Author: Benny Ng
Date: 23:30:35 03/27/01
Go up one level in this thread
On March 27, 2001 at 22:03:31, Robert Hyatt wrote: >On March 27, 2001 at 18:12:42, Christophe Theron wrote: > >>On March 27, 2001 at 14:08:03, Robert Hyatt wrote: >> >>>On March 27, 2001 at 12:55:10, Christophe Theron wrote: >>> >>>> >>>> >>>>That's right. >>>> >>>>Actually as the title says, the message is directed to people who are >>>>considering to buy a dual. >>>> >>>>As far as I know quads are so expensive that it would be ridiculous to buy one >>>>just to play chess. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>> >>> >>> >>>At the moment, perhaps. 6 years ago duals were just as expensive. Now they >>>are dirt cheap. As quads become more common, their prices will continue to >>>drop. 5 years ago a quad MB for pentium pro 200s would set you back almost >>>$8,000. Today you can buy an Intel SC450NX for 2500 bucks, that includes >>>three hot-swappable 400 wat power supplies, motherboard, 6-slot hot-swap raid >>>disk cage, 3 on-board scsi controllers, 1 on-board video controller, etc. >>> >>>All you lack is cpus, memory and drives. >>> >>>That is a huge reduction. The curve is going downward each year. Now the >>>quads are slowly reaching reasonable price points while the 8-way boxes are >>>way expensive. In 5 years that too will change I'll bet... >> >> >> >>So I would advice people who are considering buying a dual right now to delay >>their buy by several years... > >Using that logic you should advise everyone to _never_ buy a computer, because >next year will _always_ have a faster processor. > > > >> >> >> >> >> >>>>You are always thinking with unlimited resources in mind! >>>> >>>>I don't disagree with you here, but in real life there are people wondering if >>>>it's worth it to buy a dual. >>>> >>>>And depending on how much money they can put on it, they will have to choose >>>>between a single 1.GHz and a dual 1GHz. >>> >>>OK... but there the dual will perform like a 1.7ghz machine. Which will >>>turn into around 60 rating points improvement. That is not trivially >>>ignorable. >>> >>>Each time I teach a parallel programming course here, I will find around one >>>out of every 10 students has a dual-processor machine already. And when I ask >>>what they paid, they generally say 500-1000 US bucks... >> >> >> >>In the place I live, I cannot even buy a dual. I must order it overseas. >> >>Bob, there are people outside the United State of America, you know. > > >I ordered mine. There is no "local store" that sells quads here. You can >go to any local computer store and find a dual however... Gateway even sells >them at the local outlet.. > > > > >> >>You are very lucky to live in a place where you can get all kind of high tech >>stuffs for a fraction of your monthly salary, but in other countries a dual >>represents a huge amount of money. > >A dual represents 500 bucks for 2x800 or so. I don't know what the exchange >rate is, but that can't be huge... > > > > > >> >>For example, a dual represents more than my average monthly salary. > > >You _really_ make less than $500 US dollars per month? It's hard to compare monthly salary between countries, especially with US. My salary as a computer programmer in Indonesia back in 1999 was $250! That was before I move to Singapore. But still, the salary in Singapore is not as high as US! :( Cheers, Benny Ng
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