Just another poll from me, thought of this one whilst reading through some posts, just wondering really,

Feel free to add specific details if you want I just want to get a overall view of PC specs!



I run:

Intel P4 3.4GHz Extreme Edition
1024Mb Ram
Single 250Gb Hard Drive
ATI Radeon 256Mb Graphics Card
19"TFT Monitor
2 standard Monitor Speakers(hoping to upgrade to Dolby 2.1 with Sub)
2 CD-Roms-
DVD re-writer 16x Dual Layer 52x CD-R
Standard 52x
Multimedia Card Reader(Built in)

I bought it quite recently for £1,200, not a bad buy IMO
:D

mines 2.6+ you havent got that one in your list :rolleyes:

previously i had a 550 bag of poo that i got from pc world until 2 years ago i realised building it yourself wasent really rocket science and saves you a ton! easy upgrades as well :)

im just about to double my harddrive to 240gig ...have recently made ram 1024 as well...cant be arsed with tft...ok they look nice but i want screen size..dont care how far back the thing goes...and im not spending 150 quid to get same screen size i already had...so its a brand new £55 quid 17" monitor i got instead.

Dolby 5.1....linked to marantz amplifier and mordaunt short speakers (my 2nd stereo system...not havin all computer gubbins in living room where my really gud stuff is)

52x cd writer
4x dvd writer

and lots of blue and red lights :cool:

all cost a hell of a lot less than pc world (grrrrr)

Oooooops ... mine is a 2.2 GHZ and I selected 1.6 in the poll by accident.

Athlon xp2400+ in an Abit NF7s Rev2 motherboard,with a thermalright SP97 and 92mm fan,custom northbridge cooler and MOSFET heatsinks, overclocked to 2.4ghz.

1gb ddr400 mushkin black ram, in dual channel (would post the timings but I cant remember and cant be arsed to look in the BIOS)

Geforce fx5900xt, bios modded into a 5950ultra

180gb hard drive space (1x60gb and 1x120gb)

2x Pioneer DVR108 DVD-RWs

Fortron FSP550 power supply

All housed in a quiet Jeantech case, 120mm fans front and rear, built in rheostat and filter, and with the neatest wiring job youll ever see :thumbsup:

19" CRT monitor, at 1280x1024x85hz

Yamaha 2.1 speakers

depends what you mean by speed ;) mines running at 2.2ghz, which is apperently equivilent to a 3.2ghz pentium.... but meh whatever...

XP2500 overclocked to XP3200
1Gb RAM
Nvidia 6600GT graphics card...

and bugger it, cant be arsed with the rest, what difference does it make? its not what you've got it what you do with it :P

and most of you have super machines for word processing and surfing net... lol

mine's used for 3D modelling, image editing, playing games, programming and other intensive things... I actually need the raw power!

I got an Athlon Sempron 3100+ 754 overclocked to 2.43GHz
Abit KV8 Pro 3rd Eye Motherboard (good for overclocking and keeping an eye on things)
1 GB DDR PC3200 RAM
ASUS Gforce PCX5900 128mb DDR Graphics Card
80 GB HDD with cooling fan
20GB HDD
Creative SoundBlaster Audigy 2 ZS 24bit soundcard
Dual Layer DVD Burner
CD-RW/DVD ROM
19" TFT Monitor
Harman/Kardon Soundsticks II speakers and sub 2.1
EZcool Alpine silver case with LCD display
2 blue neon cooling fans
3 other case fans
2 exhaust fans
Rounded EIDE cables
A dam neat wiring job

The case and speakers look fantastic. They all give off a slight neon blue glow.

Saving for an Athlon 64 but just ordered a new car so it will be a while. It's used mostly for web design, Photoshop and of course Football Manager 2005 :banana:

Yeah, I've been thinking of overclocking, just wondered, is it neccesary to have extra cooling or should it cope?

I'd have extra cooling if I were you, otherwise your computer keeps resetting, a couple of fans should be enough. Iincrease the speed a bit at a time to see how far you can go.

