Jim Lawrence
accessd at shaw.ca
Sat Jun 11 10:25:44 CDT 2011
Hi Rocky: No sure what the best computer is but when I was last asked the computer I recommended or rather the features I recommended were as follows: 2 x 500GB HD, Drives of that size are fairly cheap and as picture and music storage is common they can fill up quick. Separating the system into 2 drives allows system to have a backup or multi-bootup or separating OS from data and in the event of a drive crash not all the 'eggs are in one basket'. 64Bit is pretty well the standard...it is so much faster (with the right OS will run both 32 and 64 applications) Window 7 Ultima and professional have the capabilities to have both type of applications without problems. Radeon, from AMD and GeForce from Mivida video cards are pretty well the standards in good and very good graphics cards. They are very fast and have a very fine graphic image. Good for the eyes when doing close work and will run any games without issues. 4 GB of RAM is also standard faire for most of the current systems. Windows OS will thank you for it. 1 GB NICs are good to have as if the environment is capable and compatible it will manage data across the network and internet up to an estimated 10 times faster that the older 10/100MB LAN cards. OTOH as a student he might prefer one of the new MACs. They are a little more expensive to get into but they are very popular as they are super simple to run. The down side is they will have limited software and are not as easy to hack or upgrade but their popularity among the non computer student crowd can not be denied. They can also be made to dual boot from MAC OS to Windows OS, if properly configured. HTH Jim -----Original Message----- From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of rockysmolin at bchacc.com Sent: Saturday, June 11, 2011 6:26 AM To: dba-ot at databaseadvisors.com Cc: dba-tech at databaseadvisors.com; accessd at databaseadvisors.com Subject: [AccessD] OT: Shopping for a new comp Dear List: It's time. My current development box is 4-5 years old. Dell P4, 3GHz, XP, limited to 2 GB RAM. And the HD is pretty small (<100 GB, IIRC - I'm not at home at the moment - in Chicago, actually), though it was huge at the time. Been a very solid workhorse but (like me) is slowing down. I think part of the problem is that I have more stuff open than I used to so there's some swapping going on. I could dump the HD, reformat and reload I suppose. My 14 y.o. wants a more powerful box, too and needs better graphics than he has. So I told him with the right GPA at the end of the year I'll get him a new box, too. All we need are the boxes, BTW - got plenty displays and external HD. I need speed, not a lot of graphics, and no need for huge HD storage. Any new box will have a big enough HD for me. But the new crop of multi-core processors is unfamiliar to me. We'll probably take a field trip to Fry's but if Dell has a good price I usually order from them and have it delivered. What would you advise? TIA ROcky -- AccessD mailing list AccessD at databaseadvisors.com http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/accessd Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com