i dont understand this... the computer industry is starting to kill itself.

85% of people dont NEED a high end video card, super super fast CPU, Dual Channel RAM or more than 512MB, more than 20-40 GB HDD space, they dont need SCSI,serial ata, 500 watt PSU, or so many fans that your computer will start flying around the house.

since we all run linux we dont need that either except video editor, GIMP editors...etc. like all we need is a little 1.6-2 ghz machine with 256MB, like 20-40 GB, and 64bit in the near future.

i have a 120GB hdd for when i ran XP and i used 70% of it for mainly programs that i needed, but on linux im only using 11% with 10GB of my own personal data.

why cant the keep providing watered down hardware for us like small HDD and slower cpus, and some what older video cards ( but not used) becase that is all we need .

i have been seeing that gateway has gone out of business ( sorta) because most people have the " most" of a computer they would ever need. most companys have been worried that they wont be able to sell there "latest" computer except to the Gamers.

Yes, you're perfectly right.
The question is, why need a Ferrari when there is a 50-miles speed limit ?

But 89% of users DO PLAY GAMES and that is what they need as long as there are games like DOOM they must have that piece of hardware only to PLAY. i have recently bought DOOM 3 and in my athlon 2500+, 256megs of ram, geforce fx 5200, 80gb sata har drive rig I can not play it with higher resolution than 640x480 + low quality ( in that i get 24fps) in windows, and 800x600 + medium quality in linux that is so pathetic (especialy if you think that 90% of people use sluggish windows) .

correction: what about Businesses that use programs like excel and word. i know those dont require lots of power. all the ppl in my neighborhood either browse the internet, type documents, watch movies or flash videos, all the ppl who do play games , play them on X-box or PS2. i have talked to them about upgrading and they said bull$hit, "were not going to pay $800 - $1000 for something we hardely use". in my eyes i only see photoshoppers, video editors, Gamers, Audio editors able to take full use of there rig. i have spent NOTHING on my rig, like $200 . ( AMD duron 1.6, 2700 ram 256mb ram, $20 video card, $100 mobo, $15 PSU, $30 for a dvd-rom and a cd/rw, 120GB ata100 HDD, and a 20 GB external HDD,floppy and a internal ZIP 100) )

"But 89% of users DO PLAY GAMES", you are wrong there, most browse the internet , or use office

Depends. I think a lot of people don't look at what they're going to do with a computer. And as soon as hardware gets faster and better software is going to do as well. Tried running winXP on a PC with less than 256 MB RAM, just like KDE/Gnome in linux. It won't go that good.

That is half true. A high end video card like 6800 is great if you doing 3D rendering or doing CAD. In big projects, the card helps drawing the wireframe faster. Dual channel memory increases the bandwidth and decreases the time the processor takes to calculate equations. A lot of time is spending on accessing files from hard drives. The time is cut in half or more when using SCSI interface. A lot of people spend money on the fastest processor for doing business applications faster but all they need to do is to upgrade the hard drive to a much faster one like the Western Digital Raptor series and put it in a RAID 1 setup.

You just need a Pentium II 400 MHz with enough RAM to do basic stuff.

Gateway is not going out of business.

What I do I when buy a new computer. I rate what the needs are for certain applications. If I see myself spending time loading programs, I would get a much faster hard drive.

A lot of computer stores like Best Buy, Circuit City, CompUSA, and others do not ask the customer what programs they are using or going to use in the future.

My Community College upgraded all computers on campus from an Pentium III 866 to a Pentium 4 2.0 GHz (I don't think they got the Northwood core) without thinking if the application server is the bottleneck which in fact it is. The faster computers did not thing but burnt a huge hole in their money bin. It takes 5 minutes just to login and I'm not going to explain how long it takes to load some programs because your imagination can take care of that. I wished they spent the money on solid state hard drives for the application server. That will speed up the application server by 100 times give or take.

didnt i say "except video editor, GIMP editors...etc. like all we need is a little 1.6-2 ghz machine with 256MB, like 20-40 GB, and 64bit in the near future." i said that video editors and that sorta stuff NEED the speed. most of my neighbors have a 1ghz machine with 64-128ram and run Win98 and see no reason to upgrade.

yeah generally i'd agree. you find a normal non-gameplaying family that would ever need more than even a 1ghz cpu... and 10gb

but there's just no profit margin in maknig those parts i guess. especialy as the point is that by having these parts you could create a prefectly adequate box for new for what.. $150 max?