Originally posted by Viper_GTSR
Yeah, I've been thinking of overclocking, just wondered, is it neccesary to have extra cooling or should it cope?

See if your mobo manufacturer offers any kind of monitoring software. I've got an Asus A7N8X and it comes with a neat little program that tells you CPU temperature and fan speed and the like.

When I overclocked mine the temperature was still well within tolerance, but it make the system unstable so I put it back.

I think that this type of thing is a bit like the geek equivalent of who drives the faster car with the bigger engine - it's all about trying to prove who's got the biggest ****.

That said, I do like to keep my PC up to date so upgrade quite regularly. Currently running an Athlon XP 2200+.

Originally posted by t020
I think that this type of thing is a bit like the geek equivalent of who drives the faster car with the bigger engine - it's all about trying to prove who's got the biggest ****.

A bit like saying "Who lives on the best estate in Sheffield" don't you think?.

Slightly pedantic IMO t020.....Sorry :nono:

Mines still wind up, I think I'm behind.


And 1.8 wasn't on the list :(

Do the people who have got nearly top of the range stuff notice much difference compared to the slightly older hardware, although I guess you might not have had chance to compare?

I built a pc about 6 months ago with a Athlon 2800xp+ (or whatever they are called), 512mb ram and 80gb hd for about £250 and compared to other more powerful pcs I've used there isn't that much difference. I suppose if you are doing CAD or Video Editing or something you might notice but otherwise it doesn't make much difference.

I only notice any difference if I have about 5 programs running at once, which I often do. If you don't do any gaming or editing etc I probably wouldnt bother upgrading, I don't think you would get value for money.

Bought it a while ago...

P4 2.8ghz (not HT one)
1GB ram (533mhz i think)
Radeon 9200, 128MB
40GB HD
DVDRW/CDRW
19" CRT
Sony CMT-NE5 for sound
And its quiet, dead quiet :D

This would be more interesting if it was 'How fast was your first PC?'

Mine was 25MHz. How far we've come... :|

Mine was 40mhz I think it was a 486 DX40?? If such a thing exists. Definitely a 486 and DX. It was a long time ago! Before that I had an Amstrad something or other, I haven't got a clue about speed

This would be more interesting if it was 'How fast was your first PC?'

Yeah, it might, problem is I cant remeber mine, someone could start that poll I suppose. :)

Do the people who have got nearly top of the range stuff notice much difference compared to the slightly older hardware, although I guess you might not have had chance to compare?

Well I for one, did notice a difference but I came From a P3 750MHz
And to go straight to 3.4GHz makes a big difference. I also run demanding games quite often and there are vast differences in performance.
Also like adlinds said, if you run multiple programs often, there is also a big difference. Now I can run photoshop, iTunes, Mozzila and
a few smaller programs without my PC struggling to stay stable.

I'm going to start looking around for some extra cooling and monitoring systems, keep you updated:thumbsup:

waiting to upgrade but at the moment as follows:

athlon xp-m2500 with the good stepping!! o/c to 2.63ghz on 1.725v prime stable!!

Asus A7nex-e deluxe
1gb ddr400
fx5200 grpx
dual layer 16x dvd
120gb hdd, 80gb exernal

and all the rest.

Purely built for the purpose of encoding and ripping hence no good grpx!!

Originally posted by vidster
A bit like saying "Who lives on the best estate in Sheffield" don't you think?.

Slightly pedantic IMO t020.....Sorry :nono:


I don't live on an estate, thanks.

Besides, I've never said that or anything like that.

Originally posted by t020
I don't live on an estate, thanks.

Besides, I've never said that or anything like that.

You DO slag off people who live on estates though, especially residents of a certain estate in S2 :loopy:

Originally posted by t020
I don't live on an estate, thanks.

Besides, I've never said that or anything like that.

