4 ms·
Assuming the CPU is the bottleneck, which I'm not sure it would be for a $400 systems-sans-cpu.
by boredguy8 17y ago
Assuming the CPU is the bottleneck, which I'm not sure it would be for a $400 systems-sans-cpu.
- cperciva 17y agoSure. All performance tuning depends on figuring out where the bottlenecks are; but having found said bottlenecks, many people make the mistake of considering price/performance ratios for those individual components rather than for the system as a whole. This isn't just relevant for CPU performance -- people do exactly the same thing with disks. If you want the most disk space for the least expense, it's worth buying 2 TB drives even if they're more than 2x as expensive as 1 TB drives.
- wisty 17y agoAre you sure? A 2T drive puts all your eggs in one basket if it happens to fail. And you can't RAID it (though you can't RAID 2 x 1T disks either, unless you are crazy and want to strip). I still find it a useful list. It lets you focus on the stuff you know is well priced. My priorities for stuff to splurge on - PSU, case and cooling (all very important to protect your other gear, and reusable), monitor (since you'll probably be stuck with it for 10 years, and it pays off even when you are doing lightweight stuff like reading yc), hard drives, then finally RAM, CPU and mobo (in that order). For gamers, 3D card and a faster memory path (recent CPU, good mobo, fast RAM) are probably more important. But we always get sucked into caring about the CPU, for some primal reason.