<taps> So long, Pentium III, Athlon XP, and older...

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: &lt;taps&gt; So long, Pentium III, Athlon XP, and older...

Socket 1366=It's like a V6 or I6 that's got a lot of life left!

[diif]

Re: &lt;taps&gt; So long, Pentium III, Athlon XP, and older...

Thank you and goodbye to the K6-2, the pentium 3, the Pentium 4 with Rambus, you were fun and fast at the time as there was no alternative and I now make a decent living because of you

Old computers are like classic cars, they still do their job but they aren't much of a match against something modern and a a bit of a liability.

[dmill89]

Re: &lt;taps&gt; So long, Pentium III, Athlon XP, and older...

Import fees and shipping are expensive.

Import fees and taxes are likely the reason the price is higher to begin with. One of the big differences is that most European countries have VAT and add that to the list price. Where as in the US sales tax is calculated at the time of purchase and added to the total (so an $895 system may rig up around $950), while sales taxes vary by state (an in some cases even city/county) they are generally only 6-8% rather than the 20-25% VAT rates common in Europe.

[televizora]

Re: &lt;taps&gt; So long, Pentium III, Athlon XP, and older...

Hmmm - rather than bitch about it, start importing computers and undercut the local pricing. Problem solved.

Import fees and shipping are expensive. And discounts depend on the volume of the order. You cant undercut prices, unless you can place a order with high enough quantity. That's why it is not possible. And even if I do it, these are still not cheap products. They are not easy to sell, which means that no significant profit can be made.

[dicky96]

Re: &lt;taps&gt; So long, Pentium III, Athlon XP, and older...

I can say that I envy you for the fact that you can buy new branded laptop for a fraction of the price it would cost me here.
Business class laptops are at least 20-30% more expensive than in USA.
Lenovo ThinkPad T490s - price USA 895USD - From Amazon
Lenovo ThinkPad T490s - price here 1236USD!!!!!!!!!!!

The prices of new computers here are just outrageous.

Hmmm - rather than bitch about it, start importing computers and undercut the local pricing. Problem solved.

[dicky96]

Re: &lt;taps&gt; So long, Pentium III, Athlon XP, and older...

I had one guy say he never recieved the item (processor) because my mother who posted didn't send it signed for which i had asked her to do - but she felt so guilty she paid for it lol

I had one guy say a motherboard was faulty when he got it and I got him to send it back and well, actually, it actually was

But considering how much stuff I have sold, that isn't really relevant statistically. It's like any other form of retail business - if you open a shop someone is going to steal some things.

This could also be a regional or cultural thing? Maybe some races are more dishonest than others? I already learned years ago that the chances of something arriving at the buyers address are inversely proportional to how foreign there name sounds. So I always send signed for now.

Also I can't ever think of one occasion where there was a problem sent to buyers in Europe - just a few where they were sent to UK. Maybe in some other countries people are endemically dishonest?

[eccerr0r]

Re: &lt;taps&gt; So long, Pentium III, Athlon XP, and older...

So what's wrong with selling old computer hardware on ebay then?

I've already had two people try to return stuff to me after they destroyed the item...

[televizora]

Re: &lt;taps&gt; So long, Pentium III, Athlon XP, and older...

but this rust thing is bad.

C/C++ will not die any time soon. My personal opinion is that now there are as many languages now as there are flavours of Linux. Not that I don't like challenges...but the IT is becoming more and more demanding. But this is life. You either adapt or you are left behind. Our ancestors worked and did the same thing their entire life. Now demands change every day. Same is with hardware and your issues. SSE2 is more than 15 years old. Just find some rig with Pentium 4 on LGA775 and you will be fine. Will cost you close to nothing and you will even have PCIE slots. Just look carefully. Better if you find Pentium4 that is x64 capable - just in case. Soon the 32 bit versions of the operating systems will be discontinued too. There are already many programs that don't have x86 versions. And old 775 mobo that does not support dual core processors will cost you close to nothing. These days most of the time I tend to retire single core systems. As many other people do. So, finding Pentium4 system should be easy. This is my advice.
And I am sure that you pay for many other things. Paying a few bucks for at least somewhat capable system is win-win.

[dicky96]

Re: &lt;taps&gt; So long, Pentium III, Athlon XP, and older...

eBay has gotten a lot of people trying to abuse the system, plus these things don't move very fast either... Ugh

So what's wrong with selling old computer hardware on ebay then? I do that quite regular with stuff I picked up at the flea market . I currently have about £1500 ($2050) worth of it I'm about to list in a couple of weeks - this based on looking up average value of sold listings for the same items over the last month or two.

The only problem I have with ebay is that shipping stuff out of here individually is too expensive (about €25/$30 per item under 2Kg) so I have to send it all in bulk to either UK or Holland (50-100Kg is about €75/$90) and list it on ebay there. But as vintage second hand computer hardware can be very profitable this really isn't a big issue.

Oh actually no that isn't the only problem I have with ebay - I have another two big problems with ebay.

1: They have this thing called GSP or Global Shipping Program but I am obviously not living on the globe as it doesn't ship to here would you believe!

