My current PC is a home-built Celeron 566 overclocked to 850 MHz in a micro-ATX case with 384 MB RAM. I use it primarily for playing media (DVDs, DivX, MP3s) and storing pictures, with occasional Office app use. The only times I find myself waiting for it to finish anything are while it encodes MP3s (~30 min/CD?) or DivX movies (~12 hr) - everything else seems to respond plenty quickly.
I hope to make my next PC smaller, more power efficient, and quieter. Perusing the forums, it seems that the root cause of most PC noise is heat. So, it makes sense to me to buy the parts that generate the least amount of heat while being able to do everything I need them to do. VIA EPIA mini-ITX boards have seemed an obvious choice.
But few of you here seem to think them worth the sacrifice in performance. Why is that? What do you use your computer for that a 1 GHz Nehemiah couldn't do? I know the benchmarks are way lower, and that offends performance freaks, but I'm surprised that you silence freaks aren't more into these little EPIAs.
Someone enlighten me?
Unnecessarily powerful PCs an obstacle to silence
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peteamer
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We're not freaks... We're the enlightened minority 
I 'need' my Ghz for folding.
I 'needed' an XP2400+ because my Father had an Athlon 1.4Ghz.
You can have power and quiet. Maybe not quite silent but close enough for most of us.
I 'need' an upgrade because I haven't done one recently.
Everything is stable and sorted, so I need a new project.
Half the enjoyment is the overcoming problems.
More power and more heat requires more ingenuity and fettling.
Lots of us are born to tinker, just to get a little more 'whatever'.
It keeps us off the streets.
Perhaps not the answer/s you were looking for/expected... but honest.
It's not an addiction, it's an itch that needs scratching.
Pete
I 'need' my Ghz for folding.
I 'needed' an XP2400+ because my Father had an Athlon 1.4Ghz.
You can have power and quiet. Maybe not quite silent but close enough for most of us.
I 'need' an upgrade because I haven't done one recently.
Everything is stable and sorted, so I need a new project.
Half the enjoyment is the overcoming problems.
More power and more heat requires more ingenuity and fettling.
Lots of us are born to tinker, just to get a little more 'whatever'.
It keeps us off the streets.
Perhaps not the answer/s you were looking for/expected... but honest.
It's not an addiction, it's an itch that needs scratching.
Pete
When I used the word 'freaks', I meant it in the most endearing way possible. After all, I'm one too. I love to tinker for that little bit extra. I feel that itch. But my priorities are different, so I go for a different set of features/specs.
Thanks for the honest response. I'd love to hear anyone else's thoughts.
Thanks for the honest response. I'd love to hear anyone else's thoughts.
Actually Linus, you're ahead of the curve.
But it's a curve that more and more people are getting on to. At some point, for 99% of the PC users in the world, more Ghz isn't a useful upgrade. As the Ghz of even the slowest new processor climbs, fewer people need to upgrade.
An example: Going from a 233 to a 350 was a huge upgrade in terms of performance. Lightyears ahead. Going from a 2.6 to 3.0 Ghz.... barely even noticable. The price for each of the two upgrades: almost exactly the same.
The industry as a whole is reaching the MHz Saturation Point. Hence the gradual slowdown in CPU sales. Until we find new uses for the CPU's (video editing, widespread 3D usage, MS' Longhorn ) there will be less and less reason to upgrade.
Some people will always want to be on the bleeding edge, for a variety of reasons. For some the performance is useful (3D rendering, photoshop, video editing, etc), for some it's entertainment (Gaming), and for some its simple vanity (Benchmark scores, OC'ing results, F@H standings, etc). PC's are the muscle cars of the new millenium.
The big hurdle to noticable PC performance improvement is now largely the HDD, and often the internet connection. (My parents kept hinting at an upgrade for their Duron 800, until they got a a cable modem)
As a group, we're ahead of the general enthusiast market, way ahead in fact. (By comparison, OCA is somewhere in the Late Bronze Age)
My last CPU upgrade wasn't even for speed, it was for silence. Went from a T-bred B 2100 to a Barton-M 2500. Only a 100Mhz increase in speed, but a world of different in performance, noise-wise.
