Pentium 3.0 being dumped at stores, some with decent prices????

[Patty Amas]

It is Thanksgiving and I see a lot of desktop computers at Best Buy
and the like with pretty much Pentium 3.0ghz only on the shelves. I am
excluding AMD at this time.

Do you think that the stores and Intel are trying to get rid of 3.0ghz
units for the next wave of perhaps 3.2 on the shelves since the 3.8
came out recently?

I see some decent deals out there but rather wait until I see a range
of processors on the shelves without having to do a special order with
the stores.

I have ruled out Dell (do not want to argue about this) due to their
poor support system in place. I tend to favor the HP, Sony line.
Gateway perhaps if I need to save some money. Compaq perhaps these
days.

Thanks for opinions.

Sincerely
Patty

 

[keith]

It is Thanksgiving and I see a lot of desktop computers at Best Buy
and the like with pretty much Pentium 3.0ghz only on the shelves. I am
excluding AMD at this time.

Do you think that the stores and Intel are trying to get rid of 3.0ghz
units for the next wave of perhaps 3.2 on the shelves since the 3.8
came out recently?

You aren't going to like to hear this, but... Apparently Intel has more
inventory than they can move. Their stock has been taking a beating
recently. Why? Simply put, AMD is a betttter deal.

OTOH, if it's free? Who cares about a couple of hundred MHz. THough
watch the quality of the rest of the system!

I see some decent deals out there but rather wait until I see a range of
processors on the shelves without having to do a special order with the
stores.

Special order? That's a big red-light to me! Who knows what you're going
to get?

I have ruled out Dell (do not want to argue about this)

....little argument in this group. ;-)

due to their
poor support system in place. I tend to favor the HP, Sony line. Gateway
perhaps if I need to save some money. Compaq perhaps these days.

I've not seen a system from any of the majors that I'd pay more than a
ham-sandwitch for (and most not that much).

Thanks for opinions.

Perhaps you've not noticed, but "build it youself" rules here. The other
hint is http://www.newegg.com/. Seriously! It's *not* difficult.

 

[George Macdonald]

It is Thanksgiving and I see a lot of desktop computers at Best Buy
and the like with pretty much Pentium 3.0ghz only on the shelves. I am
excluding AMD at this time.

Do you think that the stores and Intel are trying to get rid of 3.0ghz
units for the next wave of perhaps 3.2 on the shelves since the 3.8
came out recently?

Intel has several transitions going on just now: AGP video to PCI Express
is well under way; DDR to DDR-II memory is some ways along as is a socket
change for processors. So yes they and their OEMs have some incentive to
be moving any "obsolescent" stuff through the channel before the new
becomes established.

I see some decent deals out there but rather wait until I see a range
of processors on the shelves without having to do a special order with
the stores.

I have ruled out Dell (do not want to argue about this) due to their
poor support system in place. I tend to favor the HP, Sony line.
Gateway perhaps if I need to save some money. Compaq perhaps these
days.

Most people here are DIYers but if you don't want to go that way, before
buying a major brand, talk to a local custom builder first. You can get
something which you really like/want, which suits you, instead of a
compromise "package".

Rgds, George Macdonald

"Just because they're paranoid doesn't mean you're not psychotic" - Who, me??

 

[Yousuf Khan]

It is Thanksgiving and I see a lot of desktop computers at Best Buy
and the like with pretty much Pentium 3.0ghz only on the shelves. I am
excluding AMD at this time.

Yes, the Intel P4 3.0Ghz is actually now a pretty decent "entry-level
performance machine" these days. It's kind of funny, but Intel is having
selling its processors these days, and it has some huge inventory issues
now.

Do you think that the stores and Intel are trying to get rid of 3.0ghz
units for the next wave of perhaps 3.2 on the shelves since the 3.8
came out recently?

No, it's a bit more complicated than that. Intel's next generation chips
will not be any faster than its current generation chips in terms of
frequency -- 3.8Ghz will likely be as fast it will ever get from now on.
Intel is now distinguishing its chips by differences in bus speed and
cache size. So if you get a 3.0Ghz P4 right now, your next performance
upgrade might be another 3.0Ghz P4! However, your next 3.0Ghz P4 might
have twice the cache as the current one, or it might have a faster bus
speed than the current.

