pseudolobster said:
You don't really need a *good* computer for any of those... I have a 200mhz pentium 1 laptop laying around for that kind of thing, works perfectly for that.
All I can think of that you'd need that fast a computer for is video editing... and for that you wouldn't need the fancy video card either... Nowadays you can't really say you need a top of the line computer for graphic design and CAD, even 3d design can be done just as effectively on computers from 3 or 5 years ago.
Disagree.
First, there's OS bloat (and software bloat in general). If you want manufacturer support, you need to run current versions of the OS and applications. So even to open a "command window" to run a DOS text editor, you'll need a computer that runs, say, WinXP.
And if you need to be able to work on that spreadsheet your boss started, that uses some nifty-flash current-version feature - the Boss always gets the newest toys, ya know - you'd better be able to run that latest version too, and that 200Mhz box isn't going to do it in time to make his deadline.
I have a 3.2Ghz with 1Gb RAM, but it is stupidly slow for some tasks that are critical for my work.
One such is GIS work - the mapping software itself often slows to a crawl, but I also need to process still photos from my 10Mpx camera, and aerials from Google and others. The photo editor I use (Paintshop) works fine on smaler files, but chokes on the big pics; and I can't just downgrade my camera in order to keep my computer hardware needs down.
When you excepted "video editing" were you including editing of stills, like jpg? Just to write a report (I'm a
consulting arborist) I need to edit photos and import them to Word documents. My previous machine would bog down with more than a couple photos in the report; this one is significantly better but as photos get larger it's starting to show its age.
btw, I understand that there are many factors in a system's percieved speed - having been a computer professional for 30 years prior to becoming an arborist - but sometimes it does just come down to a factor of hardware.
DanQ