P4s vs AMD Athlons revisited and MS Vista

[Reality]

You all were outstanding the last time i asked this in Oct 2004.
http://www.phillyarena.net/forums/index.php?topic=1252.0
I went with ASUS and AMD Athlon, altho 32 not 64.

What is your takes now on Motherboards, chips and seperately the new Vista hype from Billy Gates?

ASUS motherboards and Athlon is what you were digging, altho P4 with hyperthreading had its place.

How about now in 2007?  I heard AMD is due to roll out some new chips in Feb.  How do you like them compared with the *old* AMDs and Pentiums latest?
I know application needs to be known.  I am not currently a computer gamer but still like to hear what the best performing all around stuff is.

[Joe Vancil]

On Vista:  I think Microsoft is moving too far in the direction of control over users.  Initial terms of the license agreement make me wonder which one of George W. Bush's advisors wrote it.

Add to that the fact that there will be a number of different flavors to choose from, and there should be a great deal of confusion.

Understand that I don't like dealing with Linux.  Trying to find an answer is often not easy, and unless you're working on Linux 24/7, you lose track of it really quickly.  And, yes, I like the idea of command line.  But there comes a point when command line becomes overly cumbersome, and quick, easy-to-use, easy-to-understand tools need to be in place.

What's worse, is that many Linux folks can FIX a problem, but can't seem to tell you how to fix the problem on your own, unless the problem is well-known and already well-documented.

And with all of that, I'm starting to see Linux as a viable way to go.  Why?  Because some of the freedoms Linux offers represent a stark contrast to Microsoft's semi-fascist policies.  And it's not like I ever really LIKED Microsoft in the first place...it's just the way the world went.

One of my professors in college emphasized "the right tool for the right job" when talking about how to solve circuit problems.  KVL and KCL represented the sledgehammers - you could solve any problem with them - but sometimes, it was a royal pain, and a different method, which he described as being like a tack hammer, would be more effective. 

That's kind of how I see the direction of computing going - the right tool for the right job.  And I think Microsoft suffers in this world, because the more we head in that direction, and the more expansive that solutions like VMware become viable, the less and less Microsoft seems like the sledgehammer.  The more it seems like I'd want to use Apple to do musical and publishing work.  The more it seems that Linux systems seem more suitable for point-of-sale and web sites.  VMware, which allows simultaneous running Linux and differing Microsoft systems on the same machine, becomes the ultimate business solution.  And gaming platforms replace much of the entertainment aspect in homes.  Cell phones/PDAs become the scheduling and contact management solutions.

Right now, cost-of-ownership on computer operating systems is going UP, not down.  Hardware costs drop, but even with "free" Linux, if you want (effective) support, you pay for it.  In fact, at the corporate level, support for Linux solutions often runs more than Microsoft's solution.  The upside is that you're free of many restrictions.  VMware is starting to rule the day at my company (and I'm the main VMware guy), and it gets VERY expensive (although it offsets that cost by requiring LESS hardware, albeit, the hardware it does require carries a hefty pricetag).  VMware touts itself as reducing total cost of ownership, but from a practical view, I find that somewhat debatable.

What I'm seeing that I DON'T like is a "subscription" idea to computing.  Buy our product, pay us support each year.  How long before it goes to "each month"?  After all - it's working that with with gaming right now, as things like Star Wars Galaxies and Ultima Online and World of Warcraft are proving.  Computer OS and software vendors are starting to see their products as being "a utility."

All told, VISTA fits into this world quite well.  I'm just not sure that it's a world that I see a great deal of benefit in joining.

[westkoast]

Linux is getting better by leaps and bounds.  I had stayed away from it for a while since the company I work for uses all Microsoft products.  I use to run Redhat 5.1 back in the day, an ancient flavor of Linux ( It would be like someone running windows 98 or windows ME right now) and just recently jumped on a newer version of SUSE...its amazing how far the operating system has come in a few short years.  In fact you will see some of what has been in Linux for a while being 'copied' by Microsoft in their version of Vista.    Updates have got MUCH better.  Packages of software and installation of them is much better.  The overall feel and ability to navigate has improved.  Anyone who is running an apple has used something similar to what you can get with Linux.  A few companies are even pre-loading Linux on their machines if you look out for them.

