Why Isnt the Same Computer Right for Everyone?
Your computer has about a dozen components you need to consider,
including the processor, mem-ory, at least three buses, power supply,
case, hard disk, optical drive, display, network, modem, sound, and
printer. (Dont panic well explain what each of those is in later
chapters.) Each of these components has a handful of de?ning
characteristics, with each character- istic having a range of choices.
The result is hundreds of possibilities for con?guring your computer,
and a lot of confusion for novices trying to ?gure out how to upgrade
or what to buy.
The performance you can get for each of those compo-nents increases
constantly, while the price of any given performance level decreases
at the same time and the technology changes at a breathtaking rate.
In the fall of 1995, for instance, a 133 MHz Intel Pentium was a very
fast processor for desktop computers. In spring of 1999, a top-end
processor was a 450 MHz Intel Pentium II. In summer of 2003,
the top-end processor was a 3.2 GHz Intel Pentium 4. The MHz
(megahertz) unit means mil- lions of clock ticks per second,
and GHz (gigahertz) means billions of clock ticks per second, so,
ignoring the signi?cant internal changes between those proces-sors,
theres been a phenomenal increase in the rate at which they work.
Figure 2-1 compares the clock rates for these three processors,
normalizing the rate against that of the 133 MHz Pentium. The relative
clock rate of the Pentium is 1; the Pentium II is over 3 times faster
than the Pentium, and the Pentium 4 is over 24 times faster.
Figure 2-1: Processor clock speed increases
The dashed trend line in Figure 2-1 emphasizes the fact that speed increases
arent constant. The rate at which computer speed increases is itself increasing
something that will continue for years to come.
The underlying engine powering improvements in all electronic devices is
Gordon Moores empirical observation, validated over more than 30 years, that
the number of transistors in the highest density chips will double every couple
of years. The nearly straight line on the logarithmic plot in Figure 2-2 shows
how closely the prediction has come true.
Figure 2-2: Moores Law predicts a doubling of transistor
density every couple of years.
Courtesy Intel Corporation
Memory chips are the ?rst kinds of devices to bene?t from nearly every
advance in semiconductors because they have a highly repetitive internal
structure that makes them easier to make than less-regular designs such as
processors. Table 2-1 shows a prediction of high-end PC memory sizes by the
Open Source Initiative based on fundamental industry data for the number of
transistors on a chip following Moores Law. The table re?ects history rather
accurately, including current-generation systems, and so is a reasonable esti-
mate of memory size for the next six years.
Not everyone needs the fastest computer available, and the consequence of
the constant increases in top-end performance is that the low end of the mar-
ket ratchets up, too. That causes computer prices to fall for a machine of con-
stant features and performance; the least capable new PC you can buy now is
nevertheless capable of a great many things. (For example, at the same time
we drew Figure 2-1, the slowest desktop processor we found on the Dell Web
site was a 2.2 GHz Intel Celeron, which in Figure 2-1 would plot at over 16 times
the clock rate of the 133 MHz Pentium.) The power of even the slowest com-
puters now being sold, and of computers sold in the last few years, is so great
that they can do most of what people do with computers word processing,
spreadsheets, e-mail, and simple photos. Because theyre so capable, its
important that you dont overvalue change in computer technology. If the
machine you have does what you want, you can expect to use it until your
needs change, or until added features in new versions of your software are
compelling enough to make you upgrade to a version that no longer runs well
on your machine. When you become dissatis?ed with the machine you have,
youll do the necessary upgrades and keep on working.
If you havent already, youll soon ?nd that different people hold very dif-
ferent opinions on what constitutes good computer hardware and on what
should be in a computer, holding those opinions with an intensity that eas-
ily approaches that of religious wars. Were not as radical as that suggests,
but a number of our opinions are in this book. Most of our opinions are
based on the idea of computer upgrade and repair by mystic incantation
that is, remember what worked well for you in the past and, unless you
have a good reason not to, keep doing it.
For example, were partial to certain products from Intel, Crucial, Seagate,
Kodak, and a number of other companies. Conversely, we wont buy anything
made by some other manufacturers because we know from both experience
and insight into their operations that their products are bug-ridden and not
likely to get better soon. The end result of focusing on quality and weeding out
the garbage has been that we spend less time ?xing our computers than some
otherwise very competent people we know.
We suggest that you adopt the same approach when you identify a quality
manufacturer, stick with them. If it becomes clear to you that a manufacturers
products are not well engineered and manufactured, shun them. Do this for
complete systems you buy as well as for upgrades.
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