Computer Question

[stray15]

Can you upgrade the processor, from say a ADM-K6 processor to a Pentium 4? What is involved?

Thanx fellows.

[85944na]

no, the processors are different sizes, and your board couldnt handle it anyway, you can however buy a new processor, motherboard, etc, and re-use parts like your hard drive, cd drive, etc.

[stray15]

Hmm, the reason I am asking is because someone has told me that this one particular program won't work unless it is used on a Pentium based processor. Is that possible?

Would it be worth changing a motherboard on a 3 almost 4 year old computer?

[85944na]

a pentium only program would be very strange, and I doubt it. I dont know if it would be worth changing out motherboards, I just did mine, but all i re-used were my hard drive and cd drives, i spent around 500$ but i still have an AMD, I've had good experiences with AMD chips, so i stuck with them

[stray15]

Hmm, I guess I should just get another computer. Have you heard anything good/bad with the Sony computers? Do you know anything about DVD-RW's?

Thanks for the help!

[85944na]

sorry i dont know anything about sony computers, but I sony seems to make quality products so I dont see why their computers wouldnt be good. All I know about DVD-RW drives is that I want one, but they are too expensive so i'll buy car parts instead

[cjoven]

Sony computers look cool but for what's inside them, it is not worth the money. DVD writers are probably not woth the money either at this time, the DVD burner is $800 CDN dollars and the blank DVD's are $30, it is cheaper to buy the real DVD movie, but they will get cheaper in a few months.

[ruechaos]

Are you sure it's DVD-RW? Or was it DVD-RAM? On my Mac I have a DVD-R and a DVD-RAM drives. DVD-RAM is basicly like DVD-RW, where you can rewrite information to a DVD as many times as you want. Downside to DVD-RAM is that it's not formatted to work in a standard DVD-video player if you wanted to make your own DVDs. You can get the discs for 10-20$, and is an awesome means for backing up files. (4.7 GB of files)

DVD-R is a format that works on most second-gen DVD players, and all third-gen DVD video players. You still get 4.7 GB of storage, but it's not rewritable. I currently get DVD-R media for 7$.

You can get a DVD-burner for about 550$ now. Not too bad...

And in answer to the computer question, I remember that the Pentium 3 used to have code specific features attributed to it. All I remember Intel using it for was a website to show off some 3D internet stuff.....pretty lame.... Also back when the Pentium with MMX came out, there were a few programs that needed MMX to run. I think it's totally possible to make a program only work for a specific processor.

If this is a program that you just can't live without, by all means, upgrade to a new system, but first make sure that you need to.

What program is it by chance?

[stray15]

The program is AutoDesk, autocad. I do need the program. Thanx for the input guys.

So, what computer do you guys recommend?

[no1biscuit]

Stray,
You can run autocad on a AMD. AutoCad is very memory intensive. It does tremendous Math Calculations. The k6 to p4 will not only require new mb, cpu and probably ram, but you will need a new case with a bigger powersupply. I would not go with sony. Good looking but cheap parts internally. My 2cents. Just curious what do you need AutoCad for?
Thom

[Z-man]

I agree with no1biscuit: you'd need a new case (different motherboard setup), new power supply, extra cooling won't hurt either.
Before you spend money on a new system, get more RAM. How much do you currently have? If the more memory doesn't do it, you can always pop the new ram into your newer system, provided you get the right kind. Not too hard to do.
Also: do you have a good video card? With 3D rendering in CAD, if you have a low end video card, that could be causing problems too.

Both RAM and a video card is easy to swap.

As for upgrading to a new system, I'd recommend Dell. By far they have the best reputation.

Just my $0.42.
-Zoltan.

[adrian jaye]

Hey Stray,

OK, with computer's like anything it pay's to get the best spec you can afford.

Processors:
Make does'nt really matter any more. I used to be a PENTIUM addict, though I'm now running an AMD Celeron I think. Do your research, do some surfing and compare chip's that's what I did. For what I do, the Celeron is fine, 800meg I think

RAM:
Again as much as you get get, I run 128meg, that's probably standard now, RAM is cheap. When you load your PC, everything you use, uses memory or resources. Running stuff minimised, background programs, AV stuf, word, office internet, different types of program use or allocate different ammounts of memory.

So just banging in 256meg, and loading yourPC up to the hilt (and with the wrong programs) is not going to have any more advantage over have 128meg, with just ACAD running.

As a clue just click on Control Panel and system's should tell you how much resources you have left, ideal is 100% as in 100% memory free to use(though impossible) 50% means you've got a **** load of stuff running.

Video RAM:
As much as you can get, get the latest card/drivers. Again can't remember what I got, but makes a hell of a lot of difference. Make sure you get a "seperate" video card which uses it's own on-board memory, some card's cheat by using your PC's on-board RAM. ESPECIALLY WITH ACAD programs

OS's:
different OS's and OS combination with various programs use different amounts of memory. Windows 3.11 as compared to Windows 95 id less memory intensive, go up to XP/ME, you will need to have at least the minimum standard cpu/ram otherwise it wont even install. I use 98, though prefer 95, cept my new video card won't run with anything less than 98.

