Once again, I’m facing a computer conundrum. This time, however, it’s a bit trickier to find the “right” answer, because this computer isn’t for me: it’s for my mom.
My conundrum is this: I still have my old computer (Elysion) lying around, and since I love giving old technology a second life, I had planned to clean it up, install Windows 7 on it, and give it to my mom to replace her current computer – a very old Dell with a very slow early generation Pentium 4 CPU.
Now, you might be thinking: “What’s the conundrum, Keith? Just give you mom your old computer; it’s obviously better than what she has!” And you’d be right – my old computer is better than what she has currently.
But there’s another choice I hadn’t considered originally: getting my mom a nettop computer instead.
To put it into perspective, he’s a handy comparison chart comparing my old computer vs. a new nettop (specifically, an Acer Aspire Revo AR2600 U9022 – gotta love Acer’s insane model numbering!):
| My Old Computer (Elysion) |
Acer Aspire Revo AR36010 U9022 |
|
| CPU: | Pentium 4 w/HT | Intel Atom 330 w/HT |
| CPU Type: |
32-bit | 64-bit |
| CPU Architecture: | “Prescott” | “Diamondville” |
| CPU Cores: | 1 (2 logical) | 2 (4 logical) |
| L2 Cache: | 1 MB | 1 MB |
| Clock Speed: | 3.2 GHz | 1.6 GHz |
| Front-side bus: | 800 MHz | 533 MHz |
| Thermal Draw: | 82W | 23W |
| RAM: | 1 GB DDR2 PC4300 + 2 GB DDR2 PC5300 | 2 GB DDR2 PC2 6400 |
| Hard Drive: | 160 GB + 500 GB (7200 RPM) | 160 GB (5200 RPM) |
| Video: | ATI Radeon X300 | NVIDIA ION integrated graphics |
| Other Drives: | 1x CD/DVD writer, 1x CD/DVD player | SD/MMC/MemoryStick/xD memory card reader/writer |
| Cost: |
Free (+ about $120 for a Windows 7 upgrade) | $330 (all inclusive) |
The problem I have is that I’m not always very good at picking out technology for other people – especially for people who plan to use technology in a very different way than I would. While my recommendations are still very, very good (the reason why people keep asking for my recommendations in the first place), they are still a little bit… biased.
On the surface, it seems like the Acer nettop is the way to go – although it may be a bit slower in terms of raw clock and front-side bus speed, it is a true dual-core CPU, with all the benefits that go along with that. (Astute readers might also remember that when I upgraded from Elysion I actually took a drop in raw CPU clock speed from 3.2 GHz to 2.6 GHz, and yet my new computer is much faster than my old one.)
On the other hand, there are other aspects of the Acer nettop that would suggest that maybe sticking with a full-fledged desktop PC is the way to go. The nettop is, with a few exceptions, basically a desktop version of my Acer Aspire One netbook. The CPU in my netbook runs at the same clock speed (although it is not dual-core) and has the same size (and same RPM speed) hard drive. And although I love my netbook and think it is a great little computer, it is not exactly “zippy” in terms of performance.
However, again, there are differences between the netbook and the nettop. For one, the nettop has more RAM than my netbook – 2 GB instead of 1. And the nettop has that new ION graphics package – remember, this nettop is often marketed as a great Media Center PC rather than as a desktop computer, and as such it has the necessary graphics power to drive a big HD screen. And my netbook runs Ubuntu Linux for the most part (with the factory-installed Windows XP on a separate partition), not Windows 7, so there may be performance differences there that I’m not aware of. And there’s that whole dual-core vs. single core thing, plus the fact that the nettop’s CPU is 64-bit vs the netbooks 32-bit CPU.
However, my old computer also has the advantage of being, well, free – since I already have it (I just have to pick up a Windows 7 upgrade CD). And in this case, cost is definitely a factor.
Making the decision even harder is that it’s very hard to find performance data that can be used to compare the old Pentium 4 (with Hyper-Threading!) against the very new Atom 330, especially since things like chipsets, graphics card performance, hard drive speed, and so forth can all very significantly affect perceived (and measured) performance.
So I’m just not sure what to do in this case – I think I will have to mull this over for a bit more still before I come to a decision. (Though I invite readers with an opinion one way or the other to chime in on this debate in the comments!) When I do come to a decision, I will post about it here (and update this article), since I think that this sort of computer conundrum is bound to be a common one among techno-savvy people with not-quite-as-tech-savvy family members. But we shall see!
