scott wrote:

> And the cost for me to upgrade at home from 1GB to 2GB was a 
> tiny fraction of the cost of a Vista license.

5. Vista is so over-priced that I could by several entire PCs for the 
cost of a single Vista licence. :-P

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Warp wrote:

>   Isn't it a bit ironic that each new version of Windows adds more things
> the user can *not* do, instead of the opposite?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_removed_from_Windows_Vista

Heh, just like with XP, they're reducing the amount of stuff you can 
customise. (E.g., the Explorer toolbar is no longer configurable. You 
can't remove those useless search buttons, or the back and forward 
buttons. And you can't add useful buttons like map drive.) They're also 
removing power. (E.g., you can still make Zip files, but you can no 
longer password protect them.)

I can hardly wait until the day when I'm forced to use this crap. :-(

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For 350 GBP you can get a Core2Duo 2.4GHz machine with Vista, 2GB RAM, 
320GB, ATI HD3650 3D card, DVD writer etc.

When was the last time you checked the Dell website?  Ever since I can 
remember they've always had something around the 300 pound mark.



When was that, 2 years ago?  Check again.

> 3. My motherboard (for an AMD socket-939 CPU) doesn't even *support* more 
> than 4 GB of RAM.

And how old is that?  !!Newsflash!! new motherboards can support more!

> 4. Why in the name of God would you even *need* that much RAM anyway? 
> (Apart from the fact that Vista wastes it all for you.)

Vista doesn't actually waste it, it uses it to do clever stuff to help 
things go faster.  Of course if an application really needs to use the RAM 
then Vista gives it the RAM and discards it's "cache".  What would be the 
point of having RAM sat there unused?  Anyway, personally, I need 8GB 
because I do simulations which often use over 4GB, and I'd like to have some 
spare to actually use my PC at the same time.  I don't imagine a "normal" 
user would need more than 2GB unless they were doing video editing or 
something equally memory hungry.

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> 
> For 350 GBP you can get a Core2Duo 2.4GHz machine with Vista, 2GB RAM, 
> 320GB, ATI HD3650 3D card, DVD writer etc.
> 
> When was the last time you checked the Dell website?

Last year. And for a machine much poorer than that, they were demanding 




>> "cheap".
> 
> When was that, 2 years ago?  Check again.

OK, now I am puzzled. When a built a PC last Autumn, I could only afford 
0.5 GB on the budget I had. When did RAM suddenly get this cheap??

>> 3. My motherboard (for an AMD socket-939 CPU) doesn't even *support* 
>> more than 4 GB of RAM.
> 
> And how old is that?  !!Newsflash!! new motherboards can support more!

OK, I'll give you that one. It seems that if you pay for a reasonably 
expensive board, it does in fact support as much as 8 GB.

>> 4. Why in the name of God would you even *need* that much RAM anyway? 
>> (Apart from the fact that Vista wastes it all for you.)
> 
> Vista doesn't actually waste it, it uses it to do clever stuff to help 
> things go faster.

...which somewhat contradicts your "if you don't have enough RAM than 
Vista goes really slow".



So basically, what we're saying is that RAM prices have suddenly gone 
down, and therefore vast amounts of RAM aren't "vast" any more because 
they don't cost much money?

-- 
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> ...which somewhat contradicts your "if you don't have enough RAM than 
> Vista goes really slow".

Not really, IME Vista needs 2GB to fully stretch out and work smoothly as 
designed.  If you try and run it on 1GB, you'll probably be spending more 
time paging around "clever features" and "actual programs" etc than the 
benefit you get from the clever features.  Vista runs fine on 1GB, *once* 
you have your program loaded.  If you just you one program all day you'll be 
fine, but if use lots of different programs it's going to appear slow to 
you.  Anyway, all this is a pointless discussion, as I said, for a fraction 
of the price of Vista you can buy an extra 1GB.

> So basically, what we're saying is that RAM prices have suddenly gone 
> down, and therefore vast amounts of RAM aren't "vast" any more because 
> they don't cost much money?

Yup, as has always happened every year since the 80s.

IMO, if the cheapest Dell offers 2GB, then 2GB is certainly not a "vast" 
amount of RAM.

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>> So basically, what we're saying is that RAM prices have suddenly gone 
>> down, and therefore vast amounts of RAM aren't "vast" any more because 
>> they don't cost much money?
> 
> Yup, as has always happened every year since the 80s.

Except that it's *difficult* to fit a lot of features into 64 KB of RAM, 
but it's easy to fit it into, say, 256 MB. So why do we suddenly need 2 
GB? (Other than that it keeps the hardware vendors happy...)

> IMO, if the cheapest Dell offers 2GB, then 2GB is certainly not a "vast" 
> amount of RAM.

Isn't that like saying "if the cheapest Dell offers Vista, then Vista 
isn't an overpriced OS"? ;-)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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>> Yup, as has always happened every year since the 80s.
>
> Except that it's *difficult* to fit a lot of features into 64 KB of RAM, 
> but it's easy to fit it into, say, 256 MB. So why do we suddenly need 2 
> GB? (Other than that it keeps the hardware vendors happy...)

