He did say he only had 256k though and I remember when I upgraded to XP with only 256k ... it is a bit light.
I take it you mean 256Mb and not 256 kB. Yes there is a substantial performance increase between 256 and 387 Mb (on my machine) using XP. Optimum is 512 - 640 Mb, afterwards it starts to tailor off. I did upgrade a laptop with a 1.8 Ghz CPU to a 2.6 Ghz Pentium 4 Mobile CPU and then installed the Intel Acceleration Applicator. The Pentium 4 Mobile CPU's with a speed of 2 Ghz and above and with stepping C1 and above have a form of hyperthreading built in and IAA enables it. The export from the TradeStation Global Server went from half an hour to something like 5 minutes. It was another trader who put me onto this. It saved me buying another laptop. The expense was less than 10% of the price of the replacement machine. take care Holmes
You can forego the dual core option for now and save some bucks by going with a multiprocessor unit also. And you can get some excellent prices for the units on eBay. I've been doing this for the last five years (with mostly Dell units) for many of my computer clients.
Leo Laporte was talking about machines that run Windows with 4 CPU's and the ability to put dual core units in there to effectively have 8 CPU's.
i use a pair of ibm zpro workstations with dual 3.2 ghz xeon cpu's in each with 3 gb ram... i drive 7 lcds and run multiple programs that are semi automatic and some resource hog spread sheets... i started with one old server and built up over time... you can never be too thin and have too many processors or too much ram... works for me... bought about 15,000 worth of gear on ebay for about 5500... ibm dumps their machines on a yearly basis... type in ibm xeon...and enjoy
core 2 duo are available for a while now http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/s...&category=hp_pavilion/d4000_series&aoid=35252
I think that is a good suggestion to point out that the older but still very powerful chips can carry you forward for awhile before one gets the must have Duo 2 Core but you can get the Duo 2 Core chips (2nd Tier just a tad less of a screamer than the top one) for <b>only $359</b>... i don't think that is too high a price to pay right now... ? same power - if possible - 6 years ago would have cost at least $6000 if not more... so... http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2280512&Sku=CP2-DUO-E6600 cj... _______________ HAVE STOP - WILL TRADE If You Have The Vision We Have The Code
E6600 looks like the best value for money of the range. However these new CPUs are not compatible with just about all current motherboards, so a drop in upgrade is not possible. You will need new memory as well as motherboard, if current machine uses DDR. I have to agree though, that these things are exceptional value. With the drop in price the AMD x2's are excellent value as well.
Agreed edge, dcraig. One thing about the singles is that u might see better performance per dollar on a single processor if one app is responsible for most of your processor load ... to me it would depend on how big the gap was currently vs what the performance is and I havent done the research yet (my 2600 amd with 512M of ram is still ok).
Remember the hullabaloo about HYPERTHREADING? No way to stop the heard. In fact, benchmarks established that hyperthreading could even slow down things! Multiprocessors are great since many years for those designing specialized software for it. Today, forget that simply going to dual core etc& will make 1+1=2. (mostly 1+1<1.1) It ain't true. This question is CAREFULLY SIDESTEPPED by all hardware manufacturers. I know, this will not stop the stampeding herd.