And 2: I need ebay sellers who are VAT registered to send goods to me VAT free as I don't have to pay VAT here - but there is no way for ebay sellers to ship tax free to countries where that applies, because they can't list so that the VAT free price appears in territories where that applies. Even for locations that are not even on the globe, I'm still expected to pay 20%VAT / 21% IVA that the seller can't legally charge me. This means I can't buy from most of them and have to go directly to shop/business sites instead.

However these are buying issues. I never had any significant problems selling hardware on ebay, nor got abused for doing so. So what's the big issue?

[eccerr0r]

Re: &lt;taps&gt; So long, Pentium III, Athlon XP, and older...

Base OS do not require SSE2, but browsers do require it. SSE2 is not a new thing. Even Win7 supported until recently processors without SSE2. SSE2 instruction set is more than 15 years old. Why are you required to use even SSE1? Why not use vacuum tube computational machines? Or you will complain that you cant run the newest browser on ibm system 360 as well? My laptop is still quite capable. For the rest I acquired a workstation. I don't like to wait.

Base OS is indeed migrating to SSE2 is ...again... as more stuff is getting ported to rust... At least gcc is maintaining 486 support, I don't mind the CMPXCHG issue, but this rust thing is bad.

[televizora]

Re: &lt;taps&gt; So long, Pentium III, Athlon XP, and older...

But if I'm forced to run SSE2 instructions for the base OS, that's not acceptable. So what's your point? Always overkill for no good reason? Why don't you just go buy that $EXPENSIVE$LAPTOP$ then?

Base OS do not require SSE2, but browsers do require it. SSE2 is not a new thing. Even Win7 supported until recently processors without SSE2. SSE2 instruction set is more than 15 years old. Why are you required to use even SSE1? Why not use vacuum tube computational machines? Or you will complain that you cant run the newest browser on ibm system 360 as well? My laptop is still quite capable. For the rest I acquired a workstation. I don't like to wait.

[eccerr0r]

Re: &lt;taps&gt; So long, Pentium III, Athlon XP, and older...

20MB/sec is perfectly fine for me which I've gotten well past this from these machines in the past. But if I'm forced to run SSE2 instructions for the base OS, that's not acceptable.

So what's your point? Always overkill for no good reason? Why don't you just go buy that $EXPENSIVE$LAPTOP$ then?

[televizora]

Re: &lt;taps&gt; So long, Pentium III, Athlon XP, and older...

Anyway main use for the computer is to check on some local well trimmed textual webpages and deal with moving data back and forth (backups) - these are well suited for older machines - and then shut off when done. Do I need an i9 for this? No. Do I want one? Sure why not. Is it free? No? Then nevermind...

There is a big difference between 99$ second gen core machine with USB 3.0 and 1Gbps network and Pentium III machine, even if you are doing trivial stuff. But I work with Visual Studio, Virtual Machines and other software. And I want my machine to be able to handle at least 1080p.
Nonetheless, you can install IDE SSD on Pentium III machine and you will see a huge difference. It is not the processor responsible for the sluggishness of the older machines, lack of RAM and slow old hard drive slows them down even more. But because finding 256 or 512MB SDRAM sticks and IDE SSD is as expensive as replacing the machine, better buy something newer. Yesterday I was creating answer files for SYSPREP and needed to install Win7 AIK and etc, for example. I use my machine to complete some work tasks, if I have some inspiration at home.
Even using WinRAR or 7zip to compress/decompress stuff is much faster.
It is interesting that even the recent hard drives rarely have speeds that exceed the speed of IDE-PATA 133. But while even the IDE interface of the Pentium3 machines had the bandwidth, the drives of the time were barely able to give you sequential read/write speeds of 30-40MB/sec.
I had Pentium 3 machine around 2008 year. 1Ghz PentiumIII Coppermine machine, upgradable to Tualatin 1.2Ghz.
1.2Ghz Tualatins were faster than first Pentium IV-s because of the shorter pipeline, if I recall correctly.
When I maxed out the ram - 512MB and installed fast Maxtor drive, the machine was not that bad. Opera 11-12 was working just fine. The main problem was with Flash videos. But after the support for these CPU-s was cut off and the pages became so JS intensive, that even opening a GMAIL lead to 100% CPU utilization of even PentiumIV 3Ghz machines, the machine became no longer in any active use. I even tried overclocking Celeron, based on PentiumII architecture to make it play xVid and dvix videos. Worked, but was unstable with the VIA chipset mobo.
When the internet started gravitating around Google's inventions, the things became bad. Also, many devs promised that HTML5 video would work better and will be less resource intensive, but what happened was the opposite. It is even more demanding than Flash on older machines.
I liked the old version of the Google search page much more. I fail to see how they could have made a page with a logo, 2 buttons, 1 menu and text field for searching stuff so much heavier and resource intensive in the last 10 years. Not only this, but I used translator, gmail and etc, and now they are hidden behind a button and then drop down slider menu, which makes getting to the translator by using the menu complete nightmare. They also completely screwed up the Gmail with all this wild JS running around. And honestly, there is no need for most of it at all. But, again they have to try to track you. And I counteract with Adblock and NoScript with appropriate filters. I also killed the nag screen, which forces you to login, when you want to play some Youtube video. Because if you don't login, according to EU legislature, they cant just you cookies and trackers so easily. But if you do, then you agree automatically with all the points of their TOS and EULA for registered users.
p.s The Maxtor drive heated up to the even to 60C, but it was fast for 20GB drive - about 60-70MB/sec sequential read. This is what all old machines deserve - hard drive with decent speed. It was also branded machine with Delta electronics PSU.
Damn, I learned how to install WindowsXp from non booatable CD, using a set of 3.5 inch floppy disks on this machine. No CD Burner. The problem was fixed with 25$ LG DVD-RW drive. I thought to equip it even with TV tuner, when analog tv was still available here.
Computers back then were still expensive here and it was difficult to buy a new or even used, but decent machine.

