However, the question has to be asked -- do we really need all this grunt?

Thanks to Moore's law, the average office PC now has more processing speed, memory and disk storage than even the most expensive corporate mainframe of just a few short decades ago -- but Intel, AMD and others still keep trying to sell us faster chips.

Are we being conned by the chip-makers?

Or perhaps it's all Microsoft's fault for writing ever-larger, ever-slower OSes and applications that simply replace fast code with fast silicon?

With Windows XP due out in October it would appear that once again people are going to be faced with the choice of struggling on with last-year's PC or once again investing in a bigger, better, brighter PC to keep up.

I suppose that PC gamers could be forgiven for staying on the cutting edge since the latest games often place massive demands on processors and video-cards in the quest for an ever more realistic experience. But then again -- maybe a purpose-built gaming box such as the PS2 or the upcoming XBox is a sensible alternative.

Readers Say (updated hourly) when to trade up... - RobK Homeuse... - James State of the chip business... - Christopher Upgrading... - Richard Have Your Say

The sad truth is that for most people, a faster PC will allow your computer to do one thing -- wait more quickly for your next command. Yes, unless you're into very heavy number-crunching, most PCs spend 99% of their life just waiting for the next keystroke or mouse-click -- so why spend thousands of dollars a year just to have the "fastest waiting" PC on the block?

Personally, I tend to upgrade my PCs about once every three years -- and I don't buy the fastest machine available, I buy the processor that offers the best price/performance point. Hell, my main PC is a PII/400 and it's now over 2 years old. About the only time I wish it were faster is when I'm creating MPEG files -- but if I was doing this very often I'd by a card with hardware MPEG encoding on it anyway.

What about YOU?

How often do you upgrade your PC and do you buy the "latest and greatest" or the "best value" when you do?

Share your thoughts with me or Aardvark's readers.

Add Aardvark To Your Own Website!
Got a moment? Want a little extra fresh content for your own website or page?

Just add a couple of lines of JavaScript to your pages and you can get a free summary of Aardvark's daily commentary -- automatically updated each and every week-day.

Aardvark also makes a summary of this daily column available via XML using the RSS format. More details can be found here.

Contact me if you decide to use either of these feeds and have any problems.

Did you tell someone else about Aardvark today? If not then do it now!

There is 2 Vacancies Last added 2 July In The Job Centre

There are 14 Domain Names for sale

There are 3 Events/Seminars listed