Buying a PC advice (processor talk cont'd) - Page 3

xenxabar · 27th October 2006, 10:32 PM

Originally Posted by bigred

Man that blows. I thought Dell was better than that.....

Dell is just staying current with technology. Legacy ports (serial and parallel) have been phasing out since 1999. See Chapter 13 of the PC 99 System Design Guide for more details. Many motherboards these days have most components integrated i.e. NIC, Sound, Firewire and sometimes Video, especially the ones in less expensive systems.

The days of having lots of expansion slots doesn't really make a whole lot of sense anymore. AGP is being replaced by PCIe 16x. Some new MBs have 2 of them which is what you need for quad SLI graphics configuration. Sound cards still come as PCI. The only cards I can find in PCIe besides video are Firewire/USB cards and every motherboard I've seen lately have both on board. The machine I'm on right now I purchased (the motherboard) back in August 2002. It has no legacy ports whatsoever. No parallel, no serial, no PS2. Of course the introduction of such an extreme change to hardware didn't go over well with everyone and PS2 was added back, but I have no complaints with the board. The only card I have in it is an AGP video card.

bigred · 30th October 2006, 08:54 AM

Agree, but you should have at least a couple for a video card and whatever else, eg a TV tuner card or some such.

bigred · 1st November 2006, 07:47 AM

Since I know many of you are losing sleep wondering....I finally bought a PC

Acer PC with 256 cold cranking MBs of RAM YEAH baby...I'm high-tech now

OK not really.

Compaq w/AMD Athlon 4200 dual-core, 1GB RAM. O what a feeling.

jimlintott · 1st November 2006, 10:16 AM

Three chears for bigred and his new PC.

Hip, hip. Hooray
Hip, hip. Hooray
Hip, hip. Hooray

What video card does it have? One of the best performance things you can do to a new PC is download and install the latest drivers for everything. Video card drivers can get performance boosts from one version to the next.

bigred · 1st November 2006, 12:55 PM

More like "thank God he won't be posting msgs about this anymore" I bet

GE Nvidia or whatever the hell those things are called. Definitely keep it in mind on the drivers, thx!

27th October 2006, 10:32 PM	#81
xenxabar bacon chocolate tacos Join Date: Jul 2005 Posts: 3,302	Originally Posted by bigred Man that blows. I thought Dell was better than that..... Dell is just staying current with technology. Legacy ports (serial and parallel) have been phasing out since 1999. See Chapter 13 of the PC 99 System Design Guide for more details. Many motherboards these days have most components integrated i.e. NIC, Sound, Firewire and sometimes Video, especially the ones in less expensive systems. The days of having lots of expansion slots doesn't really make a whole lot of sense anymore. AGP is being replaced by PCIe 16x. Some new MBs have 2 of them which is what you need for quad SLI graphics configuration. Sound cards still come as PCI. The only cards I can find in PCIe besides video are Firewire/USB cards and every motherboard I've seen lately have both on board. The machine I'm on right now I purchased (the motherboard) back in August 2002. It has no legacy ports whatsoever. No parallel, no serial, no PS2. Of course the introduction of such an extreme change to hardware didn't go over well with everyone and PS2 was added back, but I have no complaints with the board. The only card I have in it is an AGP video card.
	__________________ Please help: http://www.stopsylvia.com/ by helping its creator http://www.skepticsunite.com Folding it's not just for laundry anymore. "If I wanted to be book smart, I'd learn how to read."

1st November 2006, 07:47 AM	#83
bigred Penultimate Amazing Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: USA Posts: 12,537	Since I know many of you are losing sleep wondering....I finally bought a PC Acer PC with 256 cold cranking MBs of RAM YEAH baby...I'm high-tech now OK not really. Compaq w/AMD Athlon 4200 dual-core, 1GB RAM. O what a feeling.
	Last edited by bigred; 1st November 2006 at 08:16 AM.

1st November 2006, 10:16 AM	#84
jimlintott Master Poster Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Saskatchewan Posts: 2,894	Three chears for bigred and his new PC. Hip, hip. Hooray Hip, hip. Hooray Hip, hip. Hooray What video card does it have? One of the best performance things you can do to a new PC is download and install the latest drivers for everything. Video card drivers can get performance boosts from one version to the next.
	__________________ If you are going to throw caution to the wind, make sure you are standing upwind.

30th October 2006, 08:54 AM	#82
bigred Penultimate Amazing Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: USA Posts: 12,537	Agree, but you should have at least a couple for a video card and whatever else, eg a TV tuner card or some such.

1st November 2006, 12:55 PM	#85
bigred Penultimate Amazing Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: USA Posts: 12,537	More like "thank God he won't be posting msgs about this anymore" I bet GE Nvidia or whatever the hell those things are called. Definitely keep it in mind on the drivers, thx!