Personally, I am not upgrading to Vista at home and we will not be doing it at the office anytime soon UNLESS we buy a new laptop that happens to have it loaded.  Even then I think we would wipe it and install XP until we get a better feel for it.  At home I don't want to spend more money on a overhaul of my current machine and the company is not going to spend the money to upgrade 80% of our machines.  THERE IS NO NEED!!!!!!  XP runs fine.  My applications work well.  My machine has enough power to run it well.  Everything is already setup the way I like it.  Take into mind they have changed alot of the GUI, for most users I would say that is going to throw them off.  I know plenty of people who just finally got use to XP after coming from 98 or 2000!!!!

Right now the best chips on the market are the newer Intel Core Duo chips.  This is a perfect example of why competition is important.  AMD put out a better chip then Intel did, that teamed up with them forcing Intel to stop bullying their way around in the industry with legal action, they grabbed market share.  Intel responded by going back to the work bench and pumping out a very nice product.  I run AMD at home, I love AMD chips.  They are reliable and I've never had a problem.    If you want the best, top of the line chip then go with the new Intel's.

[rickortreat]

I haven't used Vista, and see no reason why.  XP works just fine.  Microsoft wants to find a way to secure future revenue, which is why they're going to this "lease" system, but this, IMO will piss off users to no end.

From a business standpoint, why should anyone go to Vista?  It doesn't do anything better than XP, so there's no justification.

Most PC processors are ahead of the curve, meaning that they work well with the operating systems and applications.  I prefer AMD chips, as they give better bang for the buck, and let's face it, most of us don't need the computing power of the top of the line chips.

Microsoft has a real problem in that there are relatively few flaws to XP, and there are plenty of apps to give customers a choice.  It's going to be a real struggle for them to convince customers they need to upgrade.  Everytime companies go through an upgrade process it costs them time and money, and they may be unwilling to spend it, since it won't benefit them to do so.

[Laker Fan]

The pay as you go Microsoft is trying to force on the industry will lose them a lot of customers, I for one cannot imagine EVER going to a lease type option on software, I run a corporate developers version of XP and Office even at home and it is as stable and robust as the typical user could ever need, especially if you pop for the full version of Disckeeper to keep everything clean and fresh, for those who just can't get used to the look and feel of XP, you can always switch to Classic View and voila'! you have '98 without the glitches.
I don't know enough about Linux to give an opinion, the few boxes I've dealt with that had it loaded seemed cumbersome and, as Joe mentioned, difficult to troubleshoot, but then, it was originally developed for the super Geek who wants to program it his way so I suppose it is good for those types. Being more of a network and security guy, that is really not my area of expertise, and Novell is still the champ when it comes to securing a network.

As far as hardware, where I am far more comfortable talking than with the OS, Joe is correct, hardware is cheaper than ever, and even mid-priced hardware, particularly the chipset, will give anyone more than enough home use power.

If you are a build it yourself type like me, there are no limits to what you can put together, but bear in mind compatibility. My absolute choice if you run an AMD (is there another chipset?) is Asus for a motherboard, and it isn’t much more of an investment to go with a 64 bit capable chip, especially since hardware assembled today is powerful enough to be around when 64 bit really takes off. Plus, my experience is that AMD responds better than Intel to tweaking such slight overclocking (slight, not like these idiot gamers who burn the chip out by way overclocking) AMD runs hotter so cooling is critical, Thermaltake makes the best copper heat sink fan I have ever used. I would put an AMD/Asus combo against anything Intel can come up with, the Opteron 180 and Athlon 64 X2 are both dual core and support hyper transport which ASUS offers at 1000MHz.