But it's a curve that more and more people are getting on to. At some point, for 99% of the PC users in the world, more Ghz isn't a useful upgrade. As the Ghz of even the slowest new processor climbs, fewer people need to upgrade.
An example: Going from a 233 to a 350 was a huge upgrade in terms of performance. Lightyears ahead. Going from a 2.6 to 3.0 Ghz.... barely even noticable. The price for each of the two upgrades: almost exactly the same.
The industry as a whole is reaching the MHz Saturation Point. Hence the gradual slowdown in CPU sales. Until we find new uses for the CPU's (video editing, widespread 3D usage, MS' Longhorn
) there will be less and less reason to upgrade.Some people will always want to be on the bleeding edge, for a variety of reasons. For some the performance is useful (3D rendering, photoshop, video editing, etc), for some it's entertainment (Gaming), and for some its simple vanity (Benchmark scores, OC'ing results, F@H standings, etc). PC's are the muscle cars of the new millenium.
The big hurdle to noticable PC performance improvement is now largely the HDD, and often the internet connection. (My parents kept hinting at an upgrade for their Duron 800, until they got a a cable modem)
As a group, we're ahead of the general enthusiast market, way ahead in fact. (By comparison, OCA is somewhere in the Late Bronze Age)
My last CPU upgrade wasn't even for speed, it was for silence. Went from a T-bred B 2100 to a Barton-M 2500. Only a 100Mhz increase in speed, but a world of different in performance, noise-wise.
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Inexplicable
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Silencing is not very different from overclocking, when you come right down to it. The challenge is in pushing the edge. Some people go further than others (and spend more money doing it). My approach is fairly pragmatic. I overclocked my P4 2.4c to 3.24 Ghz and used the money I "saved" on a nice quiet case and some silent components. The result is something that runs with a pleasant whisper and is as fast as anything in the shop for the same price.
Some people actually use them for WORK. Performing computational mechanics for my research, I can use every scrap of speed I can find. Short of being able to afford an Itanium2, I'm building a pair of P4 2.8Cs... and expect to see the 30% improvement over my P4 2.26B (when you measure computational time in DAYS, 30% is a lot). Of course, if my university would supply the necessary computational resources, that would be different.
But I agree with you for general use. I only have one desktop currently with a monitor hooked to it--a Tualatin Celeron 1.3GHz. And it performs all the visualization I need for my actual "work"--which is on headless Linux stations that I boot using the LAN.
Most of the actual "power" users I see are gamers. A few select people are doing numerical analyses... and I see some A/V freaks who encode 24/7. But MOST people would be VERY satisfied with a Pentium-M based computer that's passively cooled.
But I agree with you for general use. I only have one desktop currently with a monitor hooked to it--a Tualatin Celeron 1.3GHz. And it performs all the visualization I need for my actual "work"--which is on headless Linux stations that I boot using the LAN.
Most of the actual "power" users I see are gamers. A few select people are doing numerical analyses... and I see some A/V freaks who encode 24/7. But MOST people would be VERY satisfied with a Pentium-M based computer that's passively cooled.
At the moment I'm having an argument with myself over upgrading to an Athlon 64 2800+ from my current XP 2500+. I tell myself that the XP draws too much power at idle, pushing the PSU fan and making the system noiser than I would like. I also think of the performance benefits in Flight Simulator. But the underlying truth is that I have the "itch" you mention, because if there were no such thing as an Athlon 64, I'd probably be perfectly happy with what I have. And whenever I consider this kind of upgrade, I tell myself this will be the "last scratch" for a couple of years, but a few months later there's always something new that makes my existing hardware look sub-optimal.peteamer wrote:It's not an addiction, it's an itch that needs scratching.
I would feel completely unashamed about it except for the fact that it has financial and environmental consequences. I usually try to rationalise my way around this by pointing to the fact that I sell my old stuff on eBay, so from a financial perspective I'm getting my money back and from an environmental one I'm "recycling" the product by passing it along for use by someone else. But really, in the mad upgrade cycle I'm losing money and driving the demand for new products (which end up in landfill regardless of whether someone else uses it after me). In these two areas, computers are an especially mean and nasty hobby. At least compared to, say, chess. Or most sports.
