Posted on 04/19/2010 9:07:41 AM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
I can believe it, if the "cost" you are quoting is the cost of making one additional chip, over and above the planned production run. But that is a funny number, because it does't allow anything for the cost of preparing to make a major production run of chips and it doesn't include the cost of designing the chip in the first place. In reality the cost of a production facility and the cost of designing, developing, and testing the chip should predominate in the equation for the profit a chip maker makes.The marginal cost of producing an additional chip, IOW, is an interesting number but not one you want the chipmaker to obsess over because the logic of that calculation is to never develop another new chip, but milk the profit from the last chip you ever design and set up a fab for. If you would have been happy to have stuck with the Apple II since 1982, IOW, you could be getting essentially free computers by now.
And that is precisely what socialism will do "for" you, if you let it. ObamaCare, at best, is 2010 health care forever - no expenditures on new developments in drugs or surgery. So, at best, it does nothing much initially but in 2020 it requires that the standard of care you get isn't any better than it was in 2010. And that's at best. In reality, a decision to focus only on cost and nothing to do with quality is a decision to not merely stagnate in quality but to allow quality to deteriorate.
Thanks Ernest for the ping. I shall bookmark this post for later use.
Where can you pick up an i7 860 for $200?
Thank you much. Getting ready to do my first build.
You’re welcome.
That’s a very good chip at a great price.
Have you decided on a mobo yet?
No I’m mostly confused on what to buy. Any suggestions? I’ll take whatever specs you want to provide.
BTW, I meant SATA rev 3.0, meaning the newer 6 Gbps drives.
Not sure how clear that was.
Thanks.
I don’t get the 32 vs 64 bit thing. Is that solely up to what OS you use?
Partly. Your processor has to be physically designed to use 64 bits versus 32, then the OS has to turn the 64 bit capabilities on within the processor, then the software you run has to be design for 64 bits as well.
I also suggest the following links to review when looking for new hardware.
The daily hardware reviews are really good. Just ignore any blog posts by Jason Mick - helpless liberal.
Also this site is excellent.
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/
I’m trying to build a good semi inexpensive system around the i7; then put on my current version of XP Pro(which I assume is 32 bit.) Any problems with this plan?
As far as I know, the only problem would be the 3 gig memory limit with XP 32-bit.
If you like XP, I’d suggest Win7 64-bit.
It would be much faster, and you will definitely have the hardware to run it (Win7) at its full potential (as well as being able to throw 6 or 8 gig of ram into it.)
Of course, that’s another $140 towards the cost of your system...
That should work just fine.
The way the 64 bit processors work is that they are 32 bit processors that have extra capabilities for 64 bit, so they can be told to run as a 32 bit processor or a 64 bit processor. If the processor is told to run as a 32 bit pocessor it cannot run 64 bit applications. If it is told to run asa 64 bit processor it can also run 64 and 32 bit applicaiton. Your operating system, Windows XP in your case, tells the processor when Windows XP boots to run as a 32 bit processor.
An I3 will do the job. Spend your money on video cards. Tom’s Hardware ranks the I7 and I5 as pretty similar for gaming.
Tom’s Hardware (dot com) has some good recent build-off data for several different price levels.
Thanks, I’ve already got a good video card that will run 4 monitors out of one slot. It’s a PNY Quadro NVS 440. It’s mostly a financial card for online trading. I’m just going to migrate it over to the new build.
Power stations. Is there a rule of thumb on if you want a 450w or 850w?
Tom's Hardware has a formula but it looks extremely detailed. Is too much power bad?
Too much power can lead to a little more heat than desired but it is not a bad thing unless you are hypersensitive about your utility bill. The video cards are getting more power hungry. I bought an ATI 5770 video card that consumes only 120 watts so I have a 550 watt power supply with a 9550 quad processor.
450 watts might run your video card just fine but that i7 might need more than your last processor. Check the i7 specs for the wattage needed. I think it is around 130 watts.
So, add in the processor of 130 watts and what your video card needs and another 100 watts or so for disk drives, memory, and the motherboard and you’ll have a ball park number. You can google for your videocard’s wattage requirements.
Don’t forget that every video card requires certain connectors from the power supply, such as a single 6 pin or single 8 pin or two 6 pins.
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