SillyDog701

[iJohnE]

My grandparents Pentium 4 (2.66Ghz, 256MB of Ram) machine is starting to show it's age. I looked into upgrading the ram, and it's looking to be rather expensive.

So I was wondering if I got a bare bones Intel Atom system, would it be better than the old Pentium 4? The system in question is here: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6856119015

If I add 2 gigs of ram, and a 7200 rpm hard drive would that be good enough to replace the machine they use for casual browsing and solitaire?

The answer is probably really obvious, but I thought I should ask nonetheless.

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[Mandrake]

The Atom is a dual core so it would be a bit faster. I'd try and push for an Athlon II or dual core Celeron system though, they're several times faster than an Atom system.

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[Antony]

Isn't Atom one of those designed for netbooks?

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[iJohnE]

Antony: Yes, it is designed for netbook. However it is also being used in a lot of home theater PCs and small low cost workstations.

Mandrake: I'll see if I can build a Celeron system for around the same price. As that's the main factor.

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[richard mitnick]

Hey folks. I have a netbook, Acer 150-1635. I think James has the same unit, with an Atom N270, 1.6 gig, hyper threaded, 1 gig DRAM. I understand that this is actually faster than the N450.

Sorry, I have given up on it. It is s-l-o-w.

My PIII Inspiron was faster.

John, if you can fix up the P4, do it. But, before you spend any money, spend some time. Get rid of unused programs, run Chdsk, defrag, etc. See if that helps.

>>RSM

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[iJohnE]

Richard, I did a fresh install, and put in a new hdd. It's still slow. Not to mention, I would cost me $400 to upgrade the ram alone.

However, I have been looking at the new AM3 chipset with the Athlon II x2, which seem to be a cheap CPU, and would be a lot more powerful than the machine at current.

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