And I'm never happy. I always need my "fix" every few months. When I think about it, it's quite astounding how much time I spend researching new products, deciding exactly what my next fix will be. Mid last year I purchased a fanless EPIA ME6000 with the idea that I'd commit to ultra quiet/efficient computing and yank myself out of the upgrade cycle once and for all. I could tell you how wonderful the silence was, how it didn't stunt my efficiency in everyday tasks (despite being a downgrade from an Athlon 1800+), and how my hiatus from playing games wasn't all that bad. But the point really is that, despite those things, I had a new system a few months later that was more powerful than ever. My ME6000 was really just another toy that had lost its novelty value.
I think Linus's question is the same one Bud Fox asked in the movie Wall Street: "How much is enough, Gordon?" He had no answer.
Unfortunately, the only answer for people like me is to remove sites like SPCR from our bookmarks, or have an "Upgrade Addicts Anonymous" section of the forum where we can encourage each other by being a bit less enthusiastic about the new toys that are coming out all the time. Those of us who want to quit need people like Linus to set the example.
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MikeC
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Nice answers from just about everyone so far!
As for me, I guess hardware reviewing and keeping SPCR uptodate has become close to a full time job. That's the only REAL justification I have to seek out any faster PC gear.
If I was still doing as much desktop publshing (for print and PDF) as I used to or cranking out as many tech manuals, then I could justify an occasional upgrade. But the truth is that my last really dramatic and needed CPU upgrade happened years ago -- going from a PII-400 to a P3-550 that I oc'd to 800. That P3 / Matrox VGA system would probably still be good enough today with enough RAM. It's still chugging along in a nice home elsewhere -- and is about the quietest PC I ever built: Its only fan is a Panaflo 80L @ ~4.5V in the PSU and there is a single suspended Barracuda IV-40G.
But silencing top speed components and keeping them cool enough can certainly be mesmerizing, as aborbing as repeatedly playing different scenarios of a tough PC game you think you've mastered. For people who hang out at PC hardware sites, there's little question of some addictive behavior... or true fascination.
As for me, I guess hardware reviewing and keeping SPCR uptodate has become close to a full time job. That's the only REAL justification I have to seek out any faster PC gear.
If I was still doing as much desktop publshing (for print and PDF) as I used to or cranking out as many tech manuals, then I could justify an occasional upgrade. But the truth is that my last really dramatic and needed CPU upgrade happened years ago -- going from a PII-400 to a P3-550 that I oc'd to 800. That P3 / Matrox VGA system would probably still be good enough today with enough RAM. It's still chugging along in a nice home elsewhere -- and is about the quietest PC I ever built: Its only fan is a Panaflo 80L @ ~4.5V in the PSU and there is a single suspended Barracuda IV-40G.
But silencing top speed components and keeping them cool enough can certainly be mesmerizing, as aborbing as repeatedly playing different scenarios of a tough PC game you think you've mastered. For people who hang out at PC hardware sites, there's little question of some addictive behavior... or true fascination.
Last edited by MikeC on Wed Jun 02, 2004 3:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Yep - especially if you SUCCEED .
Such as my "quiet" 3.4 GHz Prescott project is nearing very successful completion ...
. All thanks to SPCR .
Now, the only "worry" factor is the graphics card, but "as is", the system is a fluff load quieter than my P3 rig (which isn't silence-driven, it's still a major acheivement, considering the hardware I'd thrown into it).
.Such as my "quiet" 3.4 GHz Prescott project is nearing very successful completion ...
. All thanks to SPCR .Now, the only "worry" factor is the graphics card, but "as is", the system is a fluff load quieter than my P3 rig (which isn't silence-driven, it's still a major acheivement, considering the hardware I'd thrown into it)
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Bluefront
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There's at least one advantage to having a hot, powerful CPU. It gives you something challenging to experiment with, and if you are successful in quieting a hot CPU/computer, you can apply everything you've learned to a normal (cooler) setup.....with the knowledge in hand to build a really quiet computer.
Imagine if all your quieting experience was gained using a C3 600mhz.....mostly useless info that probably won't play out well with a "normal" CPU.
Heh...quiet that Prescott and no challenge is too great.
