Thoughts on upgrading

[captpackrat]

I don't know why I'm always so hesitant to upgrade.  In the past 20 years, I've only had 5 desktops, and only 2 since 1998.  I guess I spend so much time getting my machine just right, that having to reinstall and retweak everything just seems a real hastle.

Anywho, I have 3 choices in upgrading right now.

1.  Upgrade the OS, keep the current hardware.  I'd need to buy two new hard drives (because I must have RAID) so I can easily fall back to the old OS just in case.  About $300 for 2 hard drives, my SO has a spare XP license.

Pros:  Cheapest route possible.
Cons:  CPU is obsolete (Pentium 4 HT), motherboard drivers are no longer updated.  Switching back to old OS will require reinstalling old drives.

2.  Build an entirely new machine, salvaging a few parts (DVD burner) from old machine.  This will run about $1400 for an Intel Xeon quad-core system with XP, nearly $2000 if I go with Vista Ultimate and Office 2007 Pro.

Pros:  DIY pride, slightly cheaper than pre-assembled, all parts are known and easy to replace.
Cons:  Warranty on individual parts usually quite short.  Construction somewhat time consuming, any mistakes cost money.

3.  Buy a Dell Precision.  No consumer-grade Inspiron crap.  This will run about $2600 for a Core 2 Quad system with Vista Ultimate and Office 2007 Pro, $2200 for XP Pro with no Office.

Pros:  3 year warranty minimum, available accidental damage warranty.  Fully assembled and tested, hardware conflicts highly unlikely.
Cons:  Most expensive, Dell has crappy cases, sometimes use proprietary parts

Comments

[okageryuu.livejournal.com]

The rig I'm building is only about $1,000. Don't buy the retail version of Vista Ultimate, buy the OEM version. That way, you don't pay $300 for it, but $150.

It'll be tied to your motherboard and you'll be responsible for tech support (MS themselves won't help you unless you pay them), but it's worth not paying $300.

[captpackrat.livejournal.com]

I don't think I've bought a full, retail OS since Windows 3.0

[okageryuu.livejournal.com]

X3 Cool. If you want the list of parts I'm using, lemme know. I've updated it since I posted it on LJ. The price is still only about $1000 for a Vista Ultimate machine with a duo core processor, a moderately high end graphics card, and a pretty decent motherboard.

[dakhun.livejournal.com]

So what will you do that requires a Xeon server?
Office 2007 sounds almost as useful as Vista:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,136711-c,techindustrytrends/article.html

[deffox]

Well I usually go route two.

I replaced a P4 HT system with a Core 2 Quad last fall. I built the new system earlier than planned because I wanted XP instead of Vista.

My Vista experience has been either how to make it dual boot with XP, or trying to figure out how to achieve functions that were easily available in XP. I find it far worse than Windows ME.

So did you need 2000 Server because of a multi-processor rig? I'm just looking that getting a Xeon adds things like FBD/ECC RAM. The only non-standard cost in my setup is running RAID 1.

[captpackrat.livejournal.com]

I'm currently running 2000 Server because this machine used to be captainpackrat.com, plushie.info and several other sites. I had a good, fast business-class connection at home, so I hosted my own (and a few other folk's) web sites.

Now that I'm in the middle of freaking nowhere and the only Internet access is long-range wireless, I've had to move everything to a professional host, thus freeing up this system for personal use.

I just never got around to replacing the OS, since 2000 was working just fine.

[rigelkitty.livejournal.com]

I vote Dell, that's been my choice for the past two PCs. Very easy to install replacement parts from Dell and that warranty is really handy.

You have some extreme hardware requirements that're pushing your price way the hell up. If you sacrifice on the tech a bit, you can get a nice one for $1500 with a 4-yr warranty that'll last for 4-5 years. Then buy another for the same price. Ten years of PC for nearly the same price as the supercomputer you're aiming for now.