Had some money allocated to me in work for a new machine :-)))

Got a choice from my trusted supplier of a celeron or a pIII processor. (or I could actually do some work and go look somewehre else).

Any recomendations on processors? The end machine will hopefully be running woody.

Cheers

Wil

- wil

Anyone got any recomendations for a cheap, but decent 17" monitor. I'm looking for something that won't kill my eyes after staring at it for 10 hours non stop. ? What does anyone think of the Sony Triniton series?

- wil

I wouldn't buy a celeron if it was the last processor on earth and I had to buy a pc or my pubic hairs would be plucked out one by one by a masked man with a chain saw with dynamite wired to his body and a gun pointing at my head.

Definitely go with the PIII however as you can get a PIIII for the same price then....

KDS Visual Sensation is good ~ $150 monitor. Not really sure what "size" it is, but I've used several of them in various settings.

Screen measures 16" so I imagine they advertise it as a 17" or even 19" monitor.

I've used AMD chips over Intel usually because of price and have never had any problems.

How much money are we talking if you don't mind me asking and what type of machine are they after?

I'd recommend a slick looking Dell

screw Dell, Paul.... I saved $600 on my last pc by buying parts and assembling it myself. Granted, I was a bit inexperienced and I fried my floppy drive, but that was easily replaced for $8.

--Philip
Links 2.0 moderator

Not everyone wants to build their own especially if it for a business.

Personal preference I guess. I'd rather sacrifice professional installation and technical support to save money, especially now that I have a decent idea of what I'm doing. Gonna build a cheapee for $200, and re-use some old parts (sound card, etc.) and give it to my sister for christmas :-) My dad needs some ram... and quick.. I don't know how he survives with only 32MB... and my mom <<shudder>>.... I'm not sure if she'll ever figure out email.

--Philip
Links 2.0 moderator

I just wouldn't want to lose my boss' money :)

Get the new G5 chip speeds are still 1.2, 1.4, and 1.8 or so. Adobe says that they blow away their P4 series that they use in shop!

!!!

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openoffice + gimp + sketch ...

How come you have no name after Re: ?

maybe cause you can edit the subject line to remove it like I did.

--Philip
Links 2.0 moderator

£700 uk streling, and it will be build by myself. oha, scarry :-)

- wil

So why wouldn't you buy a celeron?? What's the disadvantage you've experienced, if any?

Remember that this will be powering a linux box.

- wil

dual Celerons @ 500MHz should perform roughly equivalent to a single Pentium-III @ 750MHz.

But a Celeron 800mhz and a PIII 866mhz have the same list price?

- wil

Let me get this straight.... Intel are the company behind the Celerons' and the Pentiums? Hmm. Can't find what the difference is.

- wil

Don't ask me why. Celerons don't perform as well.

Ideally get an Athlon

So they're all Pentiums, anyway? Hmm. Interesting.

- wil

No they are all Intel - one is Celeron one is Pentium.

http://www.fit.edu/...ardware/chipsets.htm

Thanks for the link. Kind of goes against what you're saying, though: <g>.:

What Intel plays down-- but nearly everyone knows-- is that the full-speed, quarter-size Celeron cache gives them almost the same performance as the half-speed, full-size cache gives Pentiums. Thus you'll find that, for most applications, Celerons rated at the same MHz will equal or better an equivalent Pentium-II, for a much lower price.

The reason for the hefty price tag on the Pentiums is just to cover the brand name, the marketing and all that crap. I think maybe a Celeron would be a better route after all ??

- wil

Yeah read what it is comparing against....Pentium II

We are now up to III and IIII

It doesn't say anything about Pentum iii expect for the fact that they use the same technology as pentiums ii.

I guess I need to find a more updated article.

It does seem that the Celerons aren't that bad, though. It's just that they aren't glossed over like Pentiums are.

Half of the price you pay for the Pentium chip goes into those darn advertisements with that stupid bring-ding-dong music I bet ;-)

- wil

Im not saying they are bad, just not quite as good as P3

no name ... err didn't mean to specifically reply to someone.

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friend has used the 3 and prefers pentinum ... he says "it feels faster" ... oh well, I got oodles of mac friends but those who use and can use wintel are much fewer. The can use are about 1 in 10. The other 9 are stuck with what M$ gives em.