Ohh...You must have a doppelganger on here then :suspect:


But bringing this thread back on topic:

I'm running a lowly 2.8GB Celery (Celeron D) processor in this laptop.
768MB RAM
40GB HD
DVDRW/CDRW (never been used)

I only use it for browsing and recently started playing with Dreamweaver MX so it's fine for me ;)

Originally posted by Rich
You DO slag off people who live on estates though, especially residents of a certain estate in S2 :loopy:

Quote me on that and I'll happily accept it. However, to the best of my knowledge I don't think I've ever "slagged off" any residents of any council estate. Just because I don't tow the PC line of pretending that all is good on the Manor (when it clearly isn't) does not equate to me slagging off the residents.

Originally posted by Sidla
This would be more interesting if it was 'How fast was your first PC?'


Indeed it would.


The first PC I remember owning (about 1980) was a sirius (Victor PC II) which had an 8088 processor, 640K memory, a "massive" 21M hard drive and ran at a whopping 8MHz. I did have a couple of others, but can't for the life of me remember waht they were called:(.

Found a pic and info on it too here (http://members.cox.net/wagnermpw/oempc/victorvpc2.htm), takes me back abit seeing that:cool:.


BOT: This PC is an AMD Duron 600, 256M memory, 21G HD, and runs @ 600MHz - about ready for an upgrade, but it is a very stable PC (on almost constantly since 2002;)) running Win 98 (still).

Originally posted by Sidla
This would be more interesting if it was 'How fast was your first PC?'

Mine was 25MHz. How far we've come... :|
I popped for a 486 66 I think it was... with a 2x CDRom and soundblaster sound card... All of which set me back a whopping £1500 if I remember correctly... :loopy:

Before that though my dad intro'd me to Zenith IBM monsters with green screen and those old 5.25" floppy disks...

My 1st PC was a 486DX 100, I thought it was brilliant because it played small fuzzy video clips in Encarta 95. :)

Mine...

Shuttle SN85G4 (http://eu.shuttle.com/en/desktopdefault.aspx/tabid-72/170_read-4912/)
Athlon 64 3000+
SATA RAID 0 240GB (yes thanks I do have backups :P )
1GB DDR 400
Geforce FX5900XT (convinced it's an Ultra)

At least until this (http://global.shuttle.com/Product/Barebone/SN25P.asp) comes out...

& this is my first PC, just taken me a while...

Pentium 3 450, 10GB HD, 256 RAM, recently upgraded from 128MB, recently added a CDRW. Non-descript graphics and sound cards. This was a cutting edge system when I had it made in 99? Also use a 17"CRT monitor. All casings in the beige of that era. I feel like a classic car enthusiast, tinkering with this antique to keep it on the road. Cutting any HD content to the bone, disciplined about startup items. I could spend the money and buy a new shiny sports car PC with the latest widgets but I dont want to or need to. Only surf, WP and sort digi cam pics. Life in the slow lane is OK:hihi:

My pc spec
Fatal1ty A8N-SLI board from Abit based on the nVidia nForce4 SLI
AMD Athlon 64 4000+
2xGainward 6800 ULTRA/ 256MB
Western Digital Raptor 74GB WD740GD 10,000RPM SATA 8MB Cache
Seagate Barracude 7200 200GB SATA-II 16MB Cache
Corsair 2GB DDR XMS3500LL Pro TwinX (2x1GB)
Thermaltake Armour Super Tower - Black
Enermax Noisetaker 600W
All cooled with Zalman Reserator1-Plus Fanless Water Cooling System -
Plextor PX-716AL Dual Layer Slot Loading 16x4x DVD±RW ReWriter
Razer Copperhead Anarchy Red Gaming Mouse
21" CRT and 19" Veiwsonic TFT 3ms

+ 3 other puters, inc lappy varing spec...built mainly from odds and ends.
Multi boot OS W2K... XP...Debian...SUSE 10

voted 1.2ghz but its actually a 1.3
256mb ram
crappy onboard (about 4mb ) graphics :P good job i like retro games :

but was only £20

i just swapped the 10gb hard drive for my 2 80gig ones and kept the cdwriter that was in it but added my dvd writer aswell

does most of what i want it to do......could do with a tad more ram and graphics tho tbh

