This morning, my PC fried. No warning, just suddenly went to flashing lights and the smell of burnt rubber when I turned it on. NOT a good sign.
It may have been the power supply, I'm not certain, the slave HD is gone, although the master boot drive seems ok, but on the mother board, the power supply fan doesn't even come on when you plug the computer in.
I pulled out the Voltometer and I'm getting about 10.7 volts out of the power supply, which seems mighty low, but I suppose it could have spiked when it died and fried the motherboard and the secondary HD. (I'm not CERTAIN that the motherboard is fried)
ANYWAY, It was an Emachines T1840 1.8ghz Celeron. It had served me pretty well for 4 years, but it was about due to be replaced anyway. So I went shopping.
I found a nice Compaq sr2050nx with an Intel Pentium D Processor 820 2.8GHz, 1gig ram, and Radeon Xpress 200 IGP graphics for $500, and I was all ready to fork over my plastic, when the salesman points out to me that he thinks the HP a1600n for $549 is a MUCH better deal. 1 gig ram, same as the Compaq, but its powered by a 2.0 GHz AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ dual-core processor (and Nvidia GeForce 6150 graphics).
Now then, first, I'm assuming that the AMD dual core processor is really a LOT faster than my old 1.8ghz celeron, despite the fact that they SOUND so close. AND, was the salesman correct in telling me that this will really outperform the 2.8ghz Pentium D? Multi-tasking has simply got to make a difference, but a lot of stuff runs single thread.
Should I have purchased the Intel Pentium D, or will I be happier with the AMD Athlon 64 X2?
