[thechat] Memory or CPU?

[Joel D Canfield]

> It looks like I might have a choice between:
>  - a 2.0Ghz processor and 1Gb of memory,
>  - a 1.8Ghz processor and 2Gb of memory, or 
>  - a 3.4Ghz processor and 1Gb of memory.

Crimenently. You'd have to be processing encyclopaedic volumes of data
to care much about more than a gig of RAM.

On our home machines, RAM is king. Sue's box is my antique (1 gig
processor, 512m of RAM) and mine is newer (2.6G/1G) and the difference
is (anecdotally) what I would expect from doubling the RAM.

Playing with a range of machines at my old job (PIIIs from 700 to 1.2G)
and processor speed made little or no diff for normal office type tools,
RAM made huge leaps.

If your data files will fit in a gig of RAM, get the faster machine. Or
if you're going to be streaming through them in some manner. But if
you're going to do something wacky like open a 1.2G data file in real
time, you need the RAM.

That's the longest way *I* can think of to say "I don't know; it
depends."

joel