PC Upgrade - A few questions

[nosh]

Here you go, tslim --> http://www.gigabyte.....aspx?ProductID=2749
I'm sure you'll find others coz I know I saw a few when I was looking into mobos.

Am working from the new machine -
Went for 4 GB RAM, after all & an ATI Radeon 4850, another Lashiec recommendation! 

I still have to play with the BIOS but the speed difference is pretty obvious - Firefox 2, which has tempted me on more than one occasion to put my fist through the display, takes 4 seconds to start. 

I restored the last (Acronis) image from the old system and miracle of miracles, XP started without a hitch, literally saving me weeks of grunt work - I was expecting to have to run a 'repair' at the very least coz of the mobo/CPU change, but the computer gods must be in a good mood!

[cranioscopical]

I restored the last (Acronis) image from the old system and miracle of miracles, XP started without a hitch

-nosh

Holy mackerel!
I'd have liked a serving of that a few weeks back 

[Lashiec]

I restored the last (Acronis) image from the old system and miracle of miracles, XP started without a hitch, literally saving me weeks of grunt work - I was expecting to have to run a 'repair' at the very least coz of the mobo/CPU change, but the computer gods must be in a good mood!

-nosh (August 28, 2008, 11:56 AM)

Wow, that's quite an unexpected event. A first I dare to say :)

BTW, talking about the 4 GB purchase, are you using or planning to use a 64-bit OS?

[Darwin]

BTW, talking about the 4 GB purchase, are you using or planning to use a 64-bit OS?

-Lashiec (August 28, 2008, 07:33 PM)

I was wondering the same thing...

[nosh]

Nope, I'm on 32bit - no plans on making the shift to 64 either. I was aware of the 3.x GB limit, FWIW, if that's why you're asking.

A first I dare to say

Maybe coz I prayed so damn hard? 


Forgot to mention this before:
WTF moment of the day: Gigabyte offering to install the Yahoo! Toolbar along with its chipset drivers. 

[Darwin]

Four GB of DDR2 RAM is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO cheap for a notebook at the moment, I'm seriously tempted to buy 2 2GB sticks for my Vista notebook, just to get the extra little kick that it would (more like "might") provide... but beyond saying that I've got 4GB vs the 3GB already installed, I'm not sure what benefit I'd see? ExtremeTech did a bit on RAM recently, which made for interesting reading: http://www.extremete...,2845,2328804,00.asp

It's got me Jonesing for more RAM... and in a position to afford it, too!

[rabbitcatcher]

I'm going for a dual core CPU coz they have the highest GHz per core and I've read time and again right here on DC that most current apps just aren't designed to make use of multiple processors - the price differential between duo and quad is not that much, CPU power is the _last thing_ I'd compromise on esp. since it's been the biggest bottleneck on my system for years.

-nosh (August 26, 2008, 04:49 PM)

A question I have, as I plan to get a new computer prior to the end of the year; I think I read somewhere that applications can be set to use one of the (dual or quad) CPU's and that would improve the performance of a particular application. Any truth to that or can anyone link me to an article about that.
Also, does the application specifically need to be built to make use of that, or is it just a "setting" thing?

Thanks