Pickin' a processor

[Kristian Erik Hermansen]

On 9/9/07, Matthew Gillen <me-5yx05kfkO/aqeI1yJSURBw at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> Wikipedia is your friend.  The amount of detailed info they have on CPUs is
> astounding.   For instance:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_AMD_Athlon_64_microprocessors
> tells you that you need at least a "Windsor" stepping to get the hardware
> virtualization feature.

That's information overload!  Never saw that page before :-)

> I still think AMD gives more bang for the buck.  I recently got an Athlon 64
> X2 4000+ (dual-core with hw virtualization) for $80.

I agree.  Since 1996, I have never custom built anything other than
AMD machines.  OK, I think I built a Cyrix at some point in there, but
that's not the point!  However, I find now that it is easier to just
buy a cheap system from Dell, rather than dealwith the hassle of
finding the right parts, etc.  Much easier to just pay them to build
it for you.  And if anything goes wrong, you're supported!

> FWIW, maybe I just buy slightly older hardware all the time now (to stay in
> the nice part of the price curve), but I haven't had issues like I used to
> with that.  My last couple of purchases have been small-form-factor (and
> /quiet/) boxes, like the T3 model here:
> http://usa.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=1&l2=2

I bought an Antec Silent Case.  Works great!  I also agree about
staying away from the bleeding edge of the curve, because you will pay
premiums.  iPhone anyone?  hehehe.  My trick whenever I buy from
newegg is to do two things.  For instance, with hard drives...

1) List all the drives by size and choose the size with the most
available to purchase (most ubiquitous, market saturation).
2) Sort within these results by "Most Rated".  This means a lot of
people already bought the drive and are happy with it.  You're chances
of being satisfied are also very high, at at a great price point!
-- 
Kristian Erik Hermansen

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