Do you use your PC to its fullest?

[Jerboy]

Well am I the only one who use their old computer and realize its not much different from your better computer?

I dunno what you guys do on the computer, but I do:

School work

Net surfing and online multimedia

mp3

cd recording

other misc stuff

... I'm on my old computer right now because my usual one isn't in usable condition. The hard drive is all formatted after it's been invaded by virus and after started usign my old computer, I don't see any difference in web surfing perofrmance so I've been procrastinating on getting that thing fixed. I don't have time to fix it, becuase I spend that time on the internet or on the phone or with friends..

Well when I upgraded to this from Pentium 200MX, it made a huge difference so I thought this one to Athlon 1.4GHz would make a big difference. That's why I built a new PC. I guess law of deminished return is kicking in, because that was totally stupid upgrade..

 

[Mavrick007]

Most people don't need a whole lot of computing power for their general everyday stuff that they do like typing up a report, surfing the web, listening to music, or what not.

But let's be realistic, when prices are what they are now, most people have a bit to spend so they plop it down on something fast and new even when they probably don't need it, but because their neighbor might have something better or they want to be the first to use something new, they go out and buy that next best thing and their older machine is either collecting dust or it's just not used as much(change it to a server). Then you have the power users who have to have the fastest machine for whatever their work involves or their gaming needs requirements, so they fuel the creators to make something newer and faster for them to buy. Plus we have programmers now making their software that has higher requirements so if you want to use it, you have to bite the bullet and buy the faster machine. You can't keep up with it all, so why should you.

Basically most people don't need it, but they generally "want" it. I know that I can get by on my machine for awhile longer but I want the better one out there so that I can get that edge up on Mr. Jones

 

[Gaunt]

It all depends on your perspective. If you are playing games, every little bit helps, and whether it's noticable or not depends on the game and your framerate before and after the upgrade. (Sometimes this can only be seen in a benchmark, like I said, depends on the game). But, a good example is this: I use a celeron 600 at work to compile my code. At home I use an athlon 1400. There is no comparison at all between the performance of these 2 machines... my code compiles probably 10x faster on the 1400, and the fact that I can have many more applications running at once without any problems with performance is very nice.

Now, go back down to a pentium, or even a P2 266 like one section of the computer lab at school and things get rediculously slow, even web browsing... So yes, it is noticable, and yes, it is possible to use a new machine to its fullest extent (things like gaming and graphics rendering will always max your cpu usage, among other things), but it all depends on what you do.

 

[dunkster]

The upgrades that seem to have the most obvious immediate effect are monitor and graphics card updates.

Higher HD, cpu and memory speeds produce pleasing benchmarks.

I recently upgraded from an Intel PIII@800MHz to an AMD XP1600@1558MHz, and game-play in Max Payne, Deus Ex and other games is not really noticeably faster. It is more visibly pleasing at 1024X768 with 32-bit color, though.

 

[Jerboy]

<< The upgrades that seem to have the most obvious immediate effect are monitor and graphics card updates.

Higher HD, cpu and memory speeds produce pleasing benchmarks.

I recently upgraded from an Intel PIII@800MHz to an AMD XP1600@1558MHz, and game-play in Max Payne, Deus Ex and other games is not really noticeably faster. It is more visibly pleasing at 1024X768 with 32-bit color, though. >>




I don't play games on my computer PERIOD. Thats why I have my SNES

 

[SpecialEd]

I definitely don't. Computer hardware is a hobby of mine. I just like to have the lastest stuff. However I don't run any apps that really challenge it at all. All I do is email and download crap. However i kind of like it when all my windows pop up lightning fast and not having to worry about system specs if I'm thinking about buyin a new game. I guess running some of my music visuals at full screen slows things down... but thats basically it.

 

[CraigRT]

<< I don't play games on my computer PERIOD. Thats why I have my SNES >>



LMAO SNES!
so that's why you're happy with your PIII...
i have a good PC for high framerates in FPS games. that is important.
oh, and low SETI WU times. that is the 2nd most important.

 

[ssanches]

No, mostly I'm not able to use my PC to the max. It's an AthlonXP. Most of the time, I'm listening to music and CPU usage for playing MP3's is around 3%. Also for browsing the net, general word processing etc etc, it's around 10%. I had a P-133 overclocked to 150Mhz (2*75Mhz Asynchronous bus with a VIA VPX chipset), 64MB EDO RAM, and a Cirrus Logic w/2MB Ram and I used that thing till it nearly dropped dead (5 years in all!)... .... Then I upgraded to this Athlon rig....

 

[Rand]

Generally no I don't use it to it's fullest potential at all, but it's nice to have a bit of head room in case I ever do need the extra power.

 

[BFG10K]

I use my PC to its fullest because I am a hardcore 3D gamer and I need all the power I can get.

 

[Mem]

RC5 =100% load so I guess I do, plus my online and offline gaming etc

 

[Mitzi]

I think I use my PC to the fullest. It has an Oracle database running on it which taxes it a fair bit, I have Linux running in a window under Windows 2000 and I play a few games so I guess I do.