I see some decent deals out there but rather wait until I see a range
of processors on the shelves without having to do a special order with
the stores.

Intel is only able to produce lots of 3.0Ghz and 3.2Ghz processors
nowadays. Anything above that like 3.4, 3.6, or 3.8Ghz are rare and hard
for them to produce. You'll be waiting a long time to find "a range of
processors" from them. Pick up what you can today, there's not much
beyond this.

I have ruled out Dell (do not want to argue about this) due to their
poor support system in place. I tend to favor the HP, Sony line.
Gateway perhaps if I need to save some money. Compaq perhaps these
days.

I'd suggest checking into non-brandnames like the boxes made and sold at
the local computer stores. They are much more configurable than the
brandname boxes. Like for example when you go to a Best Buy (or a Future
Shop here in Canada), you are pretty much limited to what you're seeing
on the shelf in front of you. At a local computer store, you can build
up your system from its basic setup to any decent configuration you
like; for example, you can upgrade the video card, the hard drive, the
memory, the CPU, the motherboard, the audio, whatever. And they can
build these systems much cheaper than what you get at Best Buy usually.

Yousuf Khan

 

[JK]

It is Thanksgiving and I see a lot of desktop computers at Best Buy
and the like with pretty much Pentium 3.0ghz only on the shelves. I am
excluding AMD at this time.

Why? Why would you want an Intel processor?

Do you think that the stores and Intel are trying to get rid of 3.0ghz
units for the next wave of perhaps 3.2 on the shelves since the 3.8
came out recently?

Many people want a 64 bit processor.

 

[nobody]

Yes, the Intel P4 3.0Ghz is actually now a pretty decent "entry-level
performance machine" these days. It's kind of funny, but Intel is having
selling its processors these days, and it has some huge inventory issues
now.


No, it's a bit more complicated than that. Intel's next generation chips
will not be any faster than its current generation chips in terms of
frequency -- 3.8Ghz will likely be as fast it will ever get from now on.
Intel is now distinguishing its chips by differences in bus speed and
cache size. So if you get a 3.0Ghz P4 right now, your next performance
upgrade might be another 3.0Ghz P4! However, your next 3.0Ghz P4 might
have twice the cache as the current one, or it might have a faster bus
speed than the current. ....snip...
Yousuf Khan

Yeah, and a new socket, or something else (bus/voltage/whatever) that
will force you to get it together with new motherboard, even though it
may be mechanically compatible with the old socket. And the new board
will probably ask you for new memory and power supply. Oh, almost
forgot, that new board will definitely ask for BTX case!
;-)

 

[Patty Amas]

Thanks all. I have built my own before and for others. I agree with
everything you are saying. I guess I also feel like the rest of
you-things are always changing. I realize Intel is a bit behind and
their roadmap looks a little shaky. I was not aware of the DDR-II
though. I do know there is a move toward BTX and new cases, cooling
and PCI-Express for all boards rather than just the video board.

I guess I rather not go thru the hassle of building with a limited
warranty even if I have a 3rd party build one at a local store. I
checked a few sotres out. 1 year warranty and that is it. 90 days on
some other barebones systems.

Is there a motherboard (I do read Extreme Tech and the like) that has
PCI Express and perhaps could handle DDR-II?

How far away is BTX and does it make much of a difference?

And finally if you had to buy a system in what order would you rank
the manufactureers, their components, and their support? I put Dell
last for support these days and have not been impressed by the systems
I have seen my friends and other purchase of recent (except laptops
perhaps).

Sony seemed to surprse me with a decent machine. HP I tend to like.
Gateway is cheap in dollars and not sure about the insides. Compaq
(Part of HP as we all know) is not too too bad....I have a Compaq
Deskpro that is quite old and it is faster than some other machiens I
have seen and is only a PIII 800mhz. Faster than my boyfriends that I
upgraded to 900MHZ, some RAM and same hard drive with 8mb cache. Old
PC100 memory.

Thanks, Patty

 

[Johannes H Andersen]

Why? Why would you want an Intel processor?

Hey, your main argument in all these discussions we had before was that
AMD was better value. Now if Intel 3.0 gets cheaper, then you can't have
it both ways.

