There are some industry pundits who feel that the CPUs in the current crop of PCs supply more than enough ‘horsepower’ for the average PC user. They say things like the majority of the time the CPU is sitting idle while the user is using their word processor, spreadsheet, browser, etc. Sometimes, it is said that only a power user would need the additional CPU cycles that a dual core, core dual, core 2 dual, whatever… processor would provide.
Well, while I’m certainly on my PC for a majority of the day, and while some people think I am a power user, I don’t think that the requirements I have for my day-to-day machine approach the needs of a power user. I feel that what I am looking for is just enough cycles to not have to wait for my machine.
During my day, I need to check Email, both corporate and personal. I need to be able to access the Internet through a standard browser for research, tech support, and my daily informational needs. I also want to listen to podcasts, video blogs, and the like. Most importantly, I need to perform my job which is centered around Microsoft Office and Microsoft development tools.
My current ‘main machine’ is a 1.7Ghz Dell Inspiron laptop. It has 1GB of RAM and a 60GB hard drive. I purchased it back in December 2003. Yes, it is getting long in the tooth.
I found it virtually impossible to run the applications I need on a single screen so I downloaded the free Microsoft Virtual Display Manager MSVDM (One of the PowerToys for XP). This gave me four virtual desktops to load applications to.
Desktop One runs Microsoft Outlook full screen. I have a connection to an Exchange Server and a couple of POP3 accounts coming in. I connect to three different mailboxes on the Exchange Server.
Desktop Two runs Firefox full screen. I typically have 10 to 20 tabs open at one time. I make extensive use of the Google Desktop so that I can quickly add a tab via the double tap on the Ctrl key. I try and close out the single use tabs at the end of the day…Well, I try…
Desktop Three is used for the day to day applications. I have Word, Excel, Access, VB, Remote Desktop, etc. I operate with the philosophy that once I am done with an application I close it. Typically I only have two or three apps open at one time.
Desktop Four is used for iTunes. I typically fire off a podcast and then minimize iTunes. This is because of a flaw in MSVDM where iTunes will show up on each desktop. Not a problem with Desktops One and Two since it would show up under Outlook and Firefox, but a real problem on Desktop Three.
I run out of memory a couple of times a day. I also spend a significant amount of time waiting for something to finish. I tried reducing the frequency that Outlook used to check for mail, but it would then spend more time hogging the CPU cycles when it checked for email. I would rather wait for 20 seconds every five minutes, then wait over a minute every 15 minutes. I’m sure I could reinstall the OS and all apps to recoup ~20% of the cycles, but that is such a laborious process.
I will be purchasing a new Merom, Core 2 Dual, laptop once they come out. Even at 2Ghz or 2.5Ghz with 2 GB of RAM I am not sure that this will be enough horsepower. I can’t even imagine how much more processing power I would need if I were to do any video editing, audio generation or any extensive photographic processing.
Posted by swfields at August 22, 2006 02:17 PM | TrackBack