 

[kendogg]

<<

<< The upgrades that seem to have the most obvious immediate effect are monitor and graphics card updates.

Higher HD, cpu and memory speeds produce pleasing benchmarks.

I recently upgraded from an Intel PIII@800MHz to an AMD XP1600@1558MHz, and game-play in Max Payne, Deus Ex and other games is not really noticeably faster. It is more visibly pleasing at 1024X768 with 32-bit color, though. >>




I don't play games on my computer PERIOD. Thats why I have my SNES >>



you're missing out man.. ehhe once you start playing youll get addicted.. counterstrike yahooo

 

[nortexoid]

i tax the crap outta my system doing stuff like encoding divx, playing games, crunching SETI, etc...

though honestly, i don't see any real compelling reason to upgrade from this nearly 2 year old athlon 700, so....

 

[BrunoPuntzJones]

yes, games

 

[BreakApart]

I'd have to agree after about 800mhz you can't feel the speed as much, unless of course your a speed junky, or heavy gamer.

In my little farm i have some high end Athlons and a dual P3-850 system. To this day, i enjoy the dual system so much that i placed my Geforce3 inside, the Athlons are stuck with my Kyro and Geforce2. It's not so much the speed i notice, it's that i am a HEAVY multi-tasker so the dual cpu setup works better for my tastes.

 

[RaynorWolfcastle]

I got a fast computer for 2 reasons Maple and AutoCAD. Whenever I'm using these programs my 512MB DDR AthlonXP 1600+ is noticeably faster than my P-III 450 w/368 MB non-DDR.

Photo Raytrace rendering in AutoCAD benifits most IMHO

-Ice

*edit* Actually everything is noticeably faster, but the biggest improvement is in these 2 programs.

 

[PlatinumGold]

One of my clients has all P166's in the office. what suprises me is how ADEQUATE they are. for what they do in that office, they don't need anything more. that's pretty scary. well, i'm gonna install WinXP on all their pc's this weekend. hope there aren't any compatibility issues. [crosses fingers].

 

[nightowl]

My main PC at school is constantly running SETI, so I would say that I am using the CPU to its fullest. I also play RTCW, CS, and UT as well as some programming and Oracle. At home though, I usually use a P2-400 and it can do evenything I want to do with the exception of high-res games.

 

[mee987]

I do lots of gaming and lots of divx4 encoding. Speed is good. And you can never encode a divx movie fast enough. Never.

 

[Mavrick007]

Hehe My office has a bunch of accountants working on P166 machines too. There's only 32Megs of ram and they basically are "adequate" for most of their needs too.
But not my needs, I do more intensive work there than any of them and I'm telling you that it just sux. My machine is stalled running one app most times cause that's all it's able to do barely. The head of tech support doesn't like to have to "maintain" anything more than windows 95 and wants everything the same. Hopefully the department will get better machines soon cause we have about 35 collecting dust with win2k but not enough to supply the whole dept. Oh well, I will have to wait til I get home to use something more up to date.

 

[ErmanC]

Yes I do. At work, although my hardware is a year or so old I push it as far as it can go. At any one time I'm likely to be running one or more of ArcView/ArcGIS, Terramodel, AutoCAD, Microstation, along with Excel, Word, and Outlook. I multitask as much as possible and sometimes I do terrain modeling tasks that take hours to complete. Some of the people I work with even have two machines so they can switch off to the other while one is busy processing. So for people like us, I'd say we use our PC to its fullest.

BTW - At home I run Tribes 2 with all the bells and whistles while cranking MP3's, chatting on Roger Wilco, and surfing the net. Not all that intensive, but its a good test for my overclocked Athlon T-Bird.

So to answer the question, I'd say I get my money's worth.

 

[lorlabnew]

I have a wide range of machines (from 286-10? with 1MB RAM and Cyrix 486SX-20MHz SLC notebook to 1.6GHz P4 desktop); from the older PC's, the still usable ones for some kind of daily work are P133Mhz's and higher. Have 2 P133's with 80MB EDO and 64MB EDO; they can still be used even as NT4 server & workstation machines... these are followed by 200MMX and Celerons 366&466...to PII400 and PIII600EB.

I noticed that for most common tasks, my about 4 years old and dependable PII400-440BX based/256MB (Win2k Pro) with PromiseUltra66 controller and 12GB HDD/5400rpm-2MB buffer is sufficient. Any further upgrades I had didn't really improve daily tasks that much. The important parts are the UDMA66 controller and 2MB buffer equipped drive, as well as optimal 256MB of PC-100.

The reason I built 1.6GHz rig were games requirements, which are increasingly demanding for CPU power. If I wouldn't play any newer games, that 4 years old PII400 would be still OK (would just need larger drive).

 

[kazeakuma]

I would say I do. My main PC is a P3 733. Not a blazing beast and I'm planning an upgrade. My main concerns are render time (3D scenes) and multitasking. Although I don't do enough CPU dependant multitasking to make a dual CPU system worth it. I do however use alot of memory, my PC sits at around 400MB of physical memory used. Games is second, and they run well enough for me.