Speccing up a machine on Dell’s website. Is there much difference between i5 processors? Seem to range from 2.26 – 2.53 Ghz – would I even be able to tell and if so would it be worth the extra £70 for the fast one?

Depends what you do with your computer, if it’s just for email/internet etc then probably not.

Bit more than that – Visual Studio, SQL Server, MySQL, Eclipse stuff like that for development. Might have a go with ableton/traktor too.

Probably no photo or video processing though

probably not, (im sure you have anyway) but just get as much RAM in it as possible

Even Java dev stuff isn’t CPU intensive compared to video etc. You’ll be fine with the lower one.

Nice one cheers chaps.

Next question – is it worth getting a wireless adaptor that supports ‘n’? I’m thinking it’s probably not worth it as my current ‘g’ router connects well enough and speed to the outside world is going to be dictated by the speed of the line anyway.

N is fairly handy I’d say. I upgraded from G to N in our house so I could stream stuff on the WLAN. G isn’t really that quick, and once you factor in noise and poor signal it can get slow. N gets better signal as well as being quicker on paper.

RAM though you’ll need as much of as you can afford, for all that dev stuff 🙂 Also go 64-bit.

Can always overclock the slower processor if the Dell bios allows it.

Yeah it’ll be 64 bit (all iX processors are I think)

Going with 4gig of memory to start with and upgrade later when it’s come down in price a bit, the jump was quite big to put any more in from the off

Make sure you get 64bit windows too.

oh its the os that you want to be 64 bit

If it’s for dev work I’d be more worried about the number of cores. VS plus SQL Server plus IIS plus debugging, it’s good to have a core for each one and lots of RAM.

Yeah but they’re not going to be doing a lot simultaneously, unless he’s crunching huge data sets. Which as a dev, you tend not to do.

I’ve run similar on a 1GHz celeron with 2Gb ram back in 2003, it flew through it.

Wireless N – bear in mind, it needs to be ‘N’ at both ends. Connecting a b/g/n card to a 802.11g router will result in 802.11g.

CPU upgrade, probably not worth it. Throw the money at RAM.

64-bit Windows is pointless unless you’ve a specific reason to use it; in your case, there’s an argument for doing so given your dev work and that that you’re looking to ugrade the RAM at some point.

The thing everyone misses with a 64-bit OS is that in doubling the address width, you’re doubling the amount of memory that your data takes up; ergo, not only does x64 support more RAM, it also requires more RAM. If you make something twice as wide without changing its overall size, it’s half as long.

Question…

Why is it that my local Mac fanbois here in the office keeps telling me that I should just buy a macbook (not even a pro!) instead of an i5 Windows laptop? Apparently it will be faster that the windows one, has batteries that last longer and has better graphics capabilities.

On paper though, the Windows one has it all trumped.

There has been a million and one Mac vs PC debates on here – but largely:

– they are generally very reliable (according to independent research)
– the overall user experience is much better (subjective)
– they have much greater residual value
– they come with lots of excellent software

64-bit Windows is pointless unless you’ve a specific reason to use it;

I would say that the requirement for lots of RAM in the OP’s case is just such a requirement.

The thing everyone misses with a 64-bit OS is that in doubling the address width, you’re doubling the amount of memory that your data takes up

Not sure about that. There will be more wastage… but double?

Word size is 64bit, but a byte is still a byte no?

Why is it that my local Mac fanbois here in the office keeps telling me that I should just buy a macbook

The clue is in the question.

I would say that the requirement for lots of RAM in the OP’s case is just such a requirement.

Two things,

a) that’s what I said, and
b) 4Gb isn’t cause for x64, more than 4Gb is.

Not sure about that. There will be more wastage… but double?

No, it’s not double, for a variety of reasons; not everything is 64-bit in an x64 system, for a start. I was intentionally simplifying for clarity (and still am).

Word size is 64bit, but a byte is still a byte no?

Well, yes, but you need to be careful here as to what importance you’re putting on ‘bytes’, data is held in words and it’s a long time since bytes and words were synonymous. Some data takes up more space in a 64-bit architecture, pointers are the classic example but again, it’s not quite that simple.

The ability to address memory is limited to 4GB as stated with a 32 bit OS, but that memory is motherboard RAM + graphics card RAM. So with a 512mb graphics card you can only fully utilize 3.5GB of mainboard RAM.

If you intend keeping the PC for a long time I’d say a 64 bit operating system becomes more important. It is the future, and although people have been saying that for years, the statement is now more true than it was in the past by definition.

Indeed if the motherboard can cope with more than 4GB of RAM and it was my money a 64 bit OS would be compulsory.

There’s no reason to not go 64 bit now is there?

Cougar, I know the difference between bytes and words. However, 4Gb of address space is 4 gigabytes, not gigawords.

512 characters of unicode text should take up 1024 bytes, or 256 words on a 64bit system – no?

As is surely obvious, I’m not a C programmer 🙂

Okay, the most important question…

or

😆 (but seriously, I can’t decide)

There’s no reason to not go 64 bit now is there?

Of course there is – driver support being the main one.

Of course there is – driver support being the main one.

Very true, it’ll take a company the size of Microsoft to decide to effect the switch to 64 bit in the mainstream. Another way in which they’ve been holding back the modernization of operating systems. Why is there a 32 bit Windows 7? Most PC’s and laptops have been 64 bit capable for years. I’ll answer it – netbooks. The only downside to them I think, they may have retarded OS evolution.

Mind you, everything works on 64 bit in my house with no driver issues (except the netbooks). Can’t remember if 64 bit caused any problems when setting those PC’s up though.

P.S. I’m the type of guy who thinks any sort of lid garishness looks silly. Like trying to hard. Is that an extra cost? – if so spend it on spec! Just my opinion though.