Some of you may be old enough to remember the birth of the personal computer. Back then it was all about hardware speed. The software at the time was advancing (getting bloated) so fast that hardware manufacturers scrambled to keep up.
My first computer had an Intel 8088 processor. At work I had an Intel 386 with 8mb ram and a math coprocessor. That machine had to be upgraded because the scanning software was too much for it, so I got a 120MHz Pentium with 24mb ram. Meanwhile at home I had upgraded to a Cyrix-based, (IBM produced home processors for a while) 150MHz machine that could only run Windows 95. On and on it went, upgrading hardware so I could run the latest software.
Back in the day, software lead the charge and the hardware manufacturers were struggling to build machines that could handle the new processing needs.
Focus on the present day and we've come full circle. Spend $600 at any computer store and you will walk away with a laptop or desktop that can run 95% of all standard software. Sure, there are games like Crysis that take some serious gaming power, but the general user NEVER needs that kind of power. Even more stunning is the longevity of our current systems. My home machine is an Athlon 64-bit single core computer with 1.5gb ram. I built it almost 7 years ago and it's still being used as the primary machine in my home. There is no software that I need to run on that machine that it can't handle.....still!
So how much computing power do you need? I purchased two Acer Aspire One netbooks for my two older kids for Christmas. 1.6GHz Atom processors, 1gb ram and Windows XP. Those are laughable specs compared to today's dual and quad core machines, but guess what? All the software I load on these little buggers, from open office to Vipre to Gimp runs just fine.
So unless you're an avid gamer that needs boatload of power, just about any Core 2 Duo machine out there will do more than you'll need to do in 2010. Don't spend more money than you have to just because you think it's going to be faster or better. Take other things into consideration like battery life, screen size, Wi-Fi speed, Memory, Hard disk space and operating system. The difference between processor speeds just doesn't offer a significant improvement compared to the price of the upgrade.
Now I just have to find a place for these two new Netbooks. I think I'll finally get rid of the IBM Selectric Typewriter....
Gregory S. Gartland, PMP
IBM Certified Administrator, Developer, Trainer
The PCA Group
Where passion for technology is our way of life
585-298-9284
LinkedIn Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/gregorygartland
Believe it or not, you don't have to buy the most powerful processor currently available to be happy with your system. Sure, it may be able to keep up with new programs being released months longer than an entry level system, but that may not be what you need.
Posted by: ds r4 | February 08, 2010 at 04:15 AM