Many people want a 64 bit processor.

What for?

 

[Patty Amas]

I noticed a Dell XPS Gen 4 machine today (3.2GHZ not Extreme Edition
with 1066 FSB, but rather 800) on Dells site and well configured with
25% off from www.morestuff4less.com. Could get if for $1750. A high
end 8400 was $100 less with same coupon....


Thoughts?


Thanks
Patty

 

[JK]

Hey, your main argument in all these discussions we had before was that
AMD was better value. Now if Intel 3.0 gets cheaper, then you can't have
it both ways.

Cheaper than it was is still not cheap. Don't forget that the 3 ghz Pentium 4
chip being discussed is only a 32 bit processor. Will the price on the 3 ghz
Pentium 4 drop below $75?

What for?

They want an Athlon 64 for the on chip memory controller and the ability
to upgrade to 64 bit software next year.

 

[Tony Hill]

It is Thanksgiving and I see a lot of desktop computers at Best Buy
and the like with pretty much Pentium 3.0ghz only on the shelves. I am
excluding AMD at this time.

Do you think that the stores and Intel are trying to get rid of 3.0ghz
units for the next wave of perhaps 3.2 on the shelves since the 3.8
came out recently?

My guess (and it's just that) is that most people buying computers on
store shelves from the major retailers are not really looking for a
high-end system, but rather something cheap. People buying high-end
systems are probably much more likely to buy a customer-configured
system.

As for why 3.0GHz systems? That's pretty much the slowest/cheapest P4
that Intel sells these days, though I have seen a number of 2.93GHz P4
systems being advertised. Note that you almost certainly do not want
a 2.93GHz P4 system, as it would only have a 533MT/s bus speed vs. the
800MT/s bus speed of the newer P4s. The bus speed of the chip makes a
bigger difference than the clock speed (for example, a 2.4GHz P4 with
an 800MT/s bus will typically be as fast or faster than those 2.93GHz
P4's with the 533MT/s bus speed).

I see some decent deals out there but rather wait until I see a range
of processors on the shelves without having to do a special order with
the stores.

I have ruled out Dell (do not want to argue about this) due to their
poor support system in place. I tend to favor the HP, Sony line.
Gateway perhaps if I need to save some money. Compaq perhaps these
days.

If you found the support system for Dell to be poor you will almost
certainly be disappointed in the support for HP/Compaq systems, since
it's contracted out to the same companies that Dell uses. Same goes
for Gateway and Sony. *ALL* consumer PC support has been outsourced,
mostly to India or the Philippines, and pretty much all of them only
come with very limited 1 year warranties.

In fact, there really isn't much difference between the various
companies these days except for marketing. Not only do they all use
the same components, but they've all outsourced the design and
production of the systems to a handful of companies in Taiwan and
China anyway.

 

[Yousuf Khan]

I noticed a Dell XPS Gen 4 machine today (3.2GHZ not Extreme Edition
with 1066 FSB, but rather 800) on Dells site and well configured with
25% off from www.morestuff4less.com. Could get if for $1750. A high
end 8400 was $100 less with same coupon....


Thoughts?

I thought you said you wanted to avoid Dell?

Yousuf Khan

 

[nobody]

I noticed a Dell XPS Gen 4 machine today (3.2GHZ not Extreme Edition
with 1066 FSB, but rather 800) on Dells site and well configured with
25% off from www.morestuff4less.com. Could get if for $1750. A high
end 8400 was $100 less with same coupon....


Thoughts?


Thanks
Patty

$1750? For a Dell? Uniprocessor consumer-level box? You could flush
the money down the toilet as well.
I built a _DUAL_ Opteron system for under $1200 (OK, sans monitor) in
May. Today I could probably have it with bigger harddrive and better
video for a bit less. And, unlike the Dell, this box is 64 bit-ready
and upgradable to dual-core chips (will do it as soon as the price on
dual-cores drops below the presumably insane initial release level to
something more sensible).
But...Well, it's your money and your right to spend it any way you see
fit...

 

[RusH]

Is there a motherboard (I do read Extreme Tech and the like) that
has PCI Express and perhaps could handle DDR-II?