Imagine if all your quieting experience was gained using a C3 600mhz.....mostly useless info that probably won't play out well with a "normal" CPU.
Heh...quiet that Prescott and no challenge is too great.
For a complete change of pace, I'm going to disagree with my own previous post.
Sorta.
At home, I agree completely with what Bluefront and Mike, et al had to say. This is a hobby. And as such, it's actually a fairly mild one. It's safer than skydiving, cheaper than restoring an old car.
And with that additude, it's never hard to justify an upgrade.
My earlier post was more of a comment on "the rest of them" The non-hobbiest user, for whom the benefits of upgrades are dwindling.
Interestingly enough, I wrote that post while at work. And the hobbiest theory seems more appropriate while I'm here at home, surrounded by the wreckage of dozens of mods gone wrong.
Speaking of work and upgrades; just upgraded from a 1.6 to a 3.0Ghz machine at work. The result? I still waste just as much time surfing the forums.
Sorta.
At home, I agree completely with what Bluefront and Mike, et al had to say. This is a hobby. And as such, it's actually a fairly mild one. It's safer than skydiving, cheaper than restoring an old car.
And with that additude, it's never hard to justify an upgrade.My earlier post was more of a comment on "the rest of them" The non-hobbiest user, for whom the benefits of upgrades are dwindling.
Interestingly enough, I wrote that post while at work. And the hobbiest theory seems more appropriate while I'm here at home, surrounded by the wreckage of dozens of mods gone wrong.
Speaking of work and upgrades; just upgraded from a 1.6 to a 3.0Ghz machine at work. The result? I still waste just as much time surfing the forums.
Quiet and Powerful.
I just wanted to comment a moment about this community being ahead of the curve: I read quite a few different forums, overclockersclub, hardocp, procooling, overclockers.com.au, arstechnica, pimprig, and occassionally check in over at anandtech and slashdot. Of all those places, I think this one is slowly becomming my favorite.
Most of the discussions here are on a completely different level (especially when compared to any place with the word overclocker in the title). People here aren't 14 year olds looking for the brightest blinking 12000 rpm jet engine shaped cpu heatsink/fan. People here seem to have more wisdom.
I do feel a bit of resentment toward SPCR though, since I've been reading here, everyone's computers (especially my own) seem to have gotten two or three times as loud! I never noticed.
But, to answer the original question--I need the most powerful computer I can get because I'd rather drive a Porshe. Of course, I can't afford one, but I can afford a bleeding edge chip, purely for vanity, purely just to enjoy owning. Now--and mostly due to this forum--power isn't good enough--it has to be quiet too. This is my luxury.
Most of the discussions here are on a completely different level (especially when compared to any place with the word overclocker in the title). People here aren't 14 year olds looking for the brightest blinking 12000 rpm jet engine shaped cpu heatsink/fan. People here seem to have more wisdom.
I do feel a bit of resentment toward SPCR though, since I've been reading here, everyone's computers (especially my own) seem to have gotten two or three times as loud! I never noticed.
But, to answer the original question--I need the most powerful computer I can get because I'd rather drive a Porshe. Of course, I can't afford one, but I can afford a bleeding edge chip, purely for vanity, purely just to enjoy owning. Now--and mostly due to this forum--power isn't good enough--it has to be quiet too. This is my luxury.
I think one key aspect to CPU power needs is the number of PCs you have. If you have only(!) one, then it has to handle everything right up to video encoding and those latest games. If you're fortunate enough to be able to get more than one, then it can make sense to match the CPU power to specific tasks. If you're just going to do e-mail and browse forums from one PC, then you don't need more than a PII for that one, but it's difficult to buy a lower-end CPU unless you go the VIA route or Transmeta.
See this sort of related thread. I'm looking for a quiet and (relatively) slow notebook, which you'd think would be easy, but it isn't. I'm likely to end up buying a 1.5GHz Pentium M to replace a 266 MHz PII which does the job perfectly adequately! It's pretty hard to buy a new mainstream laptop which is much slower than this.
(And on behalf of haysdb, I feel compelled to ask: if any of you have a 2.8GHz P4 sitting in a machine not doing too much, why isn't it folding for Team SPCR?!)
