wonderful cheapo box in my local supermarket: they're offering a 2.2GHz Core2 Duo machine with 2GB RAM (dunno what, but I think PC3200 - either way, sure beats my 4x512 of PC2700) and 256MB onboard graphics. So long as it has a PCIE slot I'm going to really consider it - because they're selling it for 399 euros!
(Plus I'd get 399 euros worth of bonus points on my supermarket card - and in Finland, those aren't just in-store loyalty cards; they're chain loyalty cards. For example, one chain owns a load of hotels, restataunts, supermarkets and pubs, so not only do I accrue bonus points for every pint I buy , but I also get money back every month in the form of a voucher that I can use - money off the price of a meal, or a round of beer, or next week's shopping. The other big chain, whose card I also have, owns a chain of home hardware stores as well as a series of department stores, a bit like a cross between Virgin or HMV and Woolworths, only slightly classier. It's a good system.) |
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Phil Mellor |
Message #106425, posted by monkeyson2 at 09:43, 13/2/2008, in reply to message #106423 |
 Please don't let them make me be a monkey butler
Posts: 12380
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Mine's this:
http://www.vermilionsands.eu/etc/IMG_0097.JPG 
I'd love an eeePC, but I think the screen resolution would start to annoy me after a while. If the width was 1024px instead of 800px it would be more practical for web development and surfing (how many pages optimise for 800x600 these days?) How do you find it? |
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Jason Togneri |
Message #106426, posted by filecore at 10:19, 13/2/2008, in reply to message #106425 |
Posts: 3868
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I think the screen resolution would start to annoy me after a while. If the width was 1024px instead of 800px it would be more practical for web development and surfing Yeah, I had the same thought when I looked at the picture - at first I thought it was some crappy old 1996 laptop (especially with that old-school looking Intel Inside sticker) until I zoomed in and saw the "eeePC" on the front. |
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Jeffrey Lee |
Message #106427, posted by Phlamethrower at 10:52, 13/2/2008, in reply to message #106426 |
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Posts: 15100
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There is a model with a higher-res/bigger screen coming out, I think. |
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Andrew Flegg |
Message #106428, posted by Jaffa at 10:52, 13/2/2008, in reply to message #106425 |
Member
Posts: 53
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The 800x480 screen is limiting for real work, but you can use a loopback vncserver for extra res:
http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?pid=137839
...if you forgive the shameless plug of my own hackery |
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The Icon Bar: General: What's your next computer? |
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