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openoffice + gimp + sketch ...

In the end, I ordered the following...

LG Flatron 17" [a completly flat monitor -- how cool!!! ! :-)]
PIII 866
40 GIG hard disk
512 MB RAM
Atron (?) graphics 32mb card (supposed to be good?)
Sound Blaster Pro (wish speakers)
CDRW/DVD
1 GIG Ethernet Adapter
Standard Keyboard
IntelliMouse
Minitower casing.

All for £610. A good deal, I think! :-) I'm happy with that. Can't wait for the delivery now! An early Christmass! :-)

- wil

Someone sent me this earlier:

IBM is extending the use of its "pixie dust" technology to a new line of
high-capacity drives to be announced Wednesday. Technically called
antiferromagnetically coupled (AFC) media, so-called "pixie dust" introduces
a thin layer of the element ruthenium onto the disks inside hard drives,
where data is stored. AFC disk densities are expected to reach as high as
100 gigabits per square inch by 2003, which translates to hard drive
capacities of 400 GB for desktop drives, 200 GB for notebooks and 6 GB for
IBM's one-inch Microdrive.

I've got one of those monitors... pretty good monitor.
What about a motherboard?
Atron? never heard of it. Get a GeForce 2 MX 200. Those are really cheap and good.
Sound Blaster Pro?! That's one old sound card ;) Get a Sound Blaster Live! Value
Why the 1gbit ethernet? Is your lan even wired up for 1gbit ethernet?


Adrian

100mbps should be fine for most lan's

Yes, the LAN is capable of that speed. I 'built' that LAN myself. We brought a few G4 Macs before building the new LAN, and as the new G4s have 1gig ethernet cards in them, we based the LAN around this. We do a lot of graphics work, and we need to be able to trasnfer large amounts of data and files very quickly. And, I was in charge, so I figured why not?

The hub has 20 normal 10/100Base ports and 4 gig ports. There's one gig port going free <g>.

Is that monitor decent enough? I've got a Sony Triniton at the moment, and it does tend to kill my eyes if I've been sititng at my desk too long. The flicker on it can become real bad. Tried adjusting the refresh rate but no joy.

The reason for the cheap sound card is that I do not feel the need for anything better at the moment. I never listen to any sound on my PC while in work. At home, that's a different matter.

Can you tell me more about the GeForce?

Wil

Currently, i'm at 1152x864@85Hz, and I can spend many many hours (like I already do) in front of the monitor But it's all a subjective thing. Some people can put up with 640x480@60Hz on a 17" If you do graphics work, why not a 19" or bigger?

Then just go with onboard sound. Most motherboards nowadays have sound built into the chipset.


Adrian

I'm not heavily involved with the graphics side personally. I'm more technical develoment and I don't really see the need for a 19" monitor at the moment. I might change my mind, though!

I'm going to go with this monitor then and see what comes from it. It seemed a really reasonable price for a flat monitor.

The motherboard does have basic sound support built into it, but the guy I'm dealing with threw in the SoundBlaster and a set of speakers as a bonus. I feel a little cheeky telling him to keep his soundblaster for a slightly bigger monitor ;-)

Thanks for the advice.

- wil

how about 2 monitors? I got an apple (not the flat one ) studio 17" and an old sony multiscan 17sfii to hold most of menus and and open windows.

the sony is getting old and is getting to stare at for a long time ... It's still running at least

I've sat behind 19"s and 20"s but ... I still like the dual setup situation.

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openoffice + gimp + sketch ...

Yeah, a few designers I know have dual monitors, and prefer this set up to large 22" monitors. Never tried it myself, and I don't really see the need to at the monent. I could of gone with a bigger monitor now, but feel that the 17" is more than enough for my line of work.

- wil

I stayed away from the bigger monitors at the time since production of 19"+ was still on the marginal side. I had to many friends that sent their monitors go haywire ... technology eh! I'm really glad I did 2 instead of one.

open up a terminal on 1 screen and have the other looking at a browser version, really nice to work on html / script work too! No digging around for those windows any more

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openoffice + gimp + sketch ...