rdf said:
I got a "buisness-line" laptop, and it had nothing on it.
Even then, any geek will tell you that it's standard operating procedure to wipe the hard drive on a new laptop, and to reinstall everything from scratch, but without the adware.
Also, one must remember that things change. HP/Compaq now purchases their laptops through OEMs, much like Dell and Alienware. It's really an issue of the individual laptop. Their tech support is also very, very good; I can testify from personal experience.
Sorry, didn't mean to discount what you wrote if it came off that way. No offense intended. Compaq is a tender subject. 
I don't have experience with the business models other than the desktops at work, all of which are formatted and Ghosted with the company image before ever seeing a user.
Gentoo doesn't count as geek? An IDE soft-RAID mirror running the distro also sits next to my daily desktop and at least two other operational computers are scattered around here somewhere, discounting the dead Compaq.
A clean OS reload wasn't an option, this one shiped with an all-in-one restore disk. As far as I know it's still typical practice for consumer machines. Clean XP would have been an extra ~$2-300 added to the initial purchase.
You could be right on the company changes, my experience was one and two years ago and Carla's off to wreak destruction elsewhere. However in all the industry notebook surveys I've researched for my next purchase Compaq/HP continue to trail at the bottom in terms of post-sales satisfaction. 1800 times bitten, forever shy. For me the competition is just too brisk and choices too plentiful to be gambling another couple thousand after such a poor experience.
AMD-64's are still great though!
I don't have experience with the business models other than the desktops at work, all of which are formatted and Ghosted with the company image before ever seeing a user.Gentoo doesn't count as geek? An IDE soft-RAID mirror running the distro also sits next to my daily desktop and at least two other operational computers are scattered around here somewhere, discounting the dead Compaq.
A clean OS reload wasn't an option, this one shiped with an all-in-one restore disk. As far as I know it's still typical practice for consumer machines. Clean XP would have been an extra ~$2-300 added to the initial purchase. You could be right on the company changes, my experience was one and two years ago and Carla's off to wreak destruction elsewhere. However in all the industry notebook surveys I've researched for my next purchase Compaq/HP continue to trail at the bottom in terms of post-sales satisfaction. 1800 times bitten, forever shy. For me the competition is just too brisk and choices too plentiful to be gambling another couple thousand after such a poor experience.
AMD-64's are still great though!
Banned
Joined 2002
Actuallly i have to admit. I did pick out a nice system from a company i deal with..
The system i picked out was
Intel D955XBKLKR Intel Socket 775 ATX Motherboard and an Intel Pentium D 840 3.20GHz Processor with Fan
1 gig 2 x 512mb ddr 533 memory
74gig raptor drive 15k RPM
Dual sli video card's
antec case with 500watt psu
plextor 16x burner dual layer
2 x 19" acer lcd's
Few more gooides but this was all about 2400$ for a decent pc..
Yes yes it's intel so it is way more money but im a intel fan amd has been good but i stick to intel because of what has happened in past..
P4 2.0 gig with ram and main borad from intel + satisfied customer for life
J'
The system i picked out was
Intel D955XBKLKR Intel Socket 775 ATX Motherboard and an Intel Pentium D 840 3.20GHz Processor with Fan
1 gig 2 x 512mb ddr 533 memory
74gig raptor drive 15k RPM
Dual sli video card's
antec case with 500watt psu
plextor 16x burner dual layer
2 x 19" acer lcd's
Few more gooides but this was all about 2400$ for a decent pc..
Yes yes it's intel so it is way more money but im a intel fan amd has been good but i stick to intel because of what has happened in past..
P4 2.0 gig with ram and main borad from intel + satisfied customer for life
J'
New Egg has been a good source for me too. ZipZoomFly has also been good.
A nice point between self-assembled and standard models is JNCS from whom I have bought several computers. They carry good items, assemble the machine you specify or supply a suggested configuration, burn in, and have good tech support. Price is very good.
Several companies include a lot of unasked for software, demos, trials, etc. etc. Dell has recently been found to run poorly until the added stuff is subtracted.
A nice point between self-assembled and standard models is JNCS from whom I have bought several computers. They carry good items, assemble the machine you specify or supply a suggested configuration, burn in, and have good tech support. Price is very good.
Several companies include a lot of unasked for software, demos, trials, etc. etc. Dell has recently been found to run poorly until the added stuff is subtracted.
Wow, this is a big one!
First off if you're in audio production, be careful what system you buy. There are really bad latency issues with PCi-Express chipsets (as used by both P4 and AMD right now) and pro-audio soundcards.
The issue is caused by poor PCI implementation in PCI-Express chipsets, and nForce4 is the worst affected, Pentium 955X slightly less, and both seem to work better with low-power graphics cards for some reason. Anyway short story is to stay with AGP. You can read more about this issue on the RME website, as well as the SoundonSound forums.
Most people won't have a clue about this issue, but you should be aware before buying.
Then the question of what CPU.