How far away is BTX and does it make much of a difference?

but, well, how do I put this ..
PCI Express is slower than AGP
DDR-II is slower than DDR
and BTX SUX monkey balls - noone beside Intel want to make BTX cases.

All those new buzwords are just a step back from what we have now

Pozdrawiam.

 

[George Macdonald]

Thanks all. I have built my own before and for others. I agree with
everything you are saying. I guess I also feel like the rest of
you-things are always changing. I realize Intel is a bit behind and
their roadmap looks a little shaky. I was not aware of the DDR-II
though. I do know there is a move toward BTX and new cases, cooling
and PCI-Express for all boards rather than just the video board.

None of those new things actually brings any performance improvement at the
moment.

I guess I rather not go thru the hassle of building with a limited
warranty even if I have a 3rd party build one at a local store. I
checked a few sotres out. 1 year warranty and that is it. 90 days on
some other barebones systems.

A (extended) "warranty" from the big mfrs now only means you have the right
to talk to someone in India or Philippines for an "extended" time.

Is there a motherboard (I do read Extreme Tech and the like) that has
PCI Express and perhaps could handle DDR-II?

DDR-II is no advantage at all at the moment - it promises higher clock
speeds for the future but has even worse latency than DDR. IOW right now,
it's a performance degradation.

PCI Express also brings no noticable improvement in performance right now
though AGP video cards are starting to get thin on choice. AGP will not
disappear entirely but it appears that mfrs are already concentrating their
efforts on PCI Express.

How far away is BTX and does it make much of a difference?

All I've seen of it so far was a compact design and it did not appeal to me
as a step forward. See what you think:
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1727911,00.asp?kc=ETRSS02129TX1K0000532

Again, ATX is going to be with us for a long while yet, I believe.

And finally if you had to buy a system in what order would you rank
the manufactureers, their components, and their support? I put Dell
last for support these days and have not been impressed by the systems
I have seen my friends and other purchase of recent (except laptops
perhaps).

Dell laptops? One of our offices bought a couple - absolute junk: screen
problems, network trouble (power off would hang the hub and therefore
entire network) and the infamous drifting mouse cursor... related to a
touch pad which just doesn't work... which Dell just could not fix and
finally just gave up on. Our people just wrote them off and got Thinkpads
in their place... the frustration of returning to Dell for "repair", which
didn't do a damned thing, just got too much.

Sony seemed to surprse me with a decent machine. HP I tend to like.
Gateway is cheap in dollars and not sure about the insides. Compaq
(Part of HP as we all know) is not too too bad....I have a Compaq
Deskpro that is quite old and it is faster than some other machiens I
have seen and is only a PIII 800mhz. Faster than my boyfriends that I
upgraded to 900MHZ, some RAM and same hard drive with 8mb cache. Old
PC100 memory.

If you get a good one from any of them you'll be OK but it's a lottery and
you end up with a bunch of price-crimped, compromises. Personally I prefer
to select the keyboard, mouse, screen, mbrd features, case, CPU etc. *I*
want. I've just, this past week or so, put together a new system based on
an Athlon64 3500+ Skt939 and I know I wouldn't be as happy with anything
from any of the major brands. My advice is still to DIY or find a local
builder.

Rgds, George Macdonald

"Just because they're paranoid doesn't mean you're not psychotic" - Who, me??

 

[ykhan]

Is there a motherboard (I do read Extreme Tech and the like) that has
PCI Express and perhaps could handle DDR-II?

Well, in the Intel sphere, pretty much any motherboard that comes with
the Intel 915- or 925-series chipsets use both PCIe and DDR2.

How far away is BTX and does it make much of a difference?

Well, I previously posted an article on this newsgroup about how to
build a DIY BTX system from ExtremeTech.

DIY PC with an Intel BTX Motherboard and BTX Case
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1727911,00.asp?kc=ETRSS02129TX1K0000532

As far as whether BTX makes a difference? It doesn't at the 3.0Ghz P4
level. It does start to make a difference at the 3.4Ghz or higher
level where Intel is having the greatest challenge in producing a cool
chip. It's mainly been introduced to help Intel's power-hungry chips
to get cooled properly. Not really relevant to anything else,
including Intel's own low-power chips.