There is no question in my mind RAM is no place to go cheap, Corsair, Mushkin, Kingston are all good, my preference is Corsair XMS series in large memory configuration to allow full use of the slots, today’s software really requires a fairly large amount of RAM to run smoothly and Corsair easily overclocks if you know what you’re doing, this is especially useful if you’re running a single proc non dual core where the RAM is shouldering a larger amount of the load, 1GB should be a minimum. And NEVER EVER discount what a hard drive with 16 mb cache will do for performance.

My home machine is an AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core with Thermaltake cooling mounted to an ASUS A8N-VM CSM/NBP Motherboard with 4 1GB Corsair XMS RAM sticks (told you I don’t scrimp on RAM). For hard drives I run 2 Western Digital 10,000 rpm 74 GB Raptor SATA’s in RAID with 2 WD 400 GB SATA’s for storage all with 16 MB cache in an Antec mid-tower running just 2 monitored 120 mm fans and a 430 watt power supply.

This is by no means the most expensive machine you can build, nor is it the by any means the cheapest, I think I may have spent around $1,700.00 for these components, not counting the graphics card (ATI Radeon 1950 Pro), the sound card (Creative Audigy 4 Pro 7.1), or the DVD burner (Sony), which I already had from a previous build. You can’t touch a gamer box off the shelf this tricked out for that kind of money and this is by no means a gamer box, (it has zero games loaded), I use it for music editing, a media platform to control my entertainment center, and my wife uses it for photo editing, a PC half this price to build is still way more than adequate for home use, given the quality of today’s components.

[westkoast]

I also have the AMD/Asus combo in my box and I have to say I have had 0 problems.  Not that I normally ever have many problems, being an IT guy I know a little bit (haha), but literally have not had a single problem.  Maybe I've been lucky but I doubt that.  Just about everyone that has come to me in the last few years to ask what they should get have been pointed in the AMD/Asus direction and they don't have problems either.

LF I have a question or maybe we can exchange email addys.  I use my computer to do some music editing/recording from my turntables to create mixes and all that fun stuff.  I am using ancient software (Cool Edit Pro 2) that I've had for years.  It works just fine for basic recording, cleaning up, and all that but I know there has to be better software out there.  What are you using and what is your setup like?  I really do not know many people who are into this.  All the DJs I talk/hang out with have the same ghetto setup I do because I helped them.  I seen Adobe bought the company that made Cool Edit Pro and turned it into another product but was not sure if it was worth purchasing.

[Joe Vancil]

I've always gone (and recommended) Intel chips.

In the old days, it was out of necessity;  Intel was always first-to-market on each generation, and really all of the design work was done in their realm.  AMD and Cyrix simply copied what Intel had already done.  Granted, the AMD and Cyrix chips that came out were faster, and often cheaper, but by the time they had come out, I had already purchased my machine, and been using it for several months.  And I always knew that Intel would be around in 6 months, in the event I ran into some obscure problem.

Any more, the reason I go Intel is for compatibility reasons (matching systems for VMware), availability, and cost.  AMD isn't the fly-by-night outfit it used to be, but Intel's still a major player across all realms, and any more, interoperability is my domain.

Then again, I'm a person who has some excessive biases when dealing with hardware.  For example, one single attempt at using a Diamond video card many, many years ago (somewhere around 1994) made me switch back to ATI, never to abandon the company again for any machine I considered my "main" machine.  Oh, I'd get the podunk card for a server that I'd lock away in my server room (at home), but not for a machine I'd sit down at every day.

Until my last machine, I used ONLY SCSI drives.  Seagate drives.  Before them, a Micropolis here and there.  One IBM in the mix.  Only Adaptec SCSI controllers, except for that weird 8-bit SCSI controller I got in the early '90's for putting in an old 8088 machine in the days when my home network was Netware Lite, and only because I didn't have an extra machine to dedicate as a Novell 3.11 File Server...in the days before NDS or Active Directory.  Heck, I really didn't want Novell;  I just couldn't get my hands on the stuff to do a Banyan Vines network.