2.52 GZ
256Mb of ram (I want to upgrade the ram though)
40gb HD (also want to upgrade this )
It works fine most of the time. It sometimes sound like it going to explode but that's only for a few seconds

Fujitsu Siemens Scaleo P

*Asus Mobo which only seems to exist on crazy German sites (not even on Asus website).
*1024 Mb DDR PC3200 RAM
*3.04 GHz Pentium 4 Processor
*250 Gb western digital hdd (SATA)
*NEC DVD rw
*LG DVD Ram rw
*ATI Radeon X550

Nought particularly special but it does for the time being.

..... Just wait til I can get that Asus Vento (in red of course) and some crazily powerful bits & bobs, then a monster shall live (Hopefully some time next year - perhaps FX60's will have gone down in price a bit :P )

P4 3.2Ghz - Prescott
1Gb DualChanel
300GB Sata
Gigabyte 7800 GTX
7.1 HD sound + Logitech 200W 2.1 THX speakers
24" Dell Ultrasharp TFT

<duk0r> Don't forget kids, the faster you download the bigger your penis is.

http://bash.org/?3582

lol

This would be more interesting if it was 'How fast was your first PC?'

Mine was 25MHz. How far we've come... :|The BBC micro model "B" was my first - 1983 & just married. :rolleyes: http://www.gondolin.org.uk/hchof/machines/bbc-model-b.html
At 2Mhz, I don't think the word "speed" even came into it lol.

I think that this type of thing is a bit like the geek equivalent of who drives the faster car with the bigger engine - it's all about trying to prove who's got the biggest ****.

That said, I do like to keep my PC up to date so upgrade quite regularly. Currently running an Athlon XP 2200+.

mines a 3.0 litre with a 512 ddr turbo with the dvd writer doors but feels the need to break down whenever possible :D

3200+ Barton
1Gb 400FSB DDR RAM (dual chan)
Striped RAID disk array (240Gb total)
nForce mainnoard
256Mb Radeon graphics
DVD+-RW

Or sommat along those lines.
+ 2GHz Celeron laptop

Yes I have noticed a differance when using a faster PC - particularly when compiling my Java projects.
But the numbers game is the same with current 'my ADSL is faster than yours' battle going on with ISPs, regardless it wont make massive differance to average surfer :)

FX60 AMD dual core, with blu orb 2 cooling it
asus AN832
Nvidia 512mb card
3 GIG RAM
1 DVD-RW
1 DVD-ROM
1 CDR-RW
1 X 160 GIG HDD
1 X 80 GIG HDD
580 W HYPER MODULAR PSU
GAMING CASE WITH FAN CONTROLLER AND LOTS OF FANS WITH BLUE LIGHTS

17" LCD TV WITH 4 MASSIVE FLOOR STANDING ELTAX SPEAKERS FOR A NICE LOUD SURROUND SOUND.

WITH NICE LEATHER RECLINER WITH MASSAGE INLAY.

UMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

Nothing too fancy, bit slow with the amount of video processing and stuff I do so upgrading to an A64 4000+ when funds allow.

Athlon 64 3000+
1Gb Crucial Ballistix DDR400
DFI LanParty NF4 SLI-DR motherboard
Western Digital 150Gb Raptor SATA HDD
Maxtor 80Gb SATA HDD
ATi Radeon X800 256Mb graphics
Tagan 480W PSU
NEC DL DVD+-RW
Zalman CPU Cooler

...server is

Duron 750MHz
1GB DDR??? (can't remember what I put in)
1x40Gb IDE HDD (boot etc)
1x160Gb SATA HDD
2x250Gb SATA HDD
1x300Gb SATA HDD
soon to have TV card in plus maybe gigabit network card

1.7g ghz as all I use it for is the WP, internet and email (mainly).
Compaq nx6110 - in fact, yes a laptop (notebook). i also have 2 x 300gig firewire external hard drives for me music collection.