See this sort of related thread. I'm looking for a quiet and (relatively) slow notebook, which you'd think would be easy, but it isn't. I'm likely to end up buying a 1.5GHz Pentium M to replace a 266 MHz PII which does the job perfectly adequately! It's pretty hard to buy a new mainstream laptop which is much slower than this.
(And on behalf of haysdb, I feel compelled to ask: if any of you have a 2.8GHz P4 sitting in a machine not doing too much, why isn't it folding for Team SPCR?!)
The past 6 months has seen me upgrade for Folding points... I was doing okay with my XP2400+ and SDRAM, but that Barton XP2500+ which is now at 2255MHz grabs me more points. Along with the other PCs I have running...
Yep, I run, and regularly USE 5 PCs. Well, 6 if you count the HTPC that I built for my fiancee. I have a server which doesn't have much grunt with a PIII@700. Then a computer user needs a system to do stuff with. Watch TV, surf the web, etc. That's my Barton - overspecced, probably, but it folds 24/7, and does run fairly quiet, but also hot! Oh, and because I want to eventually get rid of M$ software from my everyday dektop (well, at home, doubt where I work will drop M$), I built a GNU/Linux desktop box as well. There are some things I do in windows, some things I do in Linux. Slowly I find the right apps and get used to the different software after years of using the same windoze app I've always used and know indside out.
Then as a musican I run a couple of DAWs (Digital Audio Workstations). The puny Duron 800 is a soft sampler and hosts an ISA card I can't stop using. My main sequencer machine is a P4, not the latest and greatest, but ti does me fine. And since I've got a DV camcorder, I try to edit videos on it too. Unfortunatly its my multimedia computing which seems destined to carry on using M$ long after my dektop has swictched to Open Source. I don't have a laptop, but I'd like one. It could replace a dektop PC, but I don't know. I can't convince myself I'd use it enough outside of home to warrant paying for one.
One reason to run more PCs is that upgrades to your fastest trickle down to the others. My PIII runs on a board that I got new in late 1998. My Duron DAW from 2000, etc... I keep the good stuff in use!
And with 5 PCs are my eardrums bonbarded by noise as I try to sleep? Nope, I can hear them (well, not the slower ones), but its the heat that makes me turn them off. From SPCR I've learned a lot about reducing the noise of my PCs. Before I attacked my fathers Celeron 667 (in his old Dell case) it seemed louder than all my PCs put together. Now its quiet like mine, all for a Fortron 250W PSU, Zalman flower, fan and a couple of fanmates... I need to suspend his IBM hard drive, but then he might not hear if the PC is on!
We are ahead of the curve. People upgrading from a 5 year old PC dont realise they don't have to live with the extra noise. We like playing with PCs, and know they can be quieter. We are pooling this collective knowledge for the good of the community and all benefitting as a result. It is a hobby, but there is money to be made by selling quiet systems or products. Companies like Zalman wouldn't be around if we didn't want thier stuff...
Yep, I run, and regularly USE 5 PCs. Well, 6 if you count the HTPC that I built for my fiancee. I have a server which doesn't have much grunt with a PIII@700. Then a computer user needs a system to do stuff with. Watch TV, surf the web, etc. That's my Barton - overspecced, probably, but it folds 24/7, and does run fairly quiet, but also hot! Oh, and because I want to eventually get rid of M$ software from my everyday dektop (well, at home, doubt where I work will drop M$), I built a GNU/Linux desktop box as well. There are some things I do in windows, some things I do in Linux. Slowly I find the right apps and get used to the different software after years of using the same windoze app I've always used and know indside out.
Then as a musican I run a couple of DAWs (Digital Audio Workstations). The puny Duron 800 is a soft sampler and hosts an ISA card I can't stop using. My main sequencer machine is a P4, not the latest and greatest, but ti does me fine. And since I've got a DV camcorder, I try to edit videos on it too. Unfortunatly its my multimedia computing which seems destined to carry on using M$ long after my dektop has swictched to Open Source. I don't have a laptop, but I'd like one. It could replace a dektop PC, but I don't know. I can't convince myself I'd use it enough outside of home to warrant paying for one.
One reason to run more PCs is that upgrades to your fastest trickle down to the others. My PIII runs on a board that I got new in late 1998. My Duron DAW from 2000, etc... I keep the good stuff in use!