[eccerr0r]

Re: &lt;taps&gt; So long, Pentium III, Athlon XP, and older...

Indeed these are home machines and well trimmed initialization routines speed up boot time significantly, and not used until needed anyway... Anyway main use for the computer is to check on some local well trimmed textual webpages and deal with moving data back and forth (backups) - these are well suited for older machines - and then shut off when done. Do I need an i9 for this? No. Do I want one? Sure why not. Is it free? No? Then nevermind...

[dmill89]

Re: &lt;taps&gt; So long, Pentium III, Athlon XP, and older...

These machines are not investments, they are liabilities - either keep using them or spend more to dump them.

While the hardware itself isn't going to gain value (in most cases), if you put value on your time a newer/faster system can pay for itself quickly.


For example when my company first started issuing laptops with SSDs they ran the numbers and found that the increased cost (this was 2013 so the price difference was several hundred dollars over a standard HDD back then) was offset by increased productivity (i.e. not paying people to sit and wait for stuff to load) in just a few months so it made sense to pay more for the systems with SSDs. Granted a work machine where you can easily get a per hour cost of wasted time is different than a home machine where there isn't a specific monetary value to time (unless you're doing paid work on your machine), but just about all of us can think of things we'd rather do than waiting for stuff to load.

[eccerr0r]

Re: &lt;taps&gt; So long, Pentium III, Athlon XP, and older...

These machines are not investments, they are liabilities - either keep using them or spend more to dump them. Besides when you know the machine's primary use case, optimize for that case - there's no need to spend more. Webpages won't take 5 minutes to load because again, that's not the primary use case. As long as it's tolerable loading BCN that's perfectly fine!

When the board does finally fail, the "newer" computers will become even cheaper by then, too!

[televizora]

Re: &lt;taps&gt; So long, Pentium III, Athlon XP, and older...

And again, where can I get one without paying $0.01, and I offer the old machine in exchange!

Oh, dear... You pay for bread, butter, beer. I really don't understand your desire not to invest in a faster computer that makes things simpler. Sooner or later the mobo of yours will malfunction and will be unrepairable. I also fail to understand your desire to wait 5 minutes for a modern page to load.
Personally, I prefer laptops. I really hate replacing a laptop I like. Not to mention that newer have touchpads without buttons, you press and bend the touchpad itself so you can "press" the left or right button. Newer ones have limited expansion ports and slots too. And etc. But if something becomes too slow to perform the tasks I require it to perform, I replace it. That's why I upgraded from HDD to SSD and also think about changing the display with higher resolution one.
My laptop is equipped with Core i5, 4GB RAM and SSD and I intend to add 4 more gigs exactly because 4GB are starting to become insufficient these days.
I am not Bill Gates or Donald Trump. I just don't want to punish myself and when the things are slow, I become irritated.

[eccerr0r]

Re: &lt;taps&gt; So long, Pentium III, Athlon XP, and older...

Who said I wanted to run FHD?

And again, where can I get one without paying $0.01, and I offer the old machine in exchange!

Heck I'll up(or down?) the ante: same specs fine (same HDD, same memory) - as long as it will execute SSE2 instructions, and also it's PERFECTLY FINE to be a bit slower than the P3/AMD too! Just has to cost me nothing after trade!

[televizora]

Re: &lt;taps&gt; So long, Pentium III, Athlon XP, and older...

it's not the USA's fault for it being cheaper.

That's correct. And this is why you shouldn't complain that youtube does not run in FHD on your PentiumIII machine. Just replace it with PentiumG or Core i3 and minimum 4GB of RAM. The world will not go back or change just because you want it.

[eccerr0r]

Re: &lt;taps&gt; So long, Pentium III, Athlon XP, and older...

Because if I was in USA, I could have bought electronics much cheaper. From computers and laptops to oscilloscopes and etc. You envy me for the fact that I can get much cheaper a 7 years old computer. But it is the new stuff that is much cheaper in USA. We are a much smaller market and we do not benefit from volume discounts, from which you in USA benefit.

Well if you can afford it you should go buy it, it's not the USA's fault for it being cheaper. If you can't afford it, remember that there are tons of other people out there, not just you, who also can't afford it...and maybe can't even afford as much as you can.