Thread resurection.....

Upgrade performed since my last post above (the mobo fried last year):(.


Current setup is as follows:

Processor: AMD Athlon XP 2400 +
Motherboard: abit NF7-S
Memory: 512 Megabytes
GFX Card: NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200
Monitor: LG Electronics 19C-P
LITEON DVD-ROM LTD163
PIONEER DVD-RW DVR-104
PixelView Analogue TV card
3Com Fast EtherLink XL 10/100Mb TX Ethernet Adapter
External USB card reader (also used with laptop)
40G and a 20G HD Patritioned as follows:
c: 15.70 GB
d: 1.04 GB
e: 2.09 GB
f: 829 MB
g: 5.24 GB
h: 2.09 GB
i: 2.09 GB
j: 837 MB
k: 3.14 GB
l: 2.09 GB
m: 4.58 GB
n: 1.28 GB
o: 10.48 GB
p: 7.16 GB
q: 1.08 GB
r: 1.74 GB

Still running Windows 98, with the LiteStep Shell replacement:thumbsup:

Performs perfectly well for my needs:).

AMD X2 4200+ (Dual Core) 2.2Ghz/core
3GB Corsair XMS Pro (DDR400)
ATI Radeon x1800 GTO
Sound Blaster X-Fi Fatal1ty
200GB Seagate SATAII
120GB Seagate ATA100 x 2
Ideazon Z-Board
Razer Diamond Back
19" Widescreen TFT
17" Standard TFT

Corsair Memory TWIN2X2048-6400 2x1GB 240-Pin DIMM XMS2-6400 CL5
Gigabyte GeForce 7600GT 256MB DDR3 PCIE Dual DVI S/Pipe 2
Philips 20" Philips Widescreen Silver DVI LCD TFT.
Antec P150 430W ATX Full Tower
Antec 120mm Smart Cool
Asustek S775 Intel P965 ATX Audio Lan
Western Digital Raptor 74GB S150 16MB 10000RPM
Plextor DVD+-R/RW/RAM 16x DL Beige RP
Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 Socket 775 2.13GHz
Maxtor Personal Storage 3200 300GB USB2 7200rpm 16MB

Wishing I'd got the P975 bios though, as the 965 doesn't support SLI and I'd like a faster (but still silent) graphics card.

Megahertz Myth (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megahertz_myth)

(PPC innit?)

40G and a 20G HD Patritioned as follows:
c: 15.70 GB
d: 1.04 GB
e: 2.09 GB
f: 829 MB
g: 5.24 GB
h: 2.09 GB
i: 2.09 GB
j: 837 MB
k: 3.14 GB
l: 2.09 GB
m: 4.58 GB
n: 1.28 GB
o: 10.48 GB
p: 7.16 GB
q: 1.08 GB
r: 1.74 GB
Why the large no. of very small partitions?

Back on topic
Athlon 3700+ Epox 9NDA3 MoBo
2G Twinned [Corsair?, it's been a while!] Ram
XFS Graphics card nVidia 6600 256MB - quiet [ish], would prefer silent.
2xLacie Photon 19Visions.
Lian Li Alumininium case with Glass front Door, Case poss PC-80 I forget now. Quiet 650W Power Supply.
60G WD Primary HD partitioned into
C:5G Swap file for XP
D:15G XP Older install
E:15G Programmes
F:22G XP Fresh install
Other Internal HDs
H:80G Maxtor
I:500Gx2 Mirrored Samsung
K:400Gx2 Mirrored Samsung
P:400Gx2 Mirrored Samsung
External HDs
Ext Desktop HDs 250G x2 LaCies, 1 x 250G forget name of disk.
Ext Laptop HDs 1 LaCie 80G, 1 WD 80G.

Used primarily for image munching.

Megahertz Myth
Megahetz are informative for comparing same type of chip

(PPC innit?)Even Apple gave up on those.