Only HP LaserJet printers.  Only Northgate OmniKey keyboards.  Only Kensington ExpertMouse trackballs.  Western Digital network cards - Western Digital Elite 16 Combo cards, which then sold to SMC...until 100 megabit networking came around, and I switched to Intel, before finding a lot of good things about LinkSys network cards.  Only LinkSys routers around home.  NEC, Sony, or ViewSonic for monitors.  HP CD-burners.  Pioneer DVD burners.  Only Creative Labs sound cards.  I'd even check a WordPerfect document on my machine to see what kind of floppy drive that was the good one, and what kind was the bad one...I never could remember.

And, invariably, my friends, who go with various other solutions, had more trouble than I did.

On my last machine, due to expense, I decided to branch out a bit...but only a bit.  I got a Western Digital IDE/ATA/whatever they want to call it now drive.  (I'd only get either WD or Seagate.)  I got a LiteOn CD burner.  I forget what kind of keyboard I've got, but it's not too annoying.  Still have my Adaptec SCSI controller in the machine, to run my scanner.  Stayed with ATI for video and Linksys for NIC.

And, I've been MOSTLY solid.  I have some strange things going on with video lag on occasion, both in viewing, and in a really weird case, in DVD burning.  But that's about it, though.

Part of being picky is by design - saves a lot of trouble remembering tons of different little details.  But part of it is based on stability and supportability.  The worst nightmare is still hearing, "I'm sorry, but we don't support that platform/configuration."  If I *NEED* help, I don't want anyone giving me any reason they're not going to help me.

And, some of that "brand loyalty" extends into the software market as well.  I'm probably the only person I know who installs Microsoft Office at home, but never uses Microsoft Word...I use WordPerfect 2000.  Why abandon a product that has been exceptionally good to me for one that I think sucks to high heaven?

The downside is that doing computers the way I do them is PRICEY.  VERY PRICEY at times.  Then again, if you're sitting in a chair, a cheap folding chair DOES WORK and IS CHEAP, but if you're going to sit in it for a while, a GOOD chair is worth the cost.

[Laker Fan]

'koast, right now I'm experimenting with Nero 7 Ultra, although I have never found Nero to be terribly intuitive and it is kind of cumbersome, but it appears to be fairly robust in terms of editing, truth be told, I do more video editing than audio and I have alway liked Nero for at least that. I am considering giving Adobe a try because it rates so highly in the reviews I've read and I have access to a full version to try before I buy.

Before that I have used Ejay but the problem with them is the almost overwhelming versions of it, nice thing for you is that the software was originally written for hip hop, I still use it or a rather cool program called Cakewalk Home Studio when I get frustrated with Nero but let's face it, Adobe will proabably blow them all away, too bad it is so pricey.

My wife uses a full version of Photo Shop along with Nikons Picture Project software to edit her very large format (10.2 mp) d200 Nikon and loves the software, now you know why I run a dual core with 4 GB of RAM, I really should have built a dual proc box this time but could not justify the expense when I compared probable bechmarks with what I wound up building and it really does fine if I don't get ot carried away.

[westkoast]

I also am currently using a Intel Centrino Duo on my Toshiba m5 laptop at work.  The sucker is a heck of a laptop.  I use Microstation/AutoCAD on it with very little problems.  In fact it seems to be not to much slower then some of the CAD machines the drafters use.  Very good chip.  Of course it was pricey when I got it but it was not my money!  It of course is 'Vista Compatible' so I will have Vista on here pretty soon for testing purposes.  Once I get my hands on it I will post my thoughts on it.  I don't want to use Vista, have no need, but I will no doubt be test boy for the company.

[Laker Fan]

I'll tell you 'koast, I haven't had any dealings with Intel in so long I can't even comment on them. It's like with my bike, Shimano keeps trying to shove what they believe should be the standard down everyone's throat and I refuse to be a lemming, my bike is all Sram.