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a) RAM: I think I need at least 3 gigs.
b) HD: Hard drives all seem more than big enough for what I need, but should I also get an external drive for back-ups?
c) CPU: Should I go for the Core 2 Duo, or something else?
d) heat sink: I have an older house with poor air circulation, and my tower is tucked under my desk (in that vertical slot that "computer" desks have). Should I consider upgrading the heat sink?
e) Wi-Fi: We have a wireless router connecting our home computers to the cable-Internet modem, with antennas sprouting out of the backs of our machines. This system is working fine, but should I also look into Bluetooth?
f) ports: What sorts of ports should I consider, and in what minimum amounts?
g) OS: I've heard scary things about Windows Vista. I have the installation disc for XP (not the OEM "restore" disc, but the actual "I paid too much for this" disc). I'm assuming anything new will have Vista on it. Should I consider rolling the system back to XP?
h) I have a brand new monitor, and I already have three USB-port printers, so I don't need an entire "system". I am not a "gamer", and I do absolutely nothing "bleeding edge". I just need a tower with a newer motherboard. I'm open to having a tower "built" special, but special-ordering is not a requirement.
I would appreciate informed recommendations regarding (a) through (h), above. With respect to (h), please let me know if there are manufacturers or product lines that you think I should particularly avoid or definitely consider. I understand that, with the various hardware and software components, I could easily be spending $1500-$2000 for my new system.
Thank you for your help.
Eliz.
... not sure you'd need more ram than that if you are not a gamer!
... i also have vista on a new laptop - i think the problems are occuring for more cutting edge users - it works fine for all the things i use: photoshop, dreamweaver, editplus and so on.
as for hard drives, why not consider a motherboard that supports some kind of RAID set up, although all the experts say it is not a substitute for backing up properly - having 2 'mirrored' drives sure gives me peace of mind as i don't back up as well as i should just like most others.
i also had my main computer 'special built' more than 2 years back and i tried to make it as 'silent' as possible - and it really does make a difference! choosing a silent or near silent power supply would now be a must for me, as with thinking carfully about cooling the chip: there are various super designed heat sinks and quiet fans around.
the money you are willing to spend would go a long way in the 'near silent' world of parts, prices are ever downward even with the specialist bits and pieces.
I don't see any reason to consider Bluetooth, unless you have Bluetooth devices (e.g. a phone) that you want to exchange information with. Bluetooth is much slower than Wifi, and has little place in most home computer setups. It certainly doesn't make sense for networking computers together.
One notable emerging application, though, is for stereo headsets. There are now quite a few stereo (A2DP profile) headsets available, and these work well with a Bluetooth-equipped PC for streaming your PC's audio. If you do this, do make sure that your PC Bluetooth adapter comes with a protocol stack that supports A2DP (the Microsoft one does NOT). It's useful to choose an adapter that is Bluetooth 2.0 and "high power". I can walk anywhere in the house wearing a stereo BT headset and get good reception.
As to cooling, any of the "monster" heatsinks that use 120mm fans should do the job for you.
jtara said: What are you doing that needs so much RAM?
In other words, I don't usually require more memory, but it is an almost-daily thing, at least for the last week or two of the month.
Should I be exploring the joys of swap files, rather than worrying so much about RAM...?
Eliz.
Should I be exploring the joys of swap files, rather than worrying so much about RAM...?
Well, you certainly should HAVE a swap file, if you don't now!
Windows is pretty smart about memory usage - one might argue smarter than Linux. For example, it uses program files as backing store for the programs. For example, the executable code portion of programs is never copied to the swap file - Windows will simply page it in from the original executable if needed.
I'm a bit surprised that your log analysis program requires the entire log file to be in memory. A poor program design, I'd say, as log-processing software should be designed to process the file linearly. It has to accumulate statistics in memory, but I can't imagine why it would need to keep the whole thing in memory.
Windows is equally smart about dealing with data files - it's very smart about caching them, and, as well, allows them to be "mapped" into virtual memory. As with executables, Windows will use the data file itself as backing store, reading from the file if necessary to replace discarded memory pages.