Megahetz are informative for comparing same type of chip Well done. You can't spell, though. I just thought the entire thread ridiculous. What decade are we living in?

Even Apple gave up on those.
There will be many machines that will continue to run PPC for many years to come. Check http://www.ppcnerds.org/. OS X, Yellow Dog, and Ubuntu PPC will continue to be supported for many years, too.

Why the large no. of very small partitions?

C: Windows and progs
D: Temp Internet files
E: Current Web Projects
F: Emulators
G: DVD Rip drive (rip to this drive, burn to disc, format disk)
H: OS Temp files
I: Games
J: Temp CD (fill then burn then format)
K: Software currently under development
L: Emulator Roms/tape/disk images
M: My Documents + Win 98 CD contents
N: Our Domains/websites (entire backup)
O: Audio
P: DVD Creation (temp files)
Q: eBooks
R: Windows Swap file.

It makes for easier housekeeping (please remember, I'm running Win 98 ):thumbsup:.

It's also quicker for restoring partitions from images:).

Well done. You can't spell, though. I just thought the entire thread ridiculous. What decade are we living in?
I have no problem spelling, though I do make typing mistakes. So what?
Besides anyone who pulls people up on typos/spellings where the meaning is perfectly clear, really needs to get a life.


There will be many machines that will continue to run PPC for many years to come. Check http://www.ppcnerds.org/. OS X, Yellow Dog, and Ubuntu PPC will continue to be supported for many years, too.And just to prove my point!:D :P

It makes for easier housekeeping (please remember, I'm running Win 98 ):thumbsup:.

It's also quicker for restoring partitions from images:).
Thought something like that may be the case, but you should have your windows swap file at other end of drive for better performance.

I have no problem spelling, though I do make typing mistakes. So what?
Besides anyone who pulls people up on typos/spellings where the meaning is perfectly clear, really needs to get a life.

Touché. Do you not think, though, that this entire thread is essentially stupid? Even comparing AMD's architectures with Intel's, or multicore versus single core, is like 'comparing Apples with Oranges' - Surely IPS would be better?

Unless you're comparing chips of the same architecture, make etc speed is irrelevant...my 1.86GHz E6300 C2D is waaaaaaaaay faster than my old Athlon64 which ran at a similar speed....anyways my main system (server is somewhat slower but way more disc space) :)

Intel Core2Duo E6300
2Gb Corsair XMS2 something or other
ATI Radeon X1900XT Crossfire master (need to get another when I have the cash...)
Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS
150GB Raptor (SATA)
250GB Maxtor (SATA)
Asus P5B Deluxe Wi-FI/AP
Razer Diamond Back Mouse
20" ViewSonic Widescreen TFT
18" Dell TFT

Touché. Do you not think, though, that this entire thread is essentially stupid? Even comparing AMD's architectures with Intel's, or multicore versus single core, is like 'comparing Apples with Oranges' - Surely IPS would be better?
No, not stupid, simply a harmless poll. Which may lead to some discussion.
And if you don't like it. Don't join in.
Lots of 'stupid' threads on all forums, I simply ignore ones that I don't like/find interesting. Give it a go.

No, not stupid, simply a harmless poll. Which may lead to some discussion.
And if you don't like it. Don't join in.
Lots of 'stupid' threads on all forums, I simply ignore ones that I don't like/find interesting. Give it a go.

I find it interesting in the sense that the poll based on a misconception that has been allowed to propagate for so long. Again, it would be much for useful to compare IPS. Otherwise, you might as well start a poll that says:
What speed does your car go?
a) 8000 rpm
b)10000 rpm
c) 12000... and so on. Which of course doesn't tell you how fast it goes.

