Caltrops - American McGee's Honda Civic





	[quote name="Tansin A. Darcos (TDARCOS)"]I am composing this on a refurbished Dell Optiplex 740 64-bit machine running Windows NT professional 32-bit which I think I bought about a year or two ago for at or just above $200. (I just looked it up; the note I wrote on Jolt Country says I bought it November 5, 2010). I upgraded it to change the hard drive from 80 megabytes to 2 terabytes for only $89, and I really lucked out on that, the prices of hard drives doubled a few months after I bought it. I also boosted the memory from either 500 meg or 1gig to 3 gig. I bought this machine about 2 years ago and I might want to upgrade. Well, anyway, I'm thinking I might want to play the new Duke Nukem, which if I read the specs correctly, requires at least a dual-core 64 bit. So, I'm thinking, I might want to upgrade to either a dual-core or a quad core. I can do the same thing, I can get a refurbished machine from Micro Center, but usually refurbished machines are only dual core, for quad core or better I might have to buy new. I like both Dell and Hewlett Packard, I've had good results with Dell and I've never had a problem with an HP machine, I've often found they go to extra lengths to make sure their computers are easy to replace components or to install upgrades. I've had nothing but trouble with Sony and won't consider them. The only good thing I can say about Packard Bell is that they fortunately went into bankruptcy fast. Here's one listed for $175: Hewlett-Packard DC5850 Desktop Computer with AMD Dual-Core 2.8GHz Processor Refurbished AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core 2.8GHz Processor 5400 Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium (32-bit) 2GB DDR2-667 RAM 80GB 7,200RPM Hard Drive DVD Drive Display Not Included The memory is okay and I'd probably buy another drive to put into it, or go to a more expensive machine, as I figure that I should have at least a 250gb for things I'll load on it. My 2TB has about 400GB in use, but that does include probably a couple hundred gig backed up from another machine. Reconsidering it, it's too low in specs, I'd be spending too much to upgrade it and I'll pass. Here's one for $206.99: Hewlett Packard DC5850 AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core Processor Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 2GB DDR2 RAM 250GB Hard Drive DVD-RW Drive AMD Radeon X300 10/100/1000 Network Display Not Included Now here's one that exactly the same thing as mine except it's dual core: Dell OptiPlex GX740 Desktop Computer Off Lease Refurbished, $242.49 AMD Athlon 64 X2 Processor Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 2GB DDR2-400 RAM 750GB Hard Drive DVDRW Drive NVIDIA Quadro NVS 210S 10/100/1000 Network Display Not Included So this one sounds like a very good choice, outside of maybe adding more memory I think I can manage with this. I presume an Athlon 64 x2 is a dual-core processor. Now they have one they're advertising makes my mouth water but the price makes me shudder, although it's perfect and I probably should consider it: Hewlett Packard Pavilion p7-1174 Desktop Computer Refurbished, $429.99 AMD Quad-Core A8-3800 Accelerated Processor Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit) 8GB DDR3-1333 SDRAM 1.5TB 5,400RPM Hard Drive SuperMulti DVD Burner 15-in-1 Memory Card Reader AMD Radeon™ HD 6550D 10/100/1000 Network 802.11b/g/n Wireless Display Not Included I still have the HP Pavilion A 305 W I probably bought back when I could walk, which would mean before 2002. I've had it so long I don't even know how long I've had it; right now I use it as a file server and as a second machine for doing website development. (I run 3 machines on a KVM so all of them need only one monitor). I basically would not have to add anything to this other than I might swap the blu-ray drive I already have on my current machine onto this one. I think it's probably a "six of one, half-dozen of the other" as upgrading the $200 machine (the Optiplex I am typing this article on) I originally bought with more memory and a hard drive probably pushed its total cost over $400, only I didn't have to spend that all at once, I was able to spend it in pieces over about 6 months or so. I'm doing a website for a guy, my brother is paying me to do his taxes, and I will be getting about $200 for being an election judge in the April 3 Maryland Primary and another $250 for the November General Election, so I will have extra money to pay for this. I'm just such a cheap son-of-a-bitch that spending this much money bothers me a bit. So that's kind of why I'm asking. Last time I bought a computer where I had a choice I could have gone with a 486 or a Pentium I decided to go ahead of the curve and bought a Pentium because I wanted to be a little ahead of the curve. Is there a significant advantage of going "beyond the curve" and looking for quad core or will dual core be adequate for most gaming applications? The advantage is that the computer would not be as likely to be obsolete as fast. [/quote]