Linked by Richard White on Tue 15th Mar 2005 11:21 UTC
My basement is like a mortuary with the remains of computers all lying in state, waiting and hoping for a new lease on life. But what is there to do with the K6s, the Celerons, and Pentiums of the past. It seems nothing short of a miracle would bring these ghosts back to life.
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Older systems perform most of the essential functions for many. The majority of users just use a computer for the basic functions of web browsing, email, playing mp3s and using an office suite (spreadsheet, word document, etc). You don't need the latest system out there to use these apps. All of these apps will run well on a P2 computer (& fine on a Pentium 1 system). These are not cpu, hard drive, video or sound intensive. But you do need a good amount of RAM for them to run well.
Some may also add watching xvid/divx movies to the list & then you will need a min. of P3 500Mhz (though slightly faster would be better). Probably need a faster hard drive too.
The most important thing for computers is memory. The more you have (upto a point), the better the system will run (less hard drive swapping = better performance). A good rule is to have a minumum of 128MB of RAM to run good, though 256MB or more is ideal with today's applications to run great. A fast 7200rpm or newer 5400rpm drive also helps speed things up (loading programs, saving files), but isn't required if you can bare slightly longer wait times for starting apps, the OS, etc. RAM is essential though.
Most people think they need the latest hardware. This holds true only for 3D gaming or 3D design/drawing programs, or (3D sound, or 3D whatever). It also helps speed up movie & music conversions (ie: from mpeg1 to xvid; wav to mp3 or ogg or, etc.. My friend had a P3 800Mhz computer & would take him something like 5-6 hours to do divx to mpeg1 whereas my AthlonXP 2.1Ghz did it in around 2-2.5 hours). Conversions still work, just at a much slower speed because they are computationally intensive. For any 3D stuff you'll want one of the faster systems out there.
95% of the time (like many others) I'll use my system for the basic functions I listed above (1st paragraph) + watching xvid/divx movies. Once in awhile I play a 3D game to relax. So, this Athlon XP 2600+, 512MB DDR400, 80GB 7200RPM, ATI 8500, system feels somewhat like overkill. I too got caught up in having the latest and greatest because of hype, but realized I have no real use for it lately (in the past I used to 3D game quite a bit and did many movie conversions). As of today I could make due with a P3 700Mhz, 256-512MB of PC133, 40-80GB 5400/7200rpm. This older system would be very functional, but it sure feels good having & using a newer system.