Rant on compatability

[na_th_an]

But each network card is based on a family of processors or another, that's something you have to deal with. Modern capitalism, that is, competitive market and stuff like that.

Fortunately, in the case of NICs they, at least, behave all the same in the physical line. There, the standard succeeded.

Inside, they are also quite standarized: they connect to the PCI bus. You don't need interfaces nor adaptors. Every NIC will have the same pinout to the PCI bus.

The driver is needed, tho'. You have to tell windows how to talk to that "device". This is, precisely, because the use of a PCI bus. If NICs were connected to the "special port for NICs" maybe this wouldn't be necessary. But using this approach, we would need a "special port for Soundcard", a "special port for USB printers", a "special port for USB scanners", etcetera...

You could say then, well ,then why every NIC has different drivers? Well, basicly 'cause every manufacturer adds his own features and/or has no clue how the other implemented the standard ones, so he figures things out

One of the advantages of PCs was the common bus technollogy so you can connect whatever kind of device to it. Before that, your computer had to have specialized, hard-built ports. And even back then you had an unnamed "expansion port" where you could fit several different devices but, alas! you needed software drivers anyway.

[seph]

Well, ... I ... really ... speicl ... I mean, ... there's "not much to it"

I agree for once with you Z!re.

[anarky]

If PC's had a standard like the old IBM standard, prices would rise further.

For the system you were talking about for 750 Euro, moneo, you wouldn't get for under $2000 here. Ram is close to $0.75c per MB. You want a GB? Pay $750 for DDR2 VRAM @ 400MHz FSB.

A DVD-RW here starts at a low of $90.

TFT Monitors at 17" are close to $500.

ASUS Mobo, looking at around $140+.

Intel Pentium IV 3.2GHz? Around $800.

Let's not get started on the Pentium ViiV...

[na_th_an]

I'm not Moneo

And fuck, your country is really expensive. Granted you earn more money, but it's the same thing at the end

[anarky]

Sorry na_th_an.

Well maybe in terms of monetary figures, but in relation to the cost of living, I'm still far below the poverty line. Like 75% of us here. But we manage.

[1000101]

I built a computer for a friend six months ago. It has an ASUS mobo with Serial ATA support, an AMD Athlon XP 3000+, 1 Gb memory, 120 Gb HDD, a nice 17" TFT, DVD+-RW double-sided, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600 videocard, keyboard and mouse for exactly 750€. The most expensive part was the monitor, which costed 195€.

A 260 Gb Serial ATA HDD costs 79€. A 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600 costs 85€. 512 Mb memory is around 25-30€. The burner costs 42€.

Where do you buy your computers? :o
Even a (stupidly) expensive desktop computer here, i.e. it has a brand name such as DELL or Compaq, goes no higher than 1,500 or 1,600€, and you are paying the stupid brand name.

None of those things even come close to the latest high-end computer components, even for six months ago. Hell, even for a year ago.


A dual-core AMD Athlon64 X2 4600+ is going to cost no less then $675 per unit.

A motherboard with Crossfire, SATA, RAID, dual GB LAN, support for dual processors and 16GiB RAM is going to cost no less then $300.

ATI Radeon x1800 XTX Crossfire cards are $750 a piece.

The memory is $266 USD per 2GB PC4000 stick.

We're already at more then $6000 CAD ($4500 USD) for a high-end system and we haven't put in for a case, extra cooling, storage, etc, etc.

What you built was a mid-range system and didn't come close to being high-end. Don't get me wrong, but when you talk smack about building a high-end system and you say the video card is a 9600, my BS meter goes off like mad

[anarky]

I believe there are 1TB HD's available somewhere?

[Zack]

I've never seen 1TB, but the computer I customized online (it came to $10000 USD...if only...) used two 500GB drive together to make a terabyte.

[Deleter]

biggest ive seen is this
750 GB

[anarky]

You want a 1TB HD?

Click here...

I couldn't find an internal one anywhere, but by next year a new technology will mean internal 1TB drives will be available.

Perpendicular recording:
In conventional (longitudinal) drives, the magnetic particles are placed laterally with the platter. In perpendicular drives, the particles are placed on a slightly upright angle, meaning more particles can be placed on the same surface area. This could potentially double the storage from 100 to 120 gigabits per square inch to 240 gigabits per square inch.