And with 5 PCs are my eardrums bonbarded by noise as I try to sleep? Nope, I can hear them (well, not the slower ones), but its the heat that makes me turn them off. From SPCR I've learned a lot about reducing the noise of my PCs. Before I attacked my fathers Celeron 667 (in his old Dell case) it seemed louder than all my PCs put together. Now its quiet like mine, all for a Fortron 250W PSU, Zalman flower, fan and a couple of fanmates... I need to suspend his IBM hard drive, but then he might not hear if the PC is on!
We are ahead of the curve. People upgrading from a 5 year old PC dont realise they don't have to live with the extra noise. We like playing with PCs, and know they can be quieter. We are pooling this collective knowledge for the good of the community and all benefitting as a result. It is a hobby, but there is money to be made by selling quiet systems or products. Companies like Zalman wouldn't be around if we didn't want thier stuff...
You all have turned this into a fascinating thread...thanks for all the responses!
I certainly understand all the things that have been mentioned - the "muscle car" effect, the itch to tinker, the challenge of putting together a machine that's both quiet and powerful. When I was in college, I had several different computers stuffed into a tiny dorm room, and I overclocked, modded for cooling, and all that. Then I moved out to the middle of nowhere, and computers became less of a priority. EXCEPT, that is, at work, where I do GIS, and every speed advantage helps.
So I guess my next home PC will be an EPIA.
I certainly understand all the things that have been mentioned - the "muscle car" effect, the itch to tinker, the challenge of putting together a machine that's both quiet and powerful. When I was in college, I had several different computers stuffed into a tiny dorm room, and I overclocked, modded for cooling, and all that. Then I moved out to the middle of nowhere, and computers became less of a priority. EXCEPT, that is, at work, where I do GIS, and every speed advantage helps.
So I guess my next home PC will be an EPIA.
This site has every which kind of silence-oriented PC hobbyist. I for one can't fathom buying something expensive and under-clocking or under-volting it. I also value stability a great deal so overclocking is just not appealing. I have to say though that ripping MP3s in 5 minutes is a lot better than 30 minutes and it makes a huge difference in productivity. I recently ripped over 400 CDs and if each had taken 30 minutes I'd still be at it. So I suggest you consider a reasonable upgrade and take it as a challenge to quiet it. You'll have fun and ripping MP3s will be much quicker.
I did SETI@home while I was in college and my computer was on 24/7, so I can understand the desire to get that extra little bit of speed. Now that my computer isn't on all the time, though, there isn't much point.
Really, I'm more concerned about power consumption. I hope to run my computer off a solar-panel-charged battery in preparation for eventually having an off-the-grid home. That, and because every little bit of energy savings helps.
Different strokes for different folks, I guess.
Really, I'm more concerned about power consumption. I hope to run my computer off a solar-panel-charged battery in preparation for eventually having an off-the-grid home. That, and because every little bit of energy savings helps.
Different strokes for different folks, I guess.
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MikeC
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Funny you should mention that.Linus wrote:Really, I'm more concerned about power consumption. I hope to run my computer off a solar-panel-charged battery in preparation for eventually having an off-the-grid home. That, and because every little bit of energy savings helps.
I've been exploring alternative electricity generation and everything I have learned points to Wind Power as the most practical and efficient way to generate electricity. It's an exhaustible supply, there are NO side effects or pollution. Unless you had a huge farm of windmills, the worst you'd have is a bit of extra turbulence noise when the wind is blowing hard. But then you could also have a limiter or lock down the blades.
I would love to get my home off the grid -- and maybe sell excess back to BCHydro. (But don't think that's an option right now.)
I have friends in the country who are alternative energy pioneers -- because they are not on the grid and they have no choice. I've been talking with them to start up a company... Certainly a web site would be in the works.
Anyway, where are you?
Nate, no offence taken. My viewpoint is I have this powerful CPU sitting around not doing anything most of the time. If it can do something useful, why not? Yes, there's the added electricity cost, but for me it's not a huge factor. And perhaps in the long run it shortens the PC's lifespan - but I'll probably upgrade before the PC falls over anyway. I already have the hardware, the software is easy to set up, and it runs unobtrusively in the background. And if the folding interferes with anything (it shouldn't, since it runs at a low priority), I can always turn it off.Nate wrote:Why folding? It seems that is a lot cash worth of hardware, electricity, and time. Whats the point? No offense meant, I'm just curious.
