200 lines
4.3 KiB
HTML
200 lines
4.3 KiB
HTML
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
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<HTML
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><HEAD
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><TITLE
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>But What If I'm Economizing?</TITLE
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NAME="GENERATOR"
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REL="HOME"
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TITLE="The Unix Hardware Buyer HOWTO"
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HREF="index.html"><LINK
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REL="PREVIOUS"
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TITLE="What To Optimize"
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HREF="optimize.html"><LINK
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REL="NEXT"
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TITLE="Noise Control and Heat Dissipation"
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HREF="noise.html"></HEAD
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>The Unix Hardware Buyer HOWTO</TH
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WIDTH="10%"
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>Prev</A
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><DIV
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CLASS="sect1"
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><H1
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CLASS="sect1"
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><A
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NAME="economizing"
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></A
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>5. But What If I'm Economizing?</H1
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><P
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>If you are economizing, here's a simple rule:</P
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><P
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></P
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><UL
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><LI
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><P
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><EM
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>Do</EM
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> buy a CPU/motherboard one or two
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levels lower than commercial state of the art.</P
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></LI
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></UL
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><P
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>For best value, look in the <EM
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>middle</EM
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> of the
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current range of available processors. On the desktop, in late 2007, that
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means a CPU costing perhaps $75 to $200, not the latest and greatest quad
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core marvels selling for several times that!</P
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><P
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>Why? Because of the way manufacturers' price-performance curves are
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shaped. The top-of-line system is generally boob bait for corporate
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executives and other people with more money than sense. Chances are the
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system design is new and untried — if you're at the wrong point in the
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technology cycle, the chip may even be a pre-production sample, or an early
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production stepping with undiscovered bugs like the infamous FDIV problem
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in early Pentiums. You don't need such troubles. Better to go with a
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chip/motherboard combination that's been out for a while and is known good.
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It's not like you really need the extra speed, after all.</P
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><P
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>Besides, if you buy one of these gold-plated systems, you're only
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going to kick yourself three months later when the price plunges by
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30%. Further down the product line there's been more real competition
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and the manufacturer's margins are already squeezed. There's less
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room for prices to fall, so you won't watch your new toy lose street
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value so fast. Its price will still drop, but it won't plummet
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sickeningly.</P
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><P
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>Again, bear in mind that the cheapest processor you can buy new today
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is plenty fast enough for Linux. So if dropping back a speed level or
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two brings you in under budget, you can do it with no regrets.</P
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><P
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>Consider one drive rather than two. This <EM
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>will</EM
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>
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reduce overall system performance somewhat, but the cost saving as a
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fraction of total system cost is often substantial.</P
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><P
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>Another easy economy measure is looking for repaired or reconditioned
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parts with a warranty. These are often as good as new, and much
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cheaper.</P
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><P
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>Your display is one of the areas where pinching pennies is
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<EM
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>not</EM
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> a good idea. You're going to be looking at that
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display for hours on end. You are going to be using the screen real estate
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constantly. Buy the best quality, largest screen you possibly can — it
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will be worth it.</P
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><P
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>Similarly, do not reduce the amount of RAM in your system too far. A
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minimum of 4GB of RAM is helpful in desktop systems today.</P
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></DIV
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><DIV
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><TR
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><TD
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WIDTH="33%"
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ALIGN="left"
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VALIGN="top"
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><A
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HREF="optimize.html"
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ACCESSKEY="P"
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>Prev</A
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></TD
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><TD
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WIDTH="34%"
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ALIGN="center"
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VALIGN="top"
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><A
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HREF="index.html"
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ACCESSKEY="H"
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>Home</A
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></TD
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><TD
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ALIGN="right"
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VALIGN="top"
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><A
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HREF="noise.html"
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ACCESSKEY="N"
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>Next</A
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></TR
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><TR
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><TD
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WIDTH="33%"
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ALIGN="left"
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VALIGN="top"
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>What To Optimize</TD
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><TD
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WIDTH="34%"
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ALIGN="center"
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VALIGN="top"
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> </TD
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><TD
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WIDTH="33%"
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ALIGN="right"
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VALIGN="top"
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>Noise Control and Heat Dissipation</TD
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></TR
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></TABLE
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></DIV
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></BODY
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> |