why did you buy your last computer?

[mrmitchell]

I'm planning on trying to steal something from NASA. Could anyone tell me where they keep their top secret information? That would recoup the cost of all the effort of trying to steal it. (I'm sure you don't just walk in, take a laptop, and leave, right?)

[Neutrino]

But dual AthlonMPs are probably cheaper than an Opteron (for now, at least) and offer acceptable performance for most applications. *thinks in cheapskate college student mode*

[David Floyd]

Mine was an impulse buy.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Neutrino
But dual AthlonMPs are probably cheaper than an Opteron (for now, at least) and offer acceptable performance for most applications. *thinks in cheapskate college student mode*

Of course, but take it in context...

Sava said he'd get dual Athlon MPs faster than a Pentium 5. This is already not the case for the Pentium 4, it certainly won't be for the Pentium 5.

So I said you can't get a dual Athlon, because I'm thinking in the timeframe/performance to be competitive with the Pentium 5...in which case the only way to get a dual Athlon is the Opteron.

[Kramerman]

other:

this was my first computer... i needed it to do stuff that computers are used for, everything from word processing and internet, to games and playing music

[Kuciwalker]

It was my parent's money

[Kramerman]

Originally posted by Asher
My Pentium 5 3.4GHz is merely a few months away...

whats the deal with those new processors that can do like two things simultaneously? my frined was kinda telling me about those. is that what the p5 is? he called somehting like "duel-threading' processors or something like that

[Asher]

Originally posted by Kramerman
whats the deal with those new processors that can do like two things simultaneously? my frined was kinda telling me about those. is that what the p5 is? he called somehting like "duel-threading' processors or something like that

HyperThreading is the marketing term (Simultaneous Multi-Threading is the technical term).

It runs two threads (or strings/strands/streams of computer instructions) at once, rather than one. It gives very large benefits for multitasking, since instead of running just one program at once it can run two. One thread usually only uses part of the processor, like the floating-point unit, so the other thread can use the integer-and-logic unit which would otherwise sit idle.

It makes for a far more efficient processor. It'll get even faster in future apps that are designed with it in mind. It also gives performance benefits in apps that are designed with multi-threading in mind (which is becoming far more popular, due to Apple's dual G5s and HyperThreading on the P4)

It's available on the P4 2.4C, 2.6C, 2.8C, 3.06, and 3.2s only.

The Pentium 5 has the second, enhanced version of HyperThreading (plus way more )

[MrFun]

Yesterday, I bought a Dimension model computer from Dell -- and it will have a Dual thread on Pentium 4.

[Kuciwalker]

Ummm... last time I checked, my p3 1.0 GHz processor could run multiple threads too...

On another note, despite having a 2.0 GHz p4 computer (winXP) with half a gig of memory, I often use this computer (the p3, winME) for most things. It runs civ3 perfectly fine (I've never had the slowness people complain about), runs any Office program just as quickly, and is just as good for web browsing. In fact, the XP interface (even when set to normal windows look) sometimes feels a bit unresponsive, or at least slow. Plus, it's ctrl-alt-delete window seems to be really slow, and I can't disable it.

[Asher]

Originally posted by skywalker
Ummm... last time I checked, my p3 1.0 GHz processor could run multiple threads too...

No.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Asher

No.

And thus, the great computer guru has spoken.

[Kuciwalker]

Oh, you mean built into the processor, not the OS. Windows can run multiple threads on any computer, just not truly simultaneously.

[Kramerman]

Originally posted by Asher

HyperThreading is the marketing term (Simultaneous Multi-Threading is the technical term).

It runs two threads (or strings/strands/streams of computer instructions) at once, rather than one. It gives very large benefits for multitasking, since instead of running just one program at once it can run two. One thread usually only uses part of the processor, like the floating-point unit, so the other thread can use the integer-and-logic unit which would otherwise sit idle.

It makes for a far more efficient processor. It'll get even faster in future apps that are designed with it in mind. It also gives performance benefits in apps that are designed with multi-threading in mind (which is becoming far more popular, due to Apple's dual G5s and HyperThreading on the P4)

It's available on the P4 2.4C, 2.6C, 2.8C, 3.06, and 3.2s only.

The Pentium 5 has the second, enhanced version of HyperThreading (plus way more )

will they have hyper threading on laptop processors anytime soon (im gonna by a laptop at some point)? and what is the 'way more' you speak of???

[Kramerman]

Originally posted by skywalker
Oh, you mean built into the processor, not the OS. Windows can run multiple threads on any computer, just not truly simultaneously.

right.. windows switches back and forth between running programs really really quickly, so it is essentially running them at the same time, but really isnt. I beleive it is the switching back and forth that these new ones will not have to do, and therefore be more efficient, but that is just a guess.. asher?