[off-topic] new mbd/cpu setup search

[Gus Wirth]

On 01/21/2012 10:39 AM, Rich Ernst wrote:
[snip]
> Oh, and bear in mind that up 'til now, my main/fastest system (that
> I'm using now) is an Intel mbd with a P4, 3GHz dual core cpu so
> anything will be faster/better.
> 
> Lastly, I don't to a lot of high end stuff, but just normal things,
> streaming video, etc., loading web pages, etc., responsiveness to
> mouse clicks seems to get slower and slower these days, and I'm
> spoiled by my girlfriend's year old iMac that's blazing fast and
> responsive.

Don't be so sure that a new system will be all that much faster unless
you are willing to go high end. If you want to see some benchmarks and
do your own benchmarks check out

http://openbenchmarking.org/

and get the Phoronix Test Suite <http://www.phoronix-test-suite.com/>.

Although benchmarks aren't real life they can give you some idea of the
performance difference.

Perhaps you are suffering from some software issues rather than hardware
obsolescence. You could try some of the lighter weight Linux desktops
like LXDE or Xfce rather than GNOME or KDE.

Gus