Until the late 90s or so, PC upgrades seemed to be a lot more significant. Going from a 386 to a 486 or a 486 to a Pentium, for example, gave you a lot more computing power for everyday things. Also, things like upgrading your video card, adding more RAM, etc. gave significant benefits to allow running more demanding games and other programs. I was excited when I finally upgraded my PC so it was fast enough to play some games I wanted to play or perhaps run some other program I wanted to be able to use. Even something like adding a sound card to a PC was significant, going from the basic beeps of a PC speaker to having audio that was a lot more realistic.
These days though, it seems like PC upgrades don't give you the giant leap that they used to. Are there any PC upgrades these days that excite you? I think going from a HDD to SSD is pretty cool, but personally I only noticed a major difference in OS boot time going to an SSD. Loading/running software doesn't seem to take significantly less time with an SSD.
Until the late 90s or so, PC upgrades seemed to be a lot more significant. Going from a 386 to a 486 or a 486 to a Pentium, for example, gave you a lot more computing power for everyday things. Also, things like upgrading your video card, adding more RAM, etc. gave significant benefits to allow running more demanding games and other programs. I was excited when I finally upgrade
my PC so it was fast enough to play some games I wanted to play or perhaps run
some other program I wanted to be able to use. Even something like adding a sound card to a PC was significant, going from the basic beeps of a PC speaker
to having audio that was a lot more realistic.
These days though, it seems like PC upgrades don't give you the giant leap tha
they used to. Are there any PC upgrades these days that excite you? I think going from a HDD to SSD is pretty cool, but personally I only noticed a major difference in OS boot time going to an SSD. Loading/running software doesn't seem to take significantly less time with an SSD.
Nightfox wrote to All <=-
Until the late 90s or so, PC upgrades seemed to be a lot more
significant. Going from a 386 to a 486 or a 486 to a Pentium, for
example, gave you a lot more computing power for everyday things.
Also, things like upgrading your video card, adding more RAM,
etc. gave significant benefits to allow running more demanding
games and other programs. I was excited when I finally upgraded
my PC so it was fast enough to play some games I wanted to play
or perhaps run some other program I wanted to be able to use.
Even something like adding a sound card to a PC was significant,
going from the basic beeps of a PC speaker to having audio that
was a lot more realistic.
These days though, it seems like PC upgrades don't give you the
giant leap that they used to. Are there any PC upgrades these
days that excite you? I think going from a HDD to SSD is pretty
cool, but personally I only noticed a major difference in OS boot
time going to an SSD. Loading/running software doesn't seem to
take significantly less time with an SSD.
if you arent a gamer you wont notice many changes if you got a computer 6+ years ago and replaced it now.
Meanwhile, the 486's at work did not feel like a step up from my home 386-40, so I was not tempted. Then I visited a client shop that had a 486 DX2-66. That was tempting but I could not afford it at the time! :)
Re: Most exciting PC upgrades these days
By: MRO to Nightfox on Sat Jun 08 2019 11:39 am
if you arent a gamer you wont notice many changes if you got a computer 6+ years ago and replaced it now.
Gamers aren't the only people who can take advantage of a high-performance computer.. High-performance PCs are also good for people who do photo/video editing, graphics rendering, software development, or perhaps have their PC work in distributed computing projects (through BOINC, etc.), etc..
On 06-09-19 16:06, Nightfox wrote to MRO <=-
Gamers aren't the only people who can take advantage of a
high-performance computer.. High-performance PCs are also good for
people who do photo/video editing, graphics rendering, software development, or perhaps have their PC work in distributed computing projects (through BOINC, etc.), etc..
Gamers aren't the only people who can take advantage of a
high-performance computer.. High-performance PCs are also good for
people who do photo/video editing, graphics rendering, software
development, or perhaps have their PC work in distributed computing
projects (through BOINC, etc.), etc..
True, and some video editors can also make use of a decent GPU, so even video card upgrades will get noticed by some non gamers.
On 06-09-19 21:47, Nightfox wrote to Vk3jed <=-
Yep. I believe both Nvidia and AMD (formerly ATI) make video cards
that can be used for general-purpose floating-poing calculations for software. I've had my PC run some distributed computing projects with BOINC, and some of those projects (SETI@Home and others for doing computing for health & science research) can make use of GPUs for their work.
I've heard the latest video cards from Nvidia have a couple thousand
cores on them.. You can do a lot of parallel computing with that.
Gamers aren't the only people who can take advantage of ayes, but it's more common to be someone that plays games than video editing,etc
high-performance computer.. High-performance PCs are also good for
people who do photo/video editing, graphics rendering, software
development, or perhaps have their PC work in distributed computing
projects (through BOINC, etc.), etc..
editing,etc
Yeah, it depends on the configuration.. I used to have a 386DX-40, and I heard
that rivaled the slower 486 configurations (SX-25 and such). After my >386DX-40, I had an AMD 486DX4-133, which I heard could be safely overclocked to
160mhz by increasing the bus speed from 33mhz to 40mhz. After I heard that, I >ran mine like that without any problems. It was a fast 486.