Not Linux-related, moved to General.

Nobody needs more than 64kbytes of ram!

The market for these computers is expected to be about six world wide.

Famous computer quotes from the past and guess what they where all wrong...

I work in a computer shop. I have made some observations: first, the average person is generally oblivious regarding the internals of a PC. They don't play games. They use email, the internet, ms word, and that's about it, so they don't concern themselves with their processor, ram, video card, etc. They just want it to work.

Also, Nobody wants to spend money on hardware upgrades, much less new computers. For instance, this happens a lot. Someone will come in with a computer that is going slow. "What is the issue with it?" i ask them. "Oh, I installed Office 2003 and Norton Antivirus and ever since my computer has been going really slow." So i boot it up, look at the processor and ram, and notice that they have a pentium 200mhz and 32mb ram. They obviously aren't going to be able to run all that stuff, but when I advise them to upgrade their hardware, they are generally very reluctant, and in some cases, they refuse.

I think that if a company like gateway were to put together some piii 1ghz, 256mb ram machines and sell them for like $1-200 they would make an immense profit from old ladies, businesses, parents looking for good birthday presents, etc. Heck, i would buy a couple! Linux would run wonderfully on that.

That's what we try to do at my shop... the only problem is, you can't get that kind of harware anymore.

if i didnt know how to build a computer but knew what it required to run a certain OS i would buy a few lower end computers. i also think that it would be neat if computer manufactures offered the choice of 1: windows of choice pre installed with retail cd 2: Linux of consumers choice and price drop of PC since it would cost the company pennies to install and have cds. or 3: no OS installed.....

i think it would be neat if companies would sell barebones for CHEAP ( like the internet just with the name "DELL" tacked on for quality,

the big downer: when 64bit hitts, well everybody that runs windows would have to upgrade if they want to run software since 32bit will be left in the dust. linux users would have to upgrade eventually but not the same time as windows users since i think many distros will still offer 32bit os's.

windows longhorn AVERAGE system requirements:

Microsoft is expected to recommend that the "average" Longhorn PC feature a dual-core CPU running at 4 to 6GHz; a minimum of 2 gigs of RAM; up to a terabyte of storage; a 1 Gbit, built-in, Ethernet-wired port and an 802.11g wireless link; and a graphics processor that runs three times faster than those on the market today.

http://www.microsoft-watch.com/artic...1581842,00.asp

and im guessing that it will be a mostly 64 bit os with POSSIBLY 32bit support

most ppl wont have that much money

just now seeing this prices of 64bit stuff and OMG . i dont have that much money! roughly $300 for a 2800+ and a decent mobo near $70 and 512MB RAM... and PCI-E hasent came out nor DDR2... just think how much that would be. .........nother reason why i will use my computer till the fans stop

That's just terrible!

I've said this before and I'll say it again. Apple needs to release OSX for x86 right around the time Longhorn comes out. People will realize that they have to buy a supercomputer just to run it and will go for something that will run on the computer that they already have. in two years, most of the people that bought computers 5+ years ago will likely have bought a new computer, one probably preloaded with XP. They are going to realize that their hardware will not support Longhorn and might consider macOS, which would definitely run on older x86 platforms (by older i mean ~1-2ghz pentium machines).

no one really needs that kind of power for anything right now besides gaming, and it's going to be pathetic when they need that much just for the OS itself.

i doubt that mac will release for x86 . i think it will forever be a ppc only os. though if they did release for x86 i would FOR SuRE buy it .

funny: i use to have windows well installed with programs and had about 10-20% cpu time at ALL time and 1-5% cpu time on mandrakelinux with most most software installed from cd. running 7 prgrams now and only 5% cpu time........

inflation of money: prices of products have became OUTRAGEIOUS while job pay has NOT been increased for inflation