[dba-Tech] Desktop recommendation

Don't touch Celeron with a bargepole... A Celeron is basically a Pentium 3
or 4 with no onboard memory, this makes them VERY slow compared to the
appropriate Pentium equivalent. No amount of memory on the motherboard will
make up for this, and it'll feel sluggish a long time before you get round
to wanting to replace it. The same goes for the 533 fsb... I know not
everyone can afford the latest fastest things, but you really do notice the
difference between 800 and 533. I'd also recommend a bare minimum of 512mb
RAM, if not 1gb. Also, on these (I hesitate to use the word cheaper, but I
can't think of a good alternative, less costlier maybe) pc's, they tend not
to use the fastest hard drives etc... I have a HP thing on my desk here,
with a 40gb Maxtor drive in it. I put in an extra 80gb drive, that's maybe 2
years old, and I've since installed HD Tune, and the two year old drive
beats the pants off the brand new one for performance and features.

Spend a little more than the bottom of the range and you'll notice the
difference, or get someone who knows that they're doing to build it for you
is my advice.


Jon

-----Original Message-----
From: Joseph O'Connell [mailto:joconnell at indy.rr.com]
Sent: 19 October 2004 14:45
To: Discussion of Hardware and Software issues
Subject: [dba-Tech] Desktop recommendation


I am looking for hardware suggestions and comments.

My primary development PC just lost its hard drive.  The boot sector is bad
so I cannot reformat it.  The PC is about 4 years old, so instead of
replacing the hard drive, I started lookin for "deals" on new computers.

Office Depot has an emachine for $370 that includes:
Celeron D Processor 330 (2.66GHz)
256MB DDR PC2700 memory
60 GB hard drive
DVD-ROM/CD-RW
8-in-1 memory card reader
17" flat screen monitor

For $100 the system can be upgraded to include
Celeron D340 Processor (2.93GHz)
512 MB memory
DVD-ROM and CD-RW

>From the Intel web site, I learned that the processor includes 256KB L2
cache and 533 MHz Front Side Bus.

Although this is not the fastest computer, it is quite a step up from the HP
Pavillion 733GHz Pentium that it will be replacing.

Does anyone have experience with emachine?  What is the difference between
Celeron and Pentium processors?  This seems like a terrific deal, am I
missing something?

The operating system is Windows XP Home.  I will replace it with Windows
2003 Terminal Server.  Any suggestions on how to configure the hard drive?
Multiple partitions?  If yes, what should each contain?

All suggestions/comments/ideas are greatly appreciated.

Joe O'Connell




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