The CPU is used when you're streaming tracks with effects on them, if you're not doing your submixes earlier. Obviously the more powerful the CPU, the higher your limits. A Sempron 3100 will do 10-12 simultaneous tracks without glitching (but at very high CPU usage, and you can forget real-time phase shifting if you need it), an X2 4400 can handle about three times that, plus two phase shifts.
Horses for courses. Obviously you have to work out what kind of a studio you're going for, then get the equipment according to that.
As for Pentium Vs. Athlon, it's basically up to you. the Intels run a lot hotter and require noisier cooling, but have a raw clockspeed advantage. The Athlons run cooler and generally perform better (assuming you're not having the issues with PCI-Express, which is just tragic as of now) but run at lower clockspeeds, ahich sometimes makes them a bit slower (for example, transcoding) at the same rating or pricepoint. The X2 4800 and FX60 will generally do whatever you want, but those cost too much money. An X2 4200 or 4600 is a good buy (the 4400 and 4800 basically are the same core with extra cache that will not help you too much), and will have enough horsepower to run a semi-professional project studio.
It's a misgiving that audio editing requires low power. It does not. I would run at 50% CPU running 8 tracks with 3-4 effects per track, and this was on an Athlon XP 2600+. With my new setup I'm not even trying, it's significantly slower (Sempron 2500/Socket 754). In the days of the sub-1 GHz CPUs, we would create submixes to get over the problems of low horsepower. Now effects are much more powerful, and very CPU-hungry. If you look at this http://www.adkproaudio.com/benchmarks.cfm you will see how you can crush some very expensive processors with some audio and effects. 4 Opteron cores are what is required to handle some of the tests at decent latencies (anything less than 128 is what I would consider good latency).
First off if you're in audio production, be careful what system you buy. There are really bad latency issues with PCi-Express chipsets (as used by both P4 and AMD right now) and pro-audio soundcards.
The issue is caused by poor PCI implementation in PCI-Express chipsets, and nForce4 is the worst affected, Pentium 955X slightly less, and both seem to work better with low-power graphics cards for some reason. Anyway short story is to stay with AGP. You can read more about this issue on the RME website, as well as the SoundonSound forums.
Most people won't have a clue about this issue, but you should be aware before buying.
Then the question of what CPU.
The CPU is used when you're streaming tracks with effects on them, if you're not doing your submixes earlier. Obviously the more powerful the CPU, the higher your limits. A Sempron 3100 will do 10-12 simultaneous tracks without glitching (but at very high CPU usage, and you can forget real-time phase shifting if you need it), an X2 4400 can handle about three times that, plus two phase shifts.
Horses for courses. Obviously you have to work out what kind of a studio you're going for, then get the equipment according to that.
As for Pentium Vs. Athlon, it's basically up to you. the Intels run a lot hotter and require noisier cooling, but have a raw clockspeed advantage. The Athlons run cooler and generally perform better (assuming you're not having the issues with PCI-Express, which is just tragic as of now) but run at lower clockspeeds, ahich sometimes makes them a bit slower (for example, transcoding) at the same rating or pricepoint. The X2 4800 and FX60 will generally do whatever you want, but those cost too much money. An X2 4200 or 4600 is a good buy (the 4400 and 4800 basically are the same core with extra cache that will not help you too much), and will have enough horsepower to run a semi-professional project studio.
It's a misgiving that audio editing requires low power. It does not. I would run at 50% CPU running 8 tracks with 3-4 effects per track, and this was on an Athlon XP 2600+. With my new setup I'm not even trying, it's significantly slower (Sempron 2500/Socket 754). In the days of the sub-1 GHz CPUs, we would create submixes to get over the problems of low horsepower. Now effects are much more powerful, and very CPU-hungry. If you look at this http://www.adkproaudio.com/benchmarks.cfm you will see how you can crush some very expensive processors with some audio and effects. 4 Opteron cores are what is required to handle some of the tests at decent latencies (anything less than 128 is what I would consider good latency).
sangram said:
Who knew? I'll have to take this into consideration. The Nforce4 seems to work just fine with massive video cards, though; I imagine that it's the PCI bus that's funky.
That said, you're looking to go for a Sempron anyway, yes? The VNF3-250 is a high-performance and cheap motherboard that's been popular for a long time. And it's Nforce3 based, so the chipset should work just fine.
That said, if you want a high-performing system, the dual-core 165 is the way to go. All you need to do is clock it at 2.2 ghz (not hard with a decent heatsink), and you have a 4400+ for 230$.
Also, you really ought to go for a good motherboard. Some are likely less noise-inducing than others; ASUS and DFI are known for quality and stability. Also, as long as you're spending the money, you could go for PCI-E cards, which don't seem to have this problem to the same degree.
Spasticteapot said:
It's the PCI-E to PCI bridge translator, there are some issues there.
NF3 works just fine and is the best chipset out there for audio, some good boards too for it but all of them have some or the other compromise unfortunately. The Via 800Pro chipset also does just as well, and so does the nForce4 professional but then you need 940-pin Opterons, not 939 or 754.
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