Old vs New

[w6kkt]

I have been building and upgrading since 1990. It seems, with every upgrade, I do see incremental improvement in synthetic testing using pifast,3dMark2001 & 03 etc. I tried water cooling, but gave that up after one year due to it's inconvenience & cost effectiveness. I never play games, but occasionally watch online movies via Netflex, surf the net, try different operating systems (Lynux), and fix or build my friends computers (no charge). So far, my present AMD system is doing everything I need. My question: If I change over to the new Intel core 2 duo or quad, which basically will require all new hardware, will I see that much improvement? I'm 74 and really enjoy playing with my computers and surfing the web.
This is a wonderful forum.

Respectfully,

Jesse (w6kkt)

 

[lxskllr]

You'll see some benefit, but not a ton for ordinary use. The HD is really the big bottleneck that gives computers a slow feel. Really though, if you enjoy playing with computers for their own sake(I do also), it's worth upgrading just to have some new hardware to fool with. There's value in the satisfaction you get out of your hobby, even if the performance boost won't justify the cost. You'll notice a little more speediness, but nothing mind blowing.

 

[videogames101]

Get a velociraptor, i have a feeling that helps system snappiness more then a faster proc.

 

[JackMDS]

By changing to a humble Intel Core2Duo (Native, or OC at 3GHz) you would get synthetic improvement of 200%.

However, given your type of activities you probably would not see any significant change.

As far as HD, Download this free and simple application and Run it.
http://majorgeeks.com/CrystalDiskMark_d5574.html

Most current mainstrean HDs yield around 75MB/sec. compares it to your drives.

 

[nerp]

Play within a reasonable budget. The fact is that your everyday tasks won't see much of an improvement, really. Web surfing, email, etc, has reached a point where even an entry level budget processor can handle it with ease. But if the bug is biting you and you can't resist, maybe instead of replacing your current setup, build a system for a specific project.

One fun thing might be to build a very fast and powerful yet very energy efficient new main desktop computer. Then figure out a new role for your Opteron -- WHS box? MCE box? test box? file server of some kind? You can recycle some parts, buy a few extras so you can end up with two nice machines.

That's what I basically did.

 

[w6kkt]

Thanks to all, for the nice suggestions. Yep, I have the computer bug, too. I did the CrystalDiskMark test #5 (53 mbs/s). More than likely, in the near future, I will build a quad 2core system.

Again Thanks,

Jesse (w6kkt)