[clug-talk] Hardware advice

[Dick Angus]

I run Kubuntu (9.04 at the current updates). I use the following programs a 
lot:

Amarok - a collection of over 8,500 tunes

Digikam
GIMP
XSANE
Gwenview - on a very large and growing family photo library (66+Gb)

OpenOffice
Quanta+ - editing and cleaning up eBooks for a Sony PRS505

Other than that I do typical e-mail and Firefox surfing. Occasionally I do a 
little programming in PERL.

My current machine is an Intel dual core 2.6Mhz on an old mother board. 
Maximum 2Gb DDR1 and I'm there already. It won't support a modern video card 
so I use the on-board Intel graphics. It seems to be getting very slow on me 
and I can't do anything with it to upgrade.

My budget is in the $700 range and lower if possible. I want 500Gb+ disk, a 
DVD/RW, and a multi-card reader on it. Also, a good graphics card for the type 
of work I do. I can't decide if I should go for a 3.0Ghz quad chip and 4-6Gb 
DDR2 memory or a 2.33Ghz quad chip and 4-6Gb DDR3 memory? I'm leaning towards 
the faster chip and the DDR2, but I'm confused about the DDR3 being faster 
memory and would that be noticeable given what I do with it?

Staples has an Acer box with an Intel 8200 chip, 6Gb DDR3, and an ATI 4350 
card with all the other stuff for $739. A DDR2 box appears to be about $100+ 
cheaper. Do you think I Would notice the difference?

On top of all that I'm going on a road trip to Reno and San Francisco in a few 
weeks and wonder if I'd be better buying it down there? I did some searching 
on Google, but couldn't get much on local companies (kept getting DELL, HP, 
Office Depot, and such).

Thanks in advance for your thoughts.
-- 

An old mainframer getting current.
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