Decreasing power consumption is always the smartest way. It kills me how conventional economics equates growth with raw consumption of materials and energy. Using less means having more. If I can run a powerful enough computer for less power, that power can do other things.
We just moved to a new apartment and it has a really old fridge. The kind that has no seperate freezer compartment. When the compressor kicks in (which it does often) the otherwise quiet semirural peace we enjoy disappears completly. In almost all appliances, the newer, more efficent models are far more silent. Much as I love SPCR, I can't help but wonder what will become of it.
Computers are becoming appliances. Intel just found out that the days of selling hotrod chips are over. I honestly don't think they were thick enough not to see it coming. It was the speed of the transition that caught them off guard. Perhaps they were betting on some killer app that even regular folks couldn't do without to give them another cycle at the fat years of selling overpowered overpriced CPU's.
Mike - it's terrible the way BC Hydro has a near monopoly in this province. The coming election my vote goes to the one who promises to deregulate wind generation down to the smallest level. Net metering has to become the way of the future. Distributed generation makes sense for distributed consumption. Look at all the recent electrical problems on the east coast and California. With investment in transmission running far behind growth in consumption it makes even more sense.
We just moved to a new apartment and it has a really old fridge. The kind that has no seperate freezer compartment. When the compressor kicks in (which it does often) the otherwise quiet semirural peace we enjoy disappears completly. In almost all appliances, the newer, more efficent models are far more silent. Much as I love SPCR, I can't help but wonder what will become of it.
Computers are becoming appliances. Intel just found out that the days of selling hotrod chips are over. I honestly don't think they were thick enough not to see it coming. It was the speed of the transition that caught them off guard. Perhaps they were betting on some killer app that even regular folks couldn't do without to give them another cycle at the fat years of selling overpowered overpriced CPU's.
Mike - it's terrible the way BC Hydro has a near monopoly in this province. The coming election my vote goes to the one who promises to deregulate wind generation down to the smallest level. Net metering has to become the way of the future. Distributed generation makes sense for distributed consumption. Look at all the recent electrical problems on the east coast and California. With investment in transmission running far behind growth in consumption it makes even more sense.
Last edited by mrzed on Thu Jun 03, 2004 6:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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MikeC
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Exactly why war and stock market speculation appear to be economically productive activities -- re GDP, etc. No VALUE placed on the circulation of $. Just as long as it is going round & round...It kills me how conventional economics equates growth with raw consumption of materials and energy. Using less means having more.
You might not like what happens after deregulation. I'm from an area in the north eastern US where natural gas was deregulated a few years ago and we're paying no less than double what we were before deregulation. The circumstances in your area may be different but there is good reason for regulation on energy. Everybody NEEDS it no matter how much it costs. Supply and demand left to itself doesn't work. Look at what happened to California and their electric after they deregulated.mrzed wrote:Mike - it's terrible the way BC Hydro has a near monopoly in this province. The coming election my vote goes to the one who promises to deregulate wind generation down to the smallest level.
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Nowhere_man
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Sly StoneDifferent strokes for different folks
Hobby, addiction, passion, need, lust, focal point, keeps me off the streets, cheaper than cars, need for speed, playing the best games, love of mechanical things, constant tweeking, constant problem solving........... good for the head.
All of the above apply.
Computers are the Best Toys
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SometimesWarrior
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Oh God, what a mess we had here... Whatever you do, don't do what we did.Copper wrote:Look at what happened to California and their electric after they deregulated.
Re: the original post, that's why I'm really pumped by the Cool n' Quiet technology on the Athlon 64. It's great that you no longer have to choose between the low temperature and power consumption of an old PIII or the raw power of the latest and greatest CPU. I mean, you still have to choose, but you can change your mind as many times as you want, once you've bought the A64 chip.
It's too bad they don't make cars with Cool n' Quiet. So many people buy huge SUVs so they can tow their campers to the mountains once a year...