As probed points out, Intel's switch to multicore processors makes this point all the more relevant, perhaps for the first time for many Windows users. Even AMD have had to 'normalise' their clock speeds against Intel's previously, as the linked article describes, because many users prejudiced by that same misconception wouldn't buy chips that ran at slower clock speeds, even if they could carry out a greater number of operations per second. For this reason, I think I'm making a valid point. The poll is stupid.

x2 3800 @2.5ghtz
2048 DDR 400
600gb Hard disk
Asus 8V Delux Mobo
Geforce 6800GT oc 430/1160
Audigy SPDIF as bypass to a DTS amp
NEC LCD72XM (mon1)
Samsung 32" HDTV widescreen (mon2)

Watercooling
________
FORD E83W (http://www.ford-wiki.com/wiki/Ford_E83W)

I find it interesting in the sense that the poll based on a misconception that has been allowed to propagate for so long. Again, it would be much for useful to compare IPS. Otherwise, you might as well start a poll that says:
What speed does your car go?
a) 8000 rpm
b)10000 rpm
c) 12000... and so on. Which of course doesn't tell you how fast it goes.

As probed points out, Intel's switch to multicore processors makes this point all the more relevant, perhaps for the first time for many Windows users. Even AMD have had to 'normalise' their clock speeds against Intel's previously, as the linked article describes, because many users prejudiced by that same misconception wouldn't buy chips that ran at slower clock speeds, even if they could carry out a greater number of operations per second. For this reason, I think I'm making a valid point. The poll is stupid.But nobody really cares. Bar you, other geeks.
As for saying we should compare IPS, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPS shows that could mean a huge variety of things. So an even more meaningless use of English than talking about clock speed.:D

Real world benchmarks are the most useful measure, ideally ones that are weighted towards the operations you're most interested in.

My pc is nothing special....

Intel Celeron
2.93Ghz Processor
2gb Kingston Memory
120gb Hard Drive
128MB Graphics
DVD-RW

3.06ghz Pentium 4 HT
2GB RAM 2 x 1gb Samsung DDR2 pc2 - 4300
nVidia 7600 GT OC 256mb
Seagate Barracuda 200GB SATA HDD
Seagate Barracuda 160GB SATA HDD
22" Widescreen TFT
Multi format DVD writer with Lightscribe

Next PC will be a C2D one.

Intel Core2 x6800 @ 3950 MHz
2GB GeIL PC6400
74 GB Raptor
2x Radeon X1900 XT (Crossfire)
19" Samsung 3ms TFT
x-Fi Gamer

fast enough :D but cant quite get it over 4GHz :(

But nobody really cares. Bar you, other geeks.
As for saying we should compare IPS, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPS shows that could mean a huge variety of things. So an even more meaningless use of English than talking about clock speed.:D

As for understanding within a context, does the phrase:

where the meaning is perfectly clear

...ring any bells? Your seach for IPS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ips) returns in microprocessors, instructions per second (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instructions_per_second) as one of 26 answers, and is the only one pertaining to the speed of computers (the subject of the discussion), perhaps I should suggest that you brush up on your information-finding skills.

While the meaning of my quite-obvious-in-context acronym may have escaped you, talking about a computer's calculating speed in terms of clock cycles is based on a misconception. Instructions per second or real-world benchmarks (especially as these take into account any custom co-processors and how well the OS handles multithreading etc.) are much more useful, and meaningful. I'd say a semantic error is more misleading than an alleged linguistic obfuscation, anyway, even if I did make one.

The fact the phrase had to be looked up and fished out amongst the other numerous meanings of IPS is why it is a bit vague and apparently it has fallen into disuse anyway.
Besides, IPS is a meaningless as rpm in a car, to use your own analogy.
As Cyclone mentioned above, the only thing that counts, is how quickly a computer performs the tasks you do, with all the rest of the hardware attached.
A machine optimised for gaming may not, do so well as a machine optimised for Photoshop even if they have the exact same chip and a machine optimised for video editing will set up differently again.