Makes:
This is down to ppl's own opionions. A named make will have the backup from the company ie DELL, IBM, any bug fixes usually free and updates easily available. Unknown or made up PC's have a lot going for them, made to your spec, though you could run into aftermaarket sales problems. Mine is made up by a large company, made to my spec but with 3 yrs on site 5 years totall off site w/tee

Anything else s[ecific mail me at work or post here

good luck

ohh and in 6 months, your new PC will be out of date !

[fty]

iF YOU NEED AUTOCAD i HAVE IT. IM ME. -CHRIZZZZZZZ

[85944na]

a lot of my friends have dell's and are very happy, as I undertstand it the systems you can buy at a store are pretty crappy because they are not very upgradable. If your going to jsut buy a new computer then it probobly is a good idea to order it to your liking from someone like Dell, otherwise build it yourself, you will likely need a new case/power supply, mine was 80$, I think you can save lots of mony building it if you re-use drives, and your current moniter,

[Magnus_944]

Build your own computer from scratch and avoid cheap shortcuts like SDRAM instead of RDRAM if you are going the P4 way. If you go for AMD you should go for DDR memory. Spend a little more money now and be happy with the system a little longer. It's like cars, buy a turbo instead of starting to upgrade your N/A to turbospeed.

/Magnus
Happy with my almost a year old AMD T-bird 800, Asus A7V, 256MB ram, Geforce2 GTS, IBM 7200rpm UMDA100 46GB.

[85944na]

jsut for price reference, I built my computer a few weeks ago. Ram is really cheap right now i paid 30$ or so for 256 ddr2100 ram. Motherboard was 150, case was 80(incl. power supply) chip was 120 or so (amd athlon xp1600 1.4 ghz) i'm running a geforce1, it was 35$ and works great. i re-used my old hardrive, and my cd-drives, computer stuff is really cheap right now, thats why i built mine. pentium chips seem to cost a lot more than amd. It was really easy to build, took a couple of hours.

[Roland Kunz]

Hello

Yes Intel has some special tasks ( for example SSE ) witch where used by very special applications. AMD does the same as well ( f.e.: 3D now )

But generaly the speed difference is very marginal and other bottlenecks count more.


had been on the Stuttgart elecronics fair and right now the P4 systems have problems to outperform the AMD. Even if the AMD are ratet with a lower Frequency. Now with the new boards
the intel Prozzessors will run on normal DDRAM instead expensive Rambus and the prices are droping rapidly.

They had a Quake network and you could compare gamers with new Athlon XP and Pentium 4. Both had framerates at 120-150/sec on fullscreen 32bit mode.

The best offer was a Board Bundle with a athlon XP 1,33 + 512MB DDDRAM infineon CL 222 + Abit Board with Raid level 5 ( and all the other stuff as well ) for 350 $
They also had a 40GB Seagate for 100$ ( retail package )

Bad is that new boards don´t support old ISA bus cards and new prozessors have hughe coolers and need 300 Watt power sources.

Sony makes nice packages. They have solid cases but mostly orientet into consumer applications and only work with other Sony stuff very well. Right now all go to fast prozessors who will shorten the battery time and heat your lap while are useless in most applications for a Notebook. You pay for Image and design at Sony.

Grüsse

[AaronM]

<<though I'm now running an AMD Celeron I think.>>

No such microprocessor exists. AMD currently makes the Athlon and the Duron chips, Intel manufactures the Pentiun IV and the Celeron.

More on topic for this thread, a K6-2 at 500MHz or more should run Autocad acceptably provided you have at least 128 MB of RAM. If you were to buy a new computer, I would reccommend one based on the Athlon, it is currently the best decision from a price/performance standpoint. The Athlon will not be noticibly slower than a Pentium IV, and it will be significantly less expensive. The Athlon also uses less expensive RAM, though the performance of the Athlon's RAM is equal to the performance of Intel's RDRAM in every real world situation. The less expensive RAM used by Athlons will be nice if you decide to upgrade. Really, there is no significant performance difference between the Athlon and the Pentium IV in real world performance.

Aaron

[Roland Kunz]

Hello

Sure i think they make them only for germany. They made a little joint venture with Microsoft. Wounder how Dell will react.

http://athlonxp.amd.com/

Edit:

Ups sorry think It weas reguarding the AMD XP

Grüsse

Will edit my mistakes in abouve post too.

[stray15]

Well I found the computer I am going to get. It is a gateway. Pentium 4 1.9GHz processor, 512MB RDRAM, 64MB DDR NVIDIA GeForce3 AGP Graphics with TV out, 80GB hard drive, 16x/40x DVD-ROM, 16x/10x/40x CDRW, Boston Acoustics digital speakers w/subwoofer and 15" LCD Flat Panel Display. I think it should last me a couple years.

Now, my next question. On the computer I am on right now has DSL. The modem for it plugs in via a USB port. If want to hook up this other computer what would I need? Do I need another one of these modems or is there a cable I can run from one to another like a network?

Thank guys