Because when everyone had only 256 MB of RAM, there weren't cameras that 
could generate 10 mega-pixel images, video cameras capable of creating 
1920x1080x30fps resolution video, DVDs that could store 8GB worth of game 
data, graphics cards that were capable of rendering billions of 
multiply-textured triangles per second etc etc.

You could use exactly the same argument 10 years ago as to why it was 
necessary to have 256MB, when everyone "got on fine" with just 32MB 
previously.  Ditto for 32MB against 640K, 640K against 32K etc.

> Isn't that like saying "if the cheapest Dell offers Vista, then Vista 
> isn't an overpriced OS"? ;-)

Of course.  I don't know if you noticed, but computers always seem to sell 
for the same price.  There's always cheap ones for around 400 pounds, and 
then the expensive ones around 800-1000 pounds (ok then really expensive 
ones for more).  But the fact is, the prices don't go down, the specs go up. 
If Vista is shipping on the cheapest PCs, then it can't be that overpriced.

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>> Except that it's *difficult* to fit a lot of features into 64 KB of 
>> RAM, but it's easy to fit it into, say, 256 MB. So why do we suddenly 
>> need 2 GB? (Other than that it keeps the hardware vendors happy...)
> 
> Because when everyone had only 256 MB of RAM, there weren't cameras that 
> could generate 10 mega-pixel images, video cameras capable of creating 
> 1920x1080x30fps resolution video, DVDs that could store 8GB worth of 
> game data, graphics cards that were capable of rendering billions of 
> multiply-textured triangles per second etc etc.

Only the last two there actually require any more RAM. The others just 
eat your harddrive faster.

(As an aside... Are you serious? Are there really 10 megapixel cameras 
now? Last time I looked, 7 was about the biggest you could get. I mean, 
unless you pay silly money, obviously.)

> I don't know if you noticed, but computers always seem to 
> sell for the same price.


basically the cheapest thing in the shop.

> But the fact is, the prices don't go down, the specs go up.

Now that I can agree to.

> If Vista is shipping on the cheapest PCs, then it 
> can't be that overpriced.

I just checked online. A copy of Vista that doesn't say "upgrade" on it 

  So that's 80% of the cost of the hardware. You can build a cheap PC 

expensive to me...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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And lo on Tue, 08 Jul 2008 11:24:30 +0100, scott <sco### [at] scottcom> did  
spake, saying:

>>> Yup, as has always happened every year since the 80s.
>>
>> Except that it's *difficult* to fit a lot of features into 64 KB of  
>> RAM, but it's easy to fit it into, say, 256 MB. So why do we suddenly  
>> need 2 GB? (Other than that it keeps the hardware vendors happy...)
>
> Because when everyone had only 256 MB of RAM, there weren't cameras that  
> could generate 10 mega-pixel images, video cameras capable of creating  
> 1920x1080x30fps resolution video, DVDs that could store 8GB worth of  
> game data, graphics cards that were capable of rendering billions of  
> multiply-textured triangles per second etc etc.
>
> You could use exactly the same argument 10 years ago as to why it was  
> necessary to have 256MB, when everyone "got on fine" with just 32MB  
> previously.  Ditto for 32MB against 640K, 640K against 32K etc.

No the comparision here appears to be -

OS+applications requires 1 Gb of RAM
new OS+same applications requires 2 GB of RAM

It's not the point that RAM is cheap the question is why do you need to  
double your RAM size in order to get similar results as with your previous  
OS?

-- 
Phil Cook

--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
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>> Because when everyone had only 256 MB of RAM, there weren't cameras that 
>> could generate 10 mega-pixel images, video cameras capable of creating 
>> 1920x1080x30fps resolution video, DVDs that could store 8GB worth of game 
>> data, graphics cards that were capable of rendering billions of 
>> multiply-textured triangles per second etc etc.
>
> Only the last two there actually require any more RAM. The others just eat 
> your harddrive faster.

Have you tried editing a 10MP photo?  10e6*3bytes = 30 MB, times several 
layers and undo levels easily exceeds 256 MB.

Have you tried editing a full-HD video clip using your PC?  Believe me, it 
eats RAM, which is traditionally why the "video editing" PCs have been high 
spec with lots of RAM.

> (As an aside... Are you serious? Are there really 10 megapixel cameras 
> now? Last time I looked, 7 was about the biggest you could get. I mean, 
> unless you pay silly money, obviously.)

Yawn!  Check amazon!  Loads priced between 100 and 200 pounds with 10MP.


> basically the cheapest thing in the shop.

While that may be true, I highly doubt that a PC would not have been 
available at the time for under 1000 pounds.  WHen was it and what spec?  We 
bought a P166 32MB in 1996 (IIRC), it cost something like 800 pounds and 
certainly wasn't the cheapest one available.

> I just checked online. A copy of Vista that doesn't say "upgrade" on it is 


Where the hell are you looking?  On amazon they have the 
all-singing-all-dancing full Ultimate edition for 217.98.  The home-premium 
edition is 147.48.  If you want to upgrade, it's 68.98 for the home version, 
and if you want the OEM version (basically tied to that PC) then you can 
half those prices.

Of course, a company like Dell who buys in bulk will get it a lot cheaper, 
assume they pay around half price, so that's 30 quid instead of 60 for home 
premium.

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