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Upgrade
Strategies For The Budget Minded:
If you are among the lucky people to whom price is no object when buying
a computer, I've got a $30,000 super fast system to sell you, that will blow
the doors off anything around, and has all the bells and whistles of the
most modern PCs, ....and even some horns. For the rest of us, economics must
influence, if not dictate the course of our upgrade strategies.
There
is a delicate balance to be achieved when deciding weather to upgrade or
buy a new state of the art system out of the box. In these days of falling
system prices, when upgrading hardware cautious consumers must be careful
not to spend as much as it would cost for a new computer.
Most
people do not need all the power of the hottest processor on the market.
Most of the time you can get all the power you need in the processor that
is one generation back from the hot unit. What this is called is riding the
cusp of the wave in the computer hardware market. Usually any hot new device
costs several times the price of something that's been on the market for
a while. Consumers who need or can afford the fastest stuff get it. What
they also get is all the problems that any rushed-to-market product has.
They are the lucky ones who pay extra to troubleshoot the latest and the
greatest products for the rest of us. Thanks.
Obvious
exceptions would be for office or internet servers, and those of you who
do intensive calculations, such as professional CAD and spreadsheet users.
Serious game players may also want as fast a machine as they can get. But
for the rest of us, it's like looking at two guys in a Ferrari and a Vette
arguing about who's machine is faster. If your the guy in a Volkswagen your's
thinking, who cares your both faster than me. It's all a perspective thing.
So why spend the money on the latest, and fastest processor when there will
be little perceived difference in a much less expensive unit running at
a few clicks below that.
Processor
Speed Doubles, MOORE Or Less: Moores law is one of the basic predictions
of personal computing made by one of the earliest chip designers back when
the blazingly hot microprocessor speeds where clocked in the single digits.
The prediction states that processing power would double every nine to eighteen
months. For this reason we have to consider the effective life of any given
computer to be about a year. After that the computer is probably worth less
than the sum of it's parts. I know you don't want to hear that the computer
you paid over a grand for is worth less than it's parts, but that's the sad
fact of keeping up computers. Something that compounds the problem is that
when we consider buying a good value computer, the technology we buy is at
least one year old by the time we get the unit out of the box.
Economics
Of Change If the effective life of a computer is about one year, and a good
fast computer is about $1000. I know you can get a system for less, but a
good system is still about a grand. The cost of upgrading your system should
have a cap of about $500 to $750 per year to upgrade core components, such
as processor, motherboard, ram, and video card.
The
cost of peripherals such as a fancy new monitor or scanner can be spread
out, because they can travel from the old system to a new one. The basic
rule of thumb, depending on personal budget constraints, is to not spend
more than 50% - 75% of the cost of a new system to upgrade an old system.
A
good idea is to spend about $100 - $300 per year to upgrade a home or small
business system, or spend $750-$900 every 18 months on new systems. This
would keep your system up to current standards and safeguard your PC from
becoming obsolete. Computers are considered obsolete if you can't run whatever
hardware and software you want and upgrading to make it run would not make
economic sense. Obsolete is bad for a computer and especially bad for you
if you just bought it a year ago or even less!
Do
I Need All That Much Power? Most of the office applications today will run
just fine on a 1giga-hertz processor. Applications will load, and calculations
will be quicker with a faster system. However these applications rarely demand
the raw horsepower that todays fastest systems possess. The computers that
are used mainly as internet surf boards usually dial up with a plain old
modem. The slowest new computers today are usually faster than the connection
speed of the internet. Therefore, a faster machine in most cases would
not be necessary. However there are some instances where a faster machine
would be a benefit. If you tend to view web pages that are heavily graphics
oriented, of which most these days are, then a faster computer would yield
quicker rendering of the graphics on that page.
If
you tend to visit pages that have multimedia applications there would be
a significant increase of speed with a faster computer. Java applications
which run on any machines will particularly benefit from fast computing power.
Java's credo is write once, run anywhere. In a nutshell this means that coders
can write an application in Java and have it run on any platform, being Windows,
Mac or any other lesser platform. This is done by having a Java virtual machine
inside the host computer. The code is then translated for your particular
type of processor. This type of application is traditionally slower than
a similar application written in native code for your machine. What these
applications lose in speed they make up for in convenience, by running on
multiple platforms. The fastest processors can significantly speed up these
types of applications.
All
The Speed You Need:
A 386 processor running at a whopping 19mhz is just as fast now as it was
when it first came out. If you recall, that was a hot processor back then.
It ran DOS programs faster than greased lightning, and it still will today.
So why then, isn't it still considered a speed demon? The answer is a simple
one, software development. As processors developed there were constantly
a slew of new applications coming along to tax the processor speed. Software
development caused the need for faster hardware, which in turn drove the
quest for more powerful software. This cycle was at work for a quite a few
years. If you were happy with your DOS programs then your need for a new
machine was not there. But there was always a hot new software title that
you wanted that would run too slow on your current machine, so your software
purchase would provoke you to buy yet another faster computer. As you can
guess, the industry loved this scenario. Today we have a condition in the
industry termed software stagnation. Basically software applications have
become so bloated with stuff that we rarely, if ever use. This is termed
the 80/20 rule, whereas eighty percent of the users of any particular application
only use 20 percent of the software potential. Hot new application types
are not being developed at the speed they used to be. This trend requires
people to upgrade to faster and faster machines less rapidly then they used
to. With processor speed roughly doubling every year or so, and new software
application production on the decline, you can quickly get a grasp on the
ever-widening gap that was previously created.
