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State-of-the-Art, Part Two:
July 29, 2002:
Recently, I posted an essay which I called State-of -the-Art.
In that I discussed the changes which have occurred in computers
since we produced our book, The Anatomy of a PC. Now I have a
follow up on that. I actually did specify and order the components
for a new PC.
Here is the specification for the new Wesoomi Computer:
Motherboard
ABIT NV7-133R Socket A; Front side bus 200/266; 4 IDE controllers,
2 with RAID 1, 0, 1 + 0; ATA 133; 5 PCI slots; 1 AGP 4x slot;
3 DDR slots for up to 1.5 GB; 2 USB-2 ports, 2 PS2 ports; 1 Serial
port; 1 Parallel port; On board audio; On board LAN.
Processor AMD Athelon XP 1800
Motherboard and processor bundle 1@ $217.00
RAM 2700 DDR; 1 GB. PC2700 SDRAM required
512 MB modules 2 ea, @ $304.00
HDD 80GB, 7200 RPM, ATA100, Mode 5. 2 ea. @ $274.00
HDD removable drawer is included
HDD cables ATA100. 18" 2 ea. @ $43.80
HDD cables ATA100. 24" 2 ea. @ $49.80
HDD cables ATA 100. 36" 2 ea. @ $26.00
Floppy LS120 1 @ $96.00
52 X internal IDE CD-ROM drive 1 @ $32.00
CD-RW Yamaha CDW3200, 24-10-40 EIDE 1 @ $132.00
Video driver board ATI Radeon 7000, 64 MB APG-4 1 @ $78.00
Cabinet 320W, 5 ext 5"; 1 ext 3"; 2 int 3".
1 @ $107.00
Extra 12 fan, 8cm 2 @ $20.00
PS2 Keyboard 1 @ $6.95
PS2 Mouse 1 @ $4.29
Surge arrester power strip 1 @ $16.00
Total $1406.84
A bit of discussion is in order here. The first thing to notice is the huge difference in prices. The system I specified in 1999 cost about $2700.00. This one has more of almost everything for much less money. It is true, I did not specify a SCSI interface card and two SCSI CD-ROM drives. That accounts for $250.00 of the difference. In addition, I will use the monitor I already have for this system. If I had bought one, it would have cost 1/2 as much as the last time. Add another $250.00. That is still a difference of about 800 bucks.
Another thing you may notice is I did not select the fastest processor, nor did I select the largest hard drives available. Instead I selected components at what is called the price-performance sweet spot. In economic theory, this point would be called the point of diminishing returns. In computer components, it is where the next increment in price does not justify the increase in performance.
If you look at the prices of CPUs, for example, this sweet spot is easy to see. Up to that point, the processor prices increase at an almost fixed rate. It's about 10 bucks per step. Beyond that point, the prices increase dramatically as we approach the state-of-the-art. This same thing is true of most electronic devices. So, the two questions we consider in selecting components are, how good is good enough, and where is the sweet spot?
Another point about the state-of-the-art is, sometimes these cutting edge technologies do not work as well as expected. Instead of having cutting edge technology, we end up being beta testers for overly optimistic engineers. This has happened to me more than once. For that reason alone, I like to stay somewhat below the curve.
Now, about the SCSI devices: In this system, I know that the SCSI card will be unnecessary. My scanner can use a USB port instead of SCSI. Scanners are very slow devices. I do not think I will need more CD-ROMs. If I do, I can buy IDE CD-ROMs for about thirty bucks a pop. This system will have 8 IDE devices rather that the 4 of the earlier system. The system I built in 1999 will still have the SCSI card and the SCSI CD-ROM drives.
Also, notice that the audio and the local network interfaces are built into the motherboard. This not only saves me cost, I save PCI slots for other things that may come along. Going down the list, the memory is 4 times as much and 4 times as fast as the previous system. This memory and bus speed makes secondary cache unnecessary.
On the hard drives, they have become so cheap that I went for massive overkill. I will have separate drives for my software and data. Notice also the IDE cables in this specification. These cables become important because of the increased speed of the IDE interface. Instead of the normal 40 wires, these cables have 80 wires which allows each data wire to be paired with its own grounded companion. In this way, crosstalk and noise get shut out.
One thing that has occurred in this race for speed is the processor speed can handle any task we give it with no problem. It will not slow us down. The big bottle neck in computers is the hard drive. Now the hard drives are trying to catch up. As to size, they have. Even for most folks with huge graphic files, there is no longer a storage problem.
In speed, hard drives are also much better. These drives can transfer data at three times the rate as the ones in the previous system. Programs and data will load much faster. In addition, we now have RAID capability. For me, this means I can use RAID mirroring to do back up. For this, I will use another 80GB drive, which I already have, in a removable drawer. It will be set to mirror whatever is put on the internal data drive. My back up medium will be an 80 GB hard drive which I can pull out and take with me. When I do want to archive something, I will put it on a write once CD.
I'll have more to report on this system, when I actually receive
the parts and put them together. As to these parts, that brings
me to the subject of my next essay. It concerns my disappointment
with Jinco Computers. I was so disappointed that I removed the
link to Jinco's site from the Wesoomi links pages. I'll tell you
all about it next week.
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