Time to Upgrade ?:-}

Win 8.1 can be made somewhat less awful by making it look like Win 7 using Classic Shell: That brings back the real start menu, ease of adding shortcut icons to the desktop, and explorer usability. I can totally ignore the page of wiggly icons that MS calls a start page.

Agreed. I haven't seen a bad Intel CPU in probably 15 years, while I've lost count of the dead or erratic AMD CPU's that have I've had to deal with. I would go with a 4th or 5th generation i7. The i7-4790k is about $330 and burns about 45 watts, while the i7-5960x is $1,000 and burns 140 watts. That should make the decision easy.

In general, an SSD is 3x to 5x faster than rotating memory for everything. I'm partial to Samsung 850 EVO and Pro. Most SSD drives have similar read speeds. However, the write speeds is what makes the difference. There are benchmark tests all over the internet. Don't overbuy on capacity as the prices of SSD drives are still dropping and you can probably do better if you wait until you need the space.

I had problems with a Crucial MX100 512MB. The drive was fine, but no matter what I tried, it would not boot in the designated HP i7 something machine, even with a fresh Win 8 install. However, it worked in another machine (Dell Inspiron 1725) so I kept it. Also, the write speed is slower than a Samsung 850 SSD.

I must be leading a charmed life. I've installed (cloned) about 25 assorted SSD drives in the last year. Lately, I'm doing 2 pre-emptive SSD upgrades per week and climbing. Zero failures or irate customers so far and no indications of impending doom.

However, I did have some problems with Samsung 840 series which was later fixed with a firmware update. I also had some problems with a user that did not properly shut down his desktop, preferring instead to just switch off the power. He was scrambling data on the SSD until I discovered the power problem. Demonstrating how to operate the power button (i.e. push once to shut down) solved that problem.

I don't have any great advice on what to buy. If you want reliability, buy two machines. If you want performance, buy the latest greatest. If you want to save money, buy last years model. If you want reparability, buy an off the shelf Dell workstation. If you want it all, give up now while you're still sane and solvent.

Most of my customer initially want the fastest speed and the latest features. After those fail, they ask for reliability and uptime. Try not to repeat this pattern and buy something that you know will work, not that has the latest acronyms and buzzwords attached.

--
Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com 
Skype: JeffLiebermann     AE6KS    831-336-2558

To give the illusion of progress and improvement. If they left the user interface the same, users will think it really is the same and refuse to pay for upgrades. Users will pay for new features and functions, but balk at paying for bug fixes and cleanup. So, any new upgrades that cost money must look and work different in order to sell.

Microsoft has apparently recognized the problem and will soon offer a solution. Instead of being a user, you will soon be a subscriber to the MS dollars for updates service. Instead of paying a lump sum for the OS with the machine, you will pay a regular service charge for the honor of using Windoze, much like Office 365. Updates will be "pushed" directly to your machine whenever MS feels the need and without your consent. The good news is that there will no longer be any need for MS to sell bug fixes and tweaks disguised as progress and improvements. It's therefore possible that the annoying user interface changes and "Dungeons and Dragons" program location moves may be at an end.

If you don't like the Win 8.1 user interface, I suggest you look at Classic Shell:

--
Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com 
Skype: JeffLiebermann     AE6KS    831-336-2558

I see nothing wrong with that setup. Be advised that SP4 has been available (was free when i got it ages ago, hopefully still available). M$ (on disc) sez "For Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional,Windows

2000 Server and Windows 2000 Advanced Server."

Guess you know i have been using Win2K since SP2 came out; still use i 90+ percent of time. I use Win7 only for the few sites that "improved" their "user experience", and note that not ONE THING has (visually) changed.

Another thing to experiment with is limiting the number of threads the simulation code is allowed to use. Mine generates more heat and less speed when allowed to use more than 6 threads in heavy computation. It goes IO bandwidth limited after that even with the faster ram :(

I have been with Samsung SSDs for a while but I'd still consider Crucial. My requirements are for maximum speed on incompressible data. I avoid the newest models for a few months. Been bitten by early firmware/chipset issues once in the distant past.

If you are using it for scratch disk you can go even faster by making a RAID0 array of matched SSDs and accepting doubling the risk of failure.

The gaming community make quite a good testbed since they want machines that are fast, well specified and reliable enough to overclock. I get a bit of teasing for having machines with daft names but performance has been magnificent. PC companies I buy from have a tendency to go bust after a while since they are usually offering too good value for money.

I don't overclock mine and I do add some silicone washers and sound deadening foam here and there because I like my office quiet.

--
Regards, 
Martin Brown

Any chance of running CPUZ on it so we know just how slow the thing actually is and what step level and full name of CPU?

I suspect its peers are somewhere around this neck of the woods:

You can get nearly an order of magnitude faster if so. It is generally worth upgrading when the speed gain is 3-5x what you have at present assuming that the PC is regularly loaded to the hilt with work.

I generally work on the principle of upgrading a PC every five years these days although I have my previous two both lying around for jobs which require real printer ports, SCSI and other legacy features.

--
Regards, 
Martin Brown

"Xeon Phi" FAICT

Prolly not what you want.