To
Upgrade Or Not To Upgrade:
When considering the purchase of a new system, or upgrading an old one, what
you need to do with your computer should determine how fast your system needs
to be. Decisions also need to be economically wise. Think of it as if you
were about to buy something familiar like a car. One vehicle might give you
50% more space or power than a lesser priced auto, and it might only cost
10% more. It would seem silly to spend all that on lesser equipped vehicle,
right? It works the same way with the economics of computer purchases. So
when considering a purchase, get as fast a unit as you can. Even though you
don't actually need THAT much speed, if it costs only 20% more, why not get
the faster unit. The faster computer will be more up to date with all the
common features that you will need in a computer. The faster computer will
run all the current software, and will become obsolete just a bit slower.
Components
Make The Machine:
A computer is only as good as it's components. Therefore it stands to reason
that a computer is also only as fast as it's SLOWEST core component. Core
components of any computer system are, first and foremost it's Central Processing
Unit or CPU. This is the part that actually is the computer. All other components
are peripheral to the processor. It can be one of the most expensive parts
of the system, and because all instructions must pass through it, it is the
most important. The motherboard or main system bus is the part of your computer
that provides control and communication for your computer and is therefore
the next most important core component. Next would be the system memory or
RAM. This is where the data that your system is working on is stored. The
hard drive and the video display card are the last two important core components
that effect the speed of a computer system. Of course there are other components
important to the running of any system. It would be difficult to run a computer
without a mouse or a keyboard, and I guess if you were REALLY careful about
what you type in you might not need a monitor. But the core components are
why a computer is very fast and conversely would be why a computer runs at
less than par.
Should
I Buy One of those BAND-NAME Computers, Or A "Built-to order"
beige box?:
There is no doubt about it, the top computer manufacturers make good computers,
they have to to remain the top manufacturers, right? Well, that's true, but
the consumer also pays for the advertisement and PR for these top manufacturers,
through higher prices for systems. So when the average consumer on a budget
buys one of these systems from a hot manufacturer they must often settle
for less then the hottest machine available. Often these people end up with
a computer that was last year's hot machine for a bargain from the big guys.
It is really not a bargain if you consider they are paying much more for
a year old computer then one would pay for a current computer that was custom
built. Anyone with experience can build a machine as good as a Dell or a
Gateway. If quality core components are used to build the machine, you will
get a quality computer, but you don't really need to pay as much as the top
computer makers charge.
Bargain
Computers May Not Be a Bargain at all: Keeping all this in mind it is important
to look at what components a system will be assembled from when looking at
a so-called bargain computer. There are some bargains that could be quality
computers at a really good price, and some could be really bad computers
at a really bad price. Buyers must be aware. A professional consultant in
your area without any particular brand allegiance would be a particularly
good resource to ascertain whether a computer is a good bargain, or a bad
buy.
Support:
The Good, The Bad ...
...And The Mostly Indifferent:
The computer industry is in a constant state of flux, with big companies
gobbling up small companies and smaller companies fading into the sunset.
Sometimes even a reputable manufacturer can disappear leaving virtually no
trace at all but an error 404 page where their web site used to be. This
leaves their customers with valid warrantee complaints and no possible way
to get them resolved. The buyer must really beware of this one.
Usually
if you buy a computer with a reputable name, you get good support. Usually.
However, there are no guarantees that when you call with your computer problem,
that you will get adequate support. One of the dark secrets of the computer
industry is shoddy support for processors, and motherboards. Try to get support
for any of these, and you will get a runaround longer then a torch run on
an olympic year. Support these days seems to be a wild card issue. First
there is the ever increasing use of the telephone prompts that lead us in
a maze of go to areas. And if we are lucky enough to reach a real person
before we are cut off we usually reach an entry level technician. With a
high number of hours spent on the phone with various tech support departments
of numerous companies, large and small, I rarely receive support which I
consider adequate. From the lost reference numbers, to technicians which
give conflicting advice about the same problem, you can never really be sure
what you'll get when you pick up your phone with a computer question.
Support,
... and the unsupported:
The trend for support these days is that most big companies see this as another
source of income. They provide you with little support up front and then
want to charge you for technical support when you need it. Try to find
the support phone numbers on your manufacturer's web site, and you will find
it buried somewhere, about six or seven layers deep. That is, if you
find it at all! And if you are lucky enough to have their phone number,
you may be able to read a copy of war and peace by the time your call is
addresses. But, hey some people actually like elevator music. If
are lucky enough to get through the number prompt and voice-mail hell, you
are still going to deal with a hit, or miss deal situation. You may luck
out and get a support representative who knows what they are doing, and can
solve your problem and answer all of your questions. ....Or you may get the
rep, who is on his first day at work and reads from a book, or worse yet,
guesses at how to solve your problem, and swears that he knows what he is
talking about. Beware of the representatives who say, 'ok... first
reformat your hard drive'. I have heard this before. consider it a
big kiss-off, there's a fifty-fifty shot that if you reformat and reinstall
your operating system, that there won't be any problem at all when you are
done. Either it is or it isn't ....fifty-fifty, right? Well after you
hang up and do all that work, it's not THEIR problem anymore, anyway!
The
moral of the sad story, is .... go to the owner-operators, you can usually
talk directly with them and if it's someone who's been in business for a
while, you can be pretty sure that they know what they are talking about,
at least most of the time they won't guess, or read from a text
manual.
If you should need assistance
eradicating bugs on your system click here and explain your problem on the
message board ,
or you reach an IT Professional on the phone at
(315) 382 - HELP.
If
you prefer, you can eMail at
Lipco@aol.com.
...continued next
month.
*Rich
Lipsky is the owner and operator of ComputerHelp911.com, a local company
that specializes in solving computer problems for local residents and businesses
since 1995.
Rich is available for questions, or for
consultation. You can reach him at:
(315) 382 - HELP. |
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