Besides if you look at the wiki reference about IPS it seems as meaningful as clockspeed.
To quote [refering to Millions of Instructions per Second].
"Critics of the term refer to it by backronyms such as "Meaningless Indication of Processor Speed" or "Meaningless Information on Performance for Salespeople" or "Meaningless Integer Performance Spec"

Besides, IPS is a meaningless as rpm in a car, to use your own analogy.
But this is precisely the misconception that I'm pointing out! Instructions per second is the 'real speed' of computation, clock cycles are equivalent to rpm!

However, I'll concede that I actually included that reference without checking it - since it basically undermines my whole argument. I take issue with some of the points it makes - surely it's logical that the number of instructions a processor can carry out in a second is more meaningful than the number of electronic cycles a chip goes through, when the number of cycles it takes to perform a calculation varies from architecture to architecture.

Real-world benchmarking it must be, then. As I stated before, the OS and any custom chips also affect speed greatly, hence the Amiga being faster in many ways than early PCs despite having a low clock speed, and a comparitively smaller number of IPS on the CPU.

However, I'll concede that I actually included that reference without checking it - since it basically undermines my whole argument.:D :D
There was a very useful test of Photoshop [I.e. real computer speed], but the image used for it has vanished off line. And no-one else seems to be hosting it.

The other relevent factor to speed is cost.
An expensive Apple desktop was tested in PCPro a few months back and it was the fastest PC they'd ever tested [using real world software, Photoshop, Corel Draw, Excel..etc]. The next month a Windows box scored exactly the same benchmarks, but cost £3000 less! :o

An expensive Apple desktop was tested in PCPro a few months back and it was the fastest PC they'd ever tested [using real world software, Photoshop, Corel Draw, Excel..etc]. The next month a Windows box scored exactly the same benchmarks, but cost £3000 less! :o

I wonder what would've happened if they put XP on the expensive Mac & tried that again? Not trying to flame Mac fans, something BSD flavoured would be preferable to this, I'm just curious & haven't seen it tried before...

I wonder what would've happened if they put XP on the expensive Mac & tried that again? Not trying to flame Mac fans, something BSD flavoured would be preferable to this, I'm just curious & haven't seen it tried before...
I believe they did as some of the benchmarking software dosn't work on a OS-X.

I wonder what would've happened if they put XP on the expensive Mac & tried that again? Not trying to flame Mac fans, something BSD flavoured would be preferable to this, I'm just curious & haven't seen it tried before...

Mac Pro Photoshop benchmarking here (http://www.macintouch.com/reviews/macpro/benchmarks.html#photoshop)

(Some) Mac Pro boot camp benchmarking here (http://reviews.zdnet.co.uk/hardware/desktops/0,1000000968,39284700,00.htm)

...As for Parallels (virtualization within OS X), last time I read it runs about 75-80% of the speed compared with actually booting into XP.

Comparing Macs and PC is quite tricky as say the PS test you linked was done with nothing else running and as Macs and PCs handle memory quite differently. A more realistic test is to repeat with with all your usual apps open as well.
The reason why Macs tend to have more memory than PCs is they need it more and it's eyewateringly expensive if you buy it from Apple.

This is a telling line from the PS test.
"The 9150 is not a workstation-class machine like the Mac Pro, so it's not a true apples-to-apples comparison, but it held its own in the Image Resize test"
So why compare a cheaper PC with an old chip in it all?

Comparing Macs and PC is quite tricky as say the PS test you linked was done with nothing else running and as Macs and PCs handle memory quite differently. A more realistic test is to repeat with with all your usual apps open as well.
The reason why Macs tend to have more memory than PCs is they need it more and it's eyewateringly expensive if you buy it from Apple.

Most Mac users probably don't buy extra RAM from Apple for this reason! In my experience, you can run a lot more productivity software simultaneously for an amount of RAM on OS X as compared with XP, without anything going wrong or the machine becoming sluggish, thanks to the way OS X dynamically (and intelligently) allocates available memory - obviously this is in stark contrast to pre-OS X days though!

Dynamically asigned memory is something else Apple copied from PCs!!

Dynamically asigned memory is something else Apple copied from PCs!!

A charge no one ever levied at M$