And finally if you had to buy a system in what order would you rank
the manufactureers, their components, and their support? I put Dell
last for support these days and have not been impressed by the systems
I have seen my friends and other purchase of recent (except laptops
perhaps).

Can't comment about manufacturer rankings (I'd say they're all the
same). As for the technological components involved, I would say these
are the most to least important:

(1) PCI-Express. This has universal appeal, and it is the most easy to
exploit right away, however it is mostly appealing to the high-end
gamer crowd. The most useful application of this technology coming up
is the dual-video card setup, with Nvidia's SLI technology being used
to double video processing throughput. PCIe seems to have quite a bit
higher bandwidth than AGP, which it replaces, but slightly higher
latency as well

(2) DDR2. Also has universal appeal like PCIe. However, it's appeal
will only come later, after the technology becomes cheaper and faster.
Currently the DDR2 has almost double the latency of DDR1, despite
being able to go upto higher bandwidths. DDR2's latency penalty will
become irrelevant probably only once DDR2 is running at twice the
frequency of the highest speed DDR1.

(3) BTX. Not important at all. No universal appeal.

So, I would say your best bet would be to get an ATX motherboard with
PCIe support and DDR1. That would probably rule out getting an Intel
chipset. You may have to get an ATI, Nvidia, SIS, or VIA chipsets
instead.

Yousuf Khan

 

[Patty Amas]

Thanks all. Is there any custom built system out there that also has
good support. By this, I mean I ratehr not build it myself even though
I can. I would like to have some support behind it. I am not a gamer
but heard of Alienware, not sure how their systems stack up against
others. Their prices do seem high and I have no clue as to their
support or quality of components.

I did read the build it yourself portion of Extreme Tech online which
shows a few systems to build.

I have built osme before and just like hacing a support contract. In
that case, perhaps I should just not worry and buy a consumer model
from Best Buy and replace it in the future. I am not a developer. Just
a Project Manager (IT) currently laid off.

Thanks
Patty

 

[George Macdonald]

Well, in the Intel sphere, pretty much any motherboard that comes with
the Intel 915- or 925-series chipsets use both PCIe and DDR2.

There *are* i915 mbrds with PCI Express and dual channel DDR(1). Asus has
announced/released their nForce4/SLI Athlon64 Skt 939 mbrd too - no idea
when we'll see it for sale in the U.S. Funny how they skipped the nForce3
there - those boards are scarce... I feel lucky with my Neo2 Platinum.

Rgds, George Macdonald

"Just because they're paranoid doesn't mean you're not psychotic" - Who, me??

 

[nobody]

Thanks all. Is there any custom built system out there that also has
good support. By this, I mean I ratehr not build it myself even though
I can. I would like to have some support behind it. I am not a gamer
but heard of Alienware, not sure how their systems stack up against
others. Their prices do seem high and I have no clue as to their
support or quality of components.

I did read the build it yourself portion of Extreme Tech online which
shows a few systems to build.

I have built osme before and just like hacing a support contract. In
that case, perhaps I should just not worry and buy a consumer model
from Best Buy and replace it in the future. I am not a developer. Just
a Project Manager (IT) currently laid off.

Thanks
Patty

Support? What support? While it still exists when you deal with top
tier vendor selling you enterprize-level gear (I mean things like HPQ
Proliant servers, IBM IntelliStations and Thinkpads, and even possibly
D_U_ll Latitude laptops), all support for consumer-level gizmos is
long gone to India, and that means South. All you are entitled to is
a phone call, and someone with heavy Indian accent will first ask you
stupid questions (is the power cord plugged into wall outlet? and
such), and in the end will direct you to use recovery disk (that
entails harddrive format and loss of everything you put on it since
you bought it). When even that fails, they will instruct you how to
mail it to their service center (you must use original packaging,
otherwise you lose the warranty). Oh, yeah, YOU pay shipping costs.
What you get back is not necessarily your original system, but it
definitely will be a refurb.
The best support you possibly can get is a screwdriver in your hand.
"If you want it done right, do it yourself" - nuff said.

 

[RusH]

(e-mail address removed) (Patty Amas) wrote :

1
topposting

2

support
3
I am a
Project Manager (IT)

So that is your problem. You are an IT manager, that explains it all.
Go for Dell. NEXT.


Pozdrawiam.