Until the late 90s or so, PC upgrades seemed to be a lot more significant. Going from a 386 to a 486 or a 486 to a Pentium, for example, gave you a lot more computing power for everyday things. Also, things like upgrading your video card, adding more RAM, etc. gave significant benefits to allow running more demanding games and other programs. I was excited when I finally upgra my PC so it was fast enough to play some games I wanted to play or perhaps r some other program I wanted to be able to use. Even something like adding a sound card to a PC was significant, going from the basic beeps of a PC speak to having audio that was a lot more realistic.
These days though, it seems like PC upgrades don't give you the giant leap t they used to. Are there any PC upgrades these days that excite you? I thin going from a HDD to SSD is pretty cool, but personally I only noticed a majo difference in OS boot time going to an SSD. Loading/running software doesn' seem to take significantly less time with an SSD.
Nightfox
When the Pentium 4 arrived, that was the beginning of the change in performanc e increases and life cycle periods needed to keep up with some software upgrades. As previously mentioned,almost every 18 months technology was perce ptibly doubling it's performance. After the P4, clock frequencies were staying about the same, yet number of cores and cache size became priorities.
In the gaming realm, video card's number crunching ability was more critical than the CPU's.
Re: Most exciting PC upgrades
By: Moondog to Nightfox on Fri Jun 14 2019 11:03 am
When the Pentium 4 arrived, that was the beginning of the change in performanc e increases and life cycle periods needed to keep up with some software upgrades. As previously mentioned,almost every 18 months technology was perce ptibly doubling it's performance. After the P4, clock frequencies were staying about the same, yet number of cores and cache size became priorities.
CPUs getting more powerful to keep up with software requirements was always happening, it didn't just start with the Pentium 4.
Also, the doubling
every 18 months is called Moore's Law and has been happening pretty much since microcomputer processors started being made. That observation was seen by Gordon Moore, a co-founder of Intel.
CPUs getting more powerful to keep up with software requirements was
always happening, it didn't just start with the Pentium 4.
Right, but around the time of the P4, the clock frequencies stopped increasing (or slowed) and the "power" was achieved through other means (more cores, smarter/bigger caches, better/faster instructions).
https://interestingengineering.com/no-more-transistors-the-end-of-moores-l aw
I've been hearing about that. And I've heard Intel has been struggling with their manufacturing as they've continued their 14nm process while other companies (namely, AMD) have started 10nm manufacturing, and even 7nm. I'm not sure how much smaller they can push it.
Re: Most exciting PC upgrades
By: Nightfox to Digital Man on Fri Jun 14 2019 03:01 pm
I've been hearing about that. And I've heard Intel has been struggling with their manufacturing as they've continued their 14nm process while other companies (namely, AMD) have started 10nm manufacturing, and even 7nm. I'm not sure how much smaller they can push it.The size of an atom... I think is the limit. :-)
I've been hearing about that. And I've heard Intel has been
struggling with their manufacturing as they've continued their 14nm
process while other companies (namely, AMD) have started 10nm
manufacturing, and even 7nm. I'm not sure how much smaller they can
push it.
The size of an atom... I think is the limit. :-)
Re: Most exciting PC upgrades
By: Moondog to Nightfox on Fri Jun 14 2019 11:03 am
When the Pentium 4 arrived, that was the beginning of the change in performanc e increases and life cycle periods needed to keep up with so software upgrades. As previously mentioned,almost every 18 months technology was perce ptibly doubling it's performance. After the P4, cl frequencies were staying about the same, yet number of cores and cache size became priorities.
CPUs getting more powerful to keep up with software requirements was always happening, it didn't just start with the Pentium 4. Also, the doubling ever 18 months is called Moore's Law and has been happening pretty much since microcomputer processors started being made. That observation was seen by Gordon Moore, a co-founder of Intel.
In the gaming realm, video card's number crunching ability was more critical than the CPU's.
'Was'? That might still be true in some ways.
Nightfox
I',m familair with Moore's law. My point is that after the P4 came out, the spread between huge gains in processing power slowed down, or wasn't noticeable to the average user.
Re: Most exciting PC upgrades
By: Moondog to Nightfox on Mon Jun 17 2019 12:59 pm
I',m familair with Moore's law. My point is that after the P4 came out, the spread between huge gains in processing power slowed down, or wasn' noticeable to the average user.
Yeah, that's part of what I was trying to say with my original message too.. Upgrading your CPU isn't as exciting as it used to be because most people aren't going to see huge noticeable gains.
Nightfox
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