--
  \_(?)_

Xeon Phi. :-)

Best regards, Piotr

On 3 Aug 2015 09:07:59 GMT, Jasen Betts Gave us:

The new i7 units with six main cores are more consumer level. A Xeon usually requires a better than normal motherboard as well, so are outside what most folks want to spend.

I have a socket 2001 i7-3930k on an EVGA X79 Dark mobo.

It keeps up even with the newer class CPUs.

Why that idiot continues to include a binary group in his posts when most NSPs do not even carry them is beyond me.

My first Spice machine was a 386 with 486 co-processor. Looks like the Xeon Phi requires software specifically written for it ?? ...Jim Thompson

-- | James E.Thompson | mens | | Analog Innovations | et | | Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus | | San Tan Valley, AZ 85142 Skype: skypeanalog | | | Voice:(480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat | | E-mail Icon at

| 1962 | I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.

In short, yes. The Phi cores themselves are mostly x86-compatible, but the differences are at the upper level: they are shipped as a PCI express card with its own OS (ssh-able). At least the ones I've seen.

OTOH, they support OpenCL wery well, so any GPU-aware program would also run smoothly on the Phis.

Best regards, Piotr

Jim Thompson schreef op 08/02/2015 om 06:16 PM:

I got a Dell 5810 workstation earlier this year with a Xeon CPU, ECC memory and SSD. It's very quiet (I actually had to get used to the absence of noise in my office) and it has been rock solid even with very memory & CPU intensive tasks (routing FPGA designs and compiling large software projects).

The SolidWorks viewer shows all the surfaces nicely rendered and colored, and does sections so I can see inside things. Things spin about as fast as you could spin the real thing in your hand, on my old HP. I don't run the full SolidWorks, just the viewer.

This spins around with no visible delay:

I couldn't spin the real thing as fast: it's big and heavy!

I would, if it were actually better. Scrambling the UI doesn't make it better, it just makes it annoying.

Windows 10 looks to be yet another disorganized Apple clone, of OS-X this time. X=10, get it? Steve Jobs was Microsoft's best architect.

--

John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 
lunatic fringe electronics 

jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com 
http://www.highlandtechnology.com

Yes, I understand. Its a different thing, entirely, to do full ray tracing, light sources, etc. I.e., I build models that I can "take photos of" and not know that there was no "camera" involved!

Exactly. But users only *see* the UI. Joe Average User couldn't describe Windows (any version) in terms other than "a graphical user interface with lots of WINDOWS"

OS-X was derived from BSD.

My new Dell PC runs Spice about 5x faster than my old HP.

HP: Dual core 1.8 GHz Xeon, 2G ram, Win XP, 2 threads in LT Spice

Dell: Quadcore 2.8GHz Xeon, 8G ram, 64-bit Win7, 4 threads

The hard drives are faster, which may help in Spice too, making huge .RAW files.

You mean that a.b.s.e. is an insufficient resource for schematics, project pictures, etc?

What would DecadentLoser know ?>:-} ...Jim Thompson

--
| James E.Thompson                                 |    mens     | 
| Analog Innovations                               |     et      | 
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems  |    manus    | 
| San Tan Valley, AZ 85142     Skype: skypeanalog  |             | 
| Voice:(480)460-2350  Fax: Available upon request |  Brass Rat  | 
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com |    1962     | 
              
I love to cook with wine.     Sometimes I even put it in the food.

I'm getting the general impression that I should avoid 64-bit to make sure that my legacy programs will still work. Is that correct? ...Jim Thompson

--
| James E.Thompson                                 |    mens     | 
| Analog Innovations                               |     et      | 
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems  |    manus    | 
| San Tan Valley, AZ 85142     Skype: skypeanalog  |             | 
| Voice:(480)460-2350  Fax: Available upon request |  Brass Rat  | 
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com |    1962     | 
              
Hillary has the charisma of a steamy warm turd. 

Jeb Bush has the charisma of a fresh cow-patty. 

A political contest made to stink >:-}

No, you should make the jump and adapt (with VMware or some other method) or dump the really old 16 bit programs. Most 32 bit stuff will still run. It's time, and it will be the last major change for a very long time.

--sp

--
Best regards,  
Spehro Pefhany 
Amazon link for AoE 3rd Edition:            http://tinyurl.com/ntrpwu8 
Microchip link for 2015 Masters in Phoenix: http://tinyurl.com/l7g2k48

No. The advice is to be aware that some things may *not* work as they previously did (esp things that need "drivers" -- like peripherals).

Everyone always claims that the upgrade is uneventful -- yet I always seem to end up losing *some* capability along the way (but, I tend to run a very wide variety of software and peripherals -- it's implied that it's *my* fault that I lost some capability that I *should*? have lost previously?).

Note that you can choose to run (some) 32b OS's on 64b hardware -- you just lose the benefits of that 64b hardware.

You can also run 32b software on a "guest" OS (under VMware, etc.).

AND, you can also keep your old machine in a closet for a week or two until you decide it's safe to discard it! :>

You may be surprised to discover that your "computer experience" isn;t as remarkably faster, cleaner, more efficient than you would have

*guessed* (hoped) on that newer/faster machine! :< This is called PROGRESS!