Thread: Maybe a new puta needed - help with bewildering amount of choices please?

Originally Posted by AussieRoy

If your current router is still working, then wait until just before the NBN arrives at your place to buy a new WIFI router - preferably with 802.11AC WIFI, and capable of handling the full download speeds offered by the NBN. Cheap routers can't handle the pace with the NBN speeds as most of teh cheap routers were only built to handle ADSL speeds.

Indeed. That is what I was saying before about not being in a hurry to replace the router. We only have ADSL2+ here - nothing else - with download speed of 8-10 mbps.

NBN due here by mid-2016.

If I were to get a new router now I'd only have to replace it next year anyway because the new one now would still have to be ADSL2+.

Originally Posted by FenceFurniture

My partner has a Mac Monitor (7 years old) which just sits in the corner because she can't use it with her all in one Mac.

Had a bit of a look around the Net and it seems that there is no reason why I can't use it with a PC. My current laptop has the right connection for it so maybe I'll give it a go and see what I get. It may be that the new PC doesn't have the right connection, but there are Thunderbolt hybrid cables available.

If it works ok that would mean I don't have to buy a new monitor to have the two - both 24".

Bad news I think ------- have a look at this link, or Google for "How to use a Thunderbolt Monitor on a PC"

http://superuser.com/questions/54075...isplay-to-a-pc

Yes I read that and then I read this (which is what prompted me to check that I have the same port as the Mac Monitor cable requires - which I believe i have):
http://smallbusiness.chron.com/use-a...-pc-57232.html

• Skip the touch screen
• Skip the All-in-ones
• Get a name brand puta modified to spec or get one built by a longer term player
• RAM 8Gb, or 16Gb if it's cheap enough
• Hard Drive - 125Gb or 256Gb, which will probably also come with a 500Gb or 1 Tb mechanical drive
• Processor i5 (Quad Core?). Looking at the higher spec processors they seem to have slower speeds as the cores increase. Do I presume that a 2.0Ghz Quad core runs at 8.0Ghz???
• Make sure it Bluetooth, and 801.11AC Wireless. I presume that I can still use the current 801.11N router with AC? Can't find out what wireless the router is but it's a Netcomm N150 so maybe that means 801.11N
• Maybe skip McAfee/Norton anti virus (I'll still be using FireFox, Adblock, and will investigate NoScript)
• Maybe skip MS Office and go LibreOffice
• USB 3 ports, as well as USB 2

Haven't mentioned Video cards....

Should I be considering replacing the now 6-7 year old external hard drive? (regardless of new puta)

Two gig is the main clock speed, so it doesn't multiply across cores - they are each running at two gig. A program may effectively 'go faster' if the code splits across cores well, but with the majority of programs they'll just run locked to one core, so your media player isn't stealing time from your spreadsheet which isn't stealing time from your browser.

So that sounds like a 3.2 or 3.6 Ghz will actually run a pgm faster until another one comes along to nick some processing speed?

What I'm getting at there is that when I'm on the net, Excel isn't doing anything (even though it's always open) - I'm a man, I don't multi-stream, even though the puta can. So me having more than one core sounds like a waste - better off having one faster core.

Originally Posted by FenceFurniture

What I'm getting at there is that when I'm on the net, Excel isn't doing anything (even though it's always open) - I'm a man, I don't multi-stream, even though the puta can. So me having more than one core sounds like a waste - better off having one faster core.

Not entirely correct.

If Excel or any other application is running, but not being used (i.e. minimised), it is still using RAM, and it is still using CPU clock cycles periodically as the operating system undertakes activities related to that application - e.g. The operating system will have a periodic activity that checks the memory in use by the application and refreshes that memory to ensure that when you wake the program up in an hour's time, that everything in memory is still where you left it. The program itself will also usually wake-up and become a background process periodically to save the back-up copy of the file you are working on.

The Windows Operating System (just like OSx and Linux) runs numerous background processes which run behind the scenes. Some of these processes will be sleeping most of the time, but will regularly be woken up by the Operating System to perform some check or task. That waking-up can occur from as little as every few milliseconds for some processes, up to maybe every ten minutes or more. Each time one of those background processes is woken up, the Operating system has to find an idle CPU core to put that process on, and if there are no core idle, then the Operating System will put another process to sleep in order to run the background process. With a multi-core CPU, you are allowing the Operating System's background processes to distribute themselves across multiple CPU cores. The result is the same average background process load on the total CPU, but with very much lower background process loads on each core. That leaves a much larger proportion of each CPU core's capacity available to run other foreground and background processes. It also means that foreground processes (e.g. your MS Excel) can keep running uninterrupted on a multi-core CPU, whereas on a single core CPU (or a CPU with only a small number of cores), those foreground processes like Excel will end up having to be put to sleep momentarily by the operating system to allow it to run another process. On a single core CPU, that activity can really make the program that the user is trying to use appear to be slow.

With regard to applications utilising the multiple cores. Many applications that have been around for some years have not undergone the redevelopment that is required to enable those programs t fully utilise the multi-core CPU available. Some applications have undergone that redevelopment, and manage to distribute their processing load across some or all of the multiple cores available. However, the majority of large applications (e.g. LibreOffice and other similar products) are no longer one huge executable that runs as a single process on a single CPU core. These applications often have a main process that delivers the core functionality of the program, and as you do things in the program (i.e. open a file, search for something, kick off a print job, or open a second file so you have two open at the same time, etc) the program will kick off additional background processes to handle the task that you've asked for. Those extra processes will be distributed across the multiple CPU cores, and as a result you will see performance remain high on a multi-core CPU, whereas on a CPU with only one or two CPU cores, you will start to see the system slow down.

