Sadly, there's none. The only thing that is relevant is what it is suitable for.

And I think this is a Milliways topic.

You're right, I probably should have posted it there. How do I move it?

[Thread moved to Milliways Section]

I don't think hardware is as interesting these days. It's easy to get, snaps together like lego and - I'm a little out of the loop I admit - but it doesn't seem to be "this new product breaths fire and will blow your mind" anymore, it's "this new product is 30% more energy efficient and can render really nice hair-doos". Modern hardware is amazing, but it's not getting more amazing every 6 months like it used to.

I'm yet to try a multi screen setup, or 3D gaming. If I was enthused enough to get a super dooper new PC then I'd probably want it to do that stuff. But personally I'd prefer to spend the time and money on vintage hardware.

My perfect PC would be a modern mobo with legacy slots; ISA slots, PCI slots, AGP slot, you name it. It supports newest processor, but the CPU can be throttled through hardware. It will also be equipped with superfast video card that can emulate Voodoo1 and Banshee-architecture (Voodoo3, Voodoo5) in hardware, so when you boot in DOS, Glide games will detect the video card as 3dfx video card. It will also have a perfect sound card that can do Aueral 3D 2.0 and EAX perfectly. And of course, the motherboard will have Windows 98 drivers.

For work it's an i7, lots of RAM, a fast SSD and a huge monitor. What's great is how cheap hardware is these days. Nothing frustrates me more than slow PCs at work that don't have SSD.

I have to admit, the only thing that has really excited me in the past couple years has been SSD's. It's a game changer. I've upgraded all my PC's to use them now for the boot drive.

Before that in the <= Win98 days, different hardware gave a totally different experience. Now with Windows 7/8 abstracting the hardware so much, those little changes don't mean as much. Faster, bigger, better? Sure. Exciting? No.

Case and point: The MIDI wars were a phenomenal time. TB Maui, Roland daughterboards, different sound cards, etc. Good times.

I really really like my main PC, it has been with me for 3 years and I think it will be my main PC for at least another 3 years.
The perfect PC is the fastest PC you can afford, it will last longer and will end up beeing a "good investment" in the long run.

There is no such thing but then again I don't spend thousands on a single high end system when I don't need a 5ghz i7 let alone a heap of SSDs in raid. I can care less of the $1200 Titan that some fan boys fap too after all I get by on much less. I am more focused on quality and economy than all out after all I am a college student on a small budget. At the shop the one thing that is common to both new and old systems that comes in needing work is that people fill them up with bloat ware let alone keep the system clean. Strip out the trash that comes with windows and osx in general then one hardly needs anything more than a C2D or an i3. My main desktop is only a old school first gen i5 760 with two 5770 in crossfire and 8gb ram, nothing exceptional to brag about other than the whole rig weighs as much as a 40in plasma tv 😐

The only things that I really burn the money on is sadly laptops, $100 buys a lot of scrap laptops in town and quickly fix them up for a huge profit. Last one was a 08 pre unibody Macbook pro that only ran $146 in total 😎

I'd have to say it's the one sitting on my desk.

3930K at 4.2GHz, GTX 780, 32GB RAM, 256GB 840 Pro, 4TB/7200/128MB Barracuda XT, and a 1440p Crossover monitor (one of the Korean S-IPS displays).

It just works, and quickly!

My perfect PC is any of the ones I build. Simply because I made them to perfectly suit my needs.

snorg wrote:

I'm trying to think of what a good PC to get someone interested in computing would consist of, and not just as a consumption device. Something that would allow you to dip your feet in programming or take a deeper dive, as it were.

This is strictly a matter of software. Even if you wanted to "take a deeper dive" after "dipping your feet", it's still just a matter of removing a layer of abstraction, if necessary.

Maybe I just need to find something to reignite my passion.

Are you using Linux? That should reignite your passion, or at least have you swearing like a sailor.

Yeah, I've done my share of linux-related swearing. Maybe I need a new hobby.

I have heard a lot of people talk about computing not being as much fun as it used to be; I have expressed similar sentiments myself. There is no longer that "rush of excitement" that once accompanied building a new computer. I think some of the earlier comments about computers being built from "snap-in" components is true. In my opinion the whole business has become much less enthusiast-oriented than it used to be. Once upon a time, in the DOS days, you had some idea of what was going on under the hood. You could tinker, and explore, even do some system programming. With windows it is 10x times as much work to do the same thing. Computer magazines are pretty much a shell of what they used to be.... they once offered useful tips for optimization, maybe even a disk with some programs to run. Now? Forget it. And what happened to shareware? When was the last time you could go in and download one episode of a game as a teaser?

ncmark wrote:

And what happened to shareware? When was the last time you could go in and download one episode of a game as a teaser?

I don't really miss that. There's a bazillion freeware options out there already, and even the games you have to pay for readily go on sale for a buck or five. In memory, shareware games were ones that just constantly tantalized you with features and levels that you were probably never going to play because you couldn't afford $35 or more.

But software is an entirely different matter from hardware.

Yeah, affording software isn't really the problem now, between Steam and Humble Bundle I have such a backlog of stuff that I don't know if I would ever get through it. So I have to agree I don't miss shareware compilations very much.

I'm not sure what it is, exactly, that I'm missing. Maybe I need to build an 8 bit PC out of 7400 logic chips or something.

Well interests do wax and wane. I don't find building and rebuilding old PC parts into machines all that interesting any more. Nor collecting bits and pieces for them. But on the plus side I am now a bit more focused on actually using them!

Also found other diversions in the computer world to occupy my mind - really find VMs open up new worlds eg. on my Win7 box I can have OpenIndiana [Solaris], 32 and 64 bit linux distributions etc, and of course XP, FreeBSD etc etc. All of which are useful in different ways - though I don't use them for real work, what I do on them informs my job and makes me better at what I do for a living. Lately I've been playing around with a couple of old SGI machines too - any familiarity with unix systems is useful to me right now. Also got a hare running round in my head about CUDA and OpenCL I will eventually get further with.

But in a way that's how it always was for me. I started using computers for work and semi-academic calculations. After a fallow period when I played games a lot, I'm now back to seeing computers in a corporate and scientific computing context.

Outside of that - as a consumer - I find it hard to remain interested in modern techy stuff because of the cost of hardware and space. And I don't get turned on much by phones, tablets or computers-on-a-card. 😜. One thing I would like though is an APU system, as I reckon they are massively under-rated.