My computer suffered a catastrophic hard drive failure last night. Fortunately, I moved everything important to my backup drive weeks ago because it was acting twitchy, so I really don’t care about the fact that it’s now a 20 lb paperweight.
My question involves the replacement machine. You had recommended Dell before, and I checked them out and they look cool enough, but they only seem to have “shared” RAM available, whereas competitors such as Gateway expressly use non-shared RAM. What the heck is the difference, and will I notice?
Shared RAM is main system board memory that is shared with the video subsystem. In my experience it’s a 50/50 proposition.
Any system that shares its memory with video is on the low end when it comes to performance. In addition to that shared memory has been a known factor in system instabilities. If you are a gamer you will want to buy a decent video card and skip onboard video all together.
On the other hand, I have a several Dells in the office. They do simple word processing and spreadsheets. They run happily all day long.
Your hard disk croaked on you so you’re replacing the whole freakin’ computer? I mean, if it’s a lemon or ancient and creaky and you’ve been looking for an excuse to buy a new 'puter, go for it, but otherwise why not just buy a new HD? Especially since you’ve got everything backed up, if you just stick in a new drive and restore from your backup you’ll know everything will work perfectly (same hardware drivers, etc), yes?
Nah, it’s old. It was already only a couple steps above paperweight status anyway, so the hard drive committing hari-kari just pushed my time table up a bit.
It’s quite a sound, the death rattle of a hard drive. Not unlike the wail of a dying giraffe…
Some systems with shared memory can be changed. You add a separate high-enmd video board (containing it’s own memory) and set switches/BIOS options to tell the system that it is no longer to share memory.
But if you’re into gaming, you probably want a higher-end video than is common on a shared-memory system. And if you know you want that now, go for one like that.
What kind of games do you play? If all you play is Freecell and Bejeweled you’re not going to see much benefit from having non-shared video memory.
On the other hand, if you’re planning on playing Doom3 (just went gold! yay) you’re going to need some serious 3D accelerator hardware, which would preclude having shared video memory.
Dell is no worse a choice than most other PC manufacturers and are no more likely to have shared video memory. If you get something with “integrated video” built onto the motherboard, it’s gonna have shared video memory. If you get something with a “video card” that goes in the AGP or PCI Express slot on the motherboard, it’s not gonna have shared video memory.
Personally, I would stay the hell away from any of the large computer OEMs (Gateway, Dell, HP ect) as they all suck. They might look like good deals, but then you have to account for the shoddy motherboards and barely adequate power supplies they have, not to mention the junkware they so “kindly” install for you.
I build my own machines, but if you don’t want to do that, you should look into getting a machine from a local small computer store, where you can pick the parts. It might cost $50-90 more than a Dell, but quality parts and ease of service if something goes wrong makes it money well spent.
And if you like gaming, stay away from the integrated vidoe; even a $35 stand alone card will outperform any integrated video easily. For todays games, the video card is the single most important part for performance; a 1.5ghz computer with a good video card will have better gaming performance than a 3ghz machine with a low end card.
