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Technology Stocks : Intel Corporation (INTC) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Saturn V who wrote (142561)	8/31/2001 2:32:02 PM
From: tcmay	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 186894

Yes, I recall the '85-86 doom and gloom <<Message #142561 from Saturn V at Aug 31, 2001 1:10 PM Hi Tim, Ref - <Nuclear Winter for PC > Dont you vividly recall the same gloom and doom talk in 85-86 when the 8088/80286 computers were all that the world would need, and we were desperately looking for new mass applications. Yes, we are presently in a nuclear winter for all high tech, because all business capital spending is at a crawl. As long as the consumer does not get affected by this malaise, things should recover in a reasonable period of time.>> Yes, I remember this period well. Note that I specifically said the nuclear winter would likely last two years, with one year left to go. I certainly never said the current CPU power is all users will ever need. But given today's apps, and foreseeable apps, not a compelling need to upgrade for most small businesses and home users. --Tim May

To: Saturn V who wrote (142561)	8/31/2001 2:49:44 PM
From: BelowTheCrowd	Respond to of 186894

I like your comment from December: > Lately the CPU speed has gone from 300MHz to 1500MHz in 3 years, a lot faster than historical rates. So perhaps the software has been slow to catch up with hardware. < I believe that is exactly what is going on, and why I'm having a tough time justifying any upgrades at the moment. The software advances in the past couple of years just aren't requiring that much more than we already have. 300 MHz machines are marginal, but OK for light users. 400MHz are fine for most business users with all available stuff, including XP. Eventually the software will catch up and we'll have to upgrade, but in the current spending climate, it won't happen until business dictates that it MUST happen. There are no "pre-emptive" upgrades in this climate. Another thought here, is that while processor speed has increased tremendously, Actual PC speed as perceived by the user really has not changed much at all. Disks are no faster than they were five years ago and most business applications are held back by the disk (or the network) rather than by the processor. Adding a faster processor to a system that has bottlenecks elsewhere just doesn't provide the end-user with much benefit. Excel runs just as quickly on my 500MHz machine as it does on a new one. In fact it probably runs faster, as I've got a couple of fast 10K drives that most PCs don't. mg