That's why I recommended at least an i5, or if you're after the hot rod version, the i7.

Roy

Ok, thanks Roy, pretty much got the gist of that, but not necessarily the fine detail yet.

So, looking at the vast array of Intel Processors available, there are the i3 (and only looking at 4th Gen):
http://ark.intel.com/products/family...ssors#@Desktop

The more recently released ones there range 3.0 to 3.8, and all seem to have 2 cores, 4 threads (no idea what a thread is or does) and have 3M or 4M cache

the i5
http://ark.intel.com/products/family...ssors#@Desktop

range 3.0 to 3.0, 4 cores, 4 threads and 4M or 6M cache


the i7
http://ark.intel.com/products/family...ssors#@Desktop

range 3.0 to 4.4, 4 cores, 8 threads and 8M cache

and then the high end desktops with 4, 6 or 8 cores, 12 threads and between 12M and 20M cache
http://ark.intel.com/products/family...ssors#@Desktop



That all seems to indicate that the number of cores, number of threads and cache amount increases the processing ability, and/or multistream processing ability.

I get how the number of cores will help multi streaming and keep things running fast even when other pgms or activities pop up.

Not sure about what the size of the cache will do, or the number of threads.

Originally Posted by FenceFurniture

Ok, thanks Roy, pretty much got the gist of that, but not necessarily the fine detail yet............

With regards to "threads"; the terminology is an abreviation Hyper-threading" which is a technology that Intel developed to make a single core CPU behave like a dual core CPU. This link explains it a bit if you want to delve into the technology. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyper-threading

The way I was taught to look at hyper-threading at an Intel trade show event many years ago when hyper-threading first came out was to look at a single core CPU that has hyper-threading enabled as being roughly equal to about 75% of a dual core CPU without hyper-threading.

With regard to cache cize on a CPU - a bigger cache is generally better, but most users will never notice the benefit of having the biggest cache available. I don't usually worry about cache size, unless I'm selecting parts for a very high performance computer for work such as engineering stress modelling, or other scientific modelling type programs which can take hours or days to run an analysis on a very fast machine. For the type of usage you've described, I don't think you'd notice a difference in performance between minimum andmaximum cache sizes.

Roy

I'd recommend ARC computers in Penrith if you want one built to spec. They can build pretty much any system you could want, and you can choose components by brand if you're really interested in that level of detail. I've had many Dell PCs and laptops over the years, and never had any problems, other than loud fans. I switched to ARC because I could get a lot more for the same money, and could also get a very quiet PC.

With regard to graphics cards, you might not need one. Most motherboards have basic graphics cards built in. You just need to confirm that it is capable of running 2 screens at once. If you're considering doing more work with Photoshop in the future, a dedicated graphics card might be worth considering.

I had a dual screen setup, but have now gone to a 27 inch screen that has plenty of screen space to put various windows on it. I prefer this to the dual screen process.

I'd recommend you get lots of USB 2 and 3 slots, with some on the back and some available on the front.

I've still got a lot of older software on CD, so I still have a DVD reader/burner installed in my main desktop. Lots of machines don't have these now, because people just download the software they need.

cheers,

ajw

The best way to think about CPU cache is that it's the computer equivalent to 'things you remember off the top of your head'.

When the CPU needs a particular bit of data, it checks the CPU cache; if it's not in the cache, it checks the RAM, if it's not in the RAM, it checks the hard drive. Each of these is a slower lookup than the preceding option.

Converting this to human terms, it's:
Things like your phone number that you 'just know' without looking at anything (CPU cache)
That business phone number that's on a sticky note that you have to peer over your monitor to see (RAM)
That phone number that's somewhere in the filing cabinet in the other room (standard hard drive) OR
That phone number that's the only entry on the only piece of paper in the only folder directly to the side of your mousepad (SSD hard drive).

...and to show how much you can load things up on a multi-core machine...

Here's my PC, currently downloading two files from two different internet sites, firefox open on six pages across four different sites, yahoo messenger running, downloading two torrents and actively seeding four, playing an MP3 (music) and watching an MP4 (video).

As you can see in the system monitor on the right hand side of the pic, total resource usage averages 17% CPU (which is auto-throttled back from 4200MHz to 3800MHz), and 35% of RAM used. (and that's on-CPU graphics, no stand-alone card).

screencap.jpg

Hmmmm.

Maybe a new puta needed

So, ah, how's your iView?

Well, my iView experience was...interesting...

Background - 25/5 NBN connection, no other computers on the home network running except mine. Average total download speed was in the region of 500kbps, so plenty of headway there!

I found iView stuttery in Firefox, and pulling up one of my video snagging utilities showed that iView was downloading the file in a series of chunks (f4f files at around 3-500k each). I opened up two YouTube windows and started watching them, and neither of them were stuttering. (however, CPU utilisation was now at around 50% but there was still a torrent client and a Firefox download running in the background.)

I killed the Firefox iView and Youtube windows, and opened up Chrome. Playback performance on Chrome didn't have the stutter, but it would still exhibit de-synching of the video stream (extended picture freezing while new audio was playing) when using the time slider to jump ahead/back in the timeline.

I also found the video quality on iView (based on what I saw of the Dr Blake Mysteries) pretty bad; I'm not sure if it was just that program, or the iView streamrate, but there were numerous signs of the codec used to create the file not keeping up (ie high speed motion had loss of detail as the encoder ran out of data headroom). If it was a torrent that I was watching, I'd be deleting it and finding a better quality one to download! (this could just be an ABC anti-piracy strategy...no self respecting pirate would put out a release that bad!!)