Quote:
Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward
This thread is an outgrowth of Desert Grandma's Netbook thread.
How much computer is enough?
When I started out with personal computers, the answer was simple. To paraphrase a girlfriend, you could never have too much RAM, too many cycles, or too much DASD. (Yep, I'm that old. DASD means hard drive -Direct Access Storage Device)
Now I'm not so sure. what do you really get that worth the change from say, Windows 2000 to Vista? Word 97 to Word 2007? or the current Gen of photoshop versus the version 10 years ago. I see the companies wanting the upgrade revenue, but as a user, is it worth feeding them the money?
This is not a Microsoft problem. I see Linuxes get bigger and bigger, and Apple's OS keeps growing larger and larger, as well. So I wonder, when is good enough - good enough. If not with today's resources, then how much more is needed?
I'd like some other perspective than mine to chime in....
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Screaming minimum (IMO) is 2 gigs of RAM (4 is better, although Vista itself can only use 3), a 500 GB HD (again, I prefer to have at least 3 TB), a good graphics card (or two). I like the Xenon processors, but if I had to choose between a zippier processor and more RAM, I'd take the RAM every time.
As far as programs, well, I still use my old Paintshop Pro v. 8.1 which was the last version before Corel took it over (and destroyed it), although I have a recent version of Photoshop.
My feeling on the software end of things, is ... if you know it and it does what you need it to do, don't bother upgrading. Most of the time it's a waste.