RAID is all well and good, but external backup is generally better. RAID will not protect you against corruption due to software, nor will it protect you from data loss due to theft, nor will it always protect you from catastrophic damage (like a water tank falling through the ceiling above). Offsite backups are the only safe solution - encryption can be used if required.
Kaled.
jtara said: Well, you certainly should HAVE a swap file....
kaled said: ...you should be considering 64bit Windows.
I'm sorry to be asking what are probably some fairly dumb questions, and I appreciate your patience and help!
eliz.
Isn't the Core 2 Duo a 64-bit chip? Is the Althon Dual Core 64-bit also, or is the Duo the only option, currently?
Yes, these are 64-bit processors. However, they don't operate in 64-bit mode unless used with a 64-bit operating system.
64-bit Windows isn't a great solution. First of all, even though it is called "Windows XP Professional x64 Edition", it's really based on Windows Server 2003. Although 32-bit Windows applications will run, and with no performance loss (vs. running on 32-bit Windows), 32-bit drivers will NOT. So, you have to be very careful about picking your peripherals.
64-bit Linuxs are a different story. They are much more broadly supported than 64-bit Windows, and I highly recommend using a 64-bit Linux version if you have a 64-bit processor.
32-bit Windows has a limit of 4GB of memory, and that's limited to 2GB for the OS and 2GB for applications. (There's a way to change that to 3GB for apps and 1GB for OS.)
I don't think more memory is the answer here. When software needs this much memory, it's almost always because there is something fundamentally wrong with the software design.
Perhaps database servers handling large numbers of users need more memory than 32-bit Windows can provide to operate most efficiently. But a log analyzer needing this much memory just to function? Get another log analyzer!
Win is generally limited to 3 gb ram usable - you can put in more but the most I have ever seen displayed is 3.2. Max addressable is 4gb, and video and other apps eat up a lot of that.
Best thing I ever did was get a Maxtor external drive-it not only makes backups a lot easier, but you also use it for all the "this might be trash" and one time use downloads for much easier cleanup.
On a new machine with a clean install of Vista, I love it (mostly), but an upgrade of Vista over an old xp can be.... interesting. It will involve a lot more tweaking at first to get preferences set up, since it come defaulted to the "stupid user mode" settings, especially for security.
Most new machines come with far more ports than most people will ever use - mine has 8 USB ports and some other stuff I never used.
c) Unless you like to buy new systems frequently go with quad core right now. The performance is amazing and the prices are already starting to drop. I know there's a lot of love for AMD out there but right now nothing they have even begins to compare with Intel EVEN in terms of price versus performance.
If you do decide to go with dual core instead, make sure you've got a GHZ bus and 800mhz+ RAM.
e) Why not? A bluetooth card is extremely cheap and comes in handy.
f) Lots of USB ports.
g) I too hear all kinds of complaints about Vista but I personally haven't run into any problems on my new Vista machine that I haven't been able to solve. It's absurd that they're considering this operating system anything but beta but it does have some very nice features for multi taskers.
Also if you want support for large amounts of RAM, and you want to use Windows, you'll need Vista.
h) Small (19" and less) LCD flat panel monitors are so cheap they're almost free these days.
Also if you want support for large amounts of RAM, and you want to use Windows, you'll need Vista.
64-bit Vista, that is...
>> Small (19" and less) LCD flat panel monitors are so cheap they're almost free these days.
if you have space on your desk then consider dual monitors - if you use more than one application at once anytime it really is lifechanging - many modern grafics cards already have 2 heads anyway.
Wlauzon: Thank you for the advice regarding external drives and the information regarding memory.
jtara: I am going to look into the archived list of recommended log-analysis programs.
I think perhaps the memory problem isn't so much the current log-statistics program itself (at least not since I've tweaked memory management, anyway), but with its input requirements:
I can run the logs daily, and the program will add in the new day's information, but it processes the information on a month-by-month basis. This, I think, is why the process gets so slow near the end of the month, and the computer has hangups. The prep-work requires us to manipulate three-gig (or more) text files, rather than just the hundred or so megs of new information.
Anyway, please allow me to say "Thank you!" to all who posted information, as well as to those